Dear miles and
miles left to go,
You can share your miles with me. My name is Bess,
and I’m a twenty-something from Kensington, Pennsylvania. My life has been
defined by progress: moving out of my situation to a reality that exists far
beyond the streets where I grew up.
It seems like what you’re looking
for is adventure, or “just going,” as Jack Kerouac would say. You mention that
the “road sure does bring all kinds of people”; do you realize that you are one
of those people on the road? Do you realize that the people you’re writing
about are looking at you the very
same way?
You talk about the people on the
road “all being predictable,” but you also mention that Thelma and Louise are
“bound for adventure,” while you merely are uninteresting. How can Thelma and
Louise be both predictable and more “interesting” than you? It seems like the
road has shaken your self-esteem.
I hope you realize that what you’re
seeing on the road doesn’t really exist. The lives you’re seeing aren’t real;
the people you’re meeting exist only within the context of open space.
I wonder why you were intrigued by
Thelma and Louise, miles and miles left
to go. The only information you have about them is that they drive a
Thunderbird, wear headscarves, and are possibly from Texas. Those qualities are
merely external; you know nothing about their hopes, wishes, desires, dreams.
This is why the road isn’t for me. I
wrote in an earlier post that, “ I
was sitting in a park watching couples fall in and out of love and families
break bread and dogs wander back to their owners when I realized that this is
it, in the fullest, most tangible sense of what it means to inhabit our bodies
and our lives.”
All we have is each other, and
ourselves. Why are you so keen on comparing?
-
Bess
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