Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Summers Are For Road Trips
By ZARON BURNETT III 
In Los Angeles, the jacaranda trees have started dropping their lavender blossoms, and they’re covering the cement sidewalks in color, like Prince painted the streets with purple rain. Those fallen flowers always indicate to me it’s officially the end of Spring and summertime is here. Now, if you’re a parent this means it’s time for you figure out what to do with your kids since they won’t be in school. And thank you sweet Baby Jesus, I’m not one of them. If you’re like me and you don’t have children, the arrival of summertime means something totally different. It’s time to get out on the road, because summers are made for road trips.
My mother gave me gypsy blood. She loves to travel but like a penguin she keeps to the ground. You see, she refuses to fly. So to satisfy her wanderlust she’s always criss-crossed the country like a long-haul trucker. Every year, soon as school ended, my sister and I both knew it was time to load up the car and hit the highway. Thanks to our mother we’ve visited nearly all 48 contiguous states of America. And after seeing so much of this country, I strongly recommend you get to know the highways and freeways and see those purple mountains’ majesty and all that promised beauty for yourself. An American road trip is something of a birthright. You have to go see the country, you’re a damn fool if you don’t.
Traveling around Europe, I did what the locals did and took trains. And consequently, I feel like I missed a great portion of, and possibly the best parts of, Europe. You don’t stop and eat from as many bakeries when you go by train. There’s really no comparison to how it is when you’re traveling by road. For me, there’s a fundamental difference between planes, trains and automobiles. Planes are way too fast. They feel weird like time-travel. Trains are too limited. They feel like speedy sightseeing tours. But automobiles, are kinda like Goldilocks’ porridge, they’re just right. You really feel a journey when you travel by car. You can actually smell the world. I like that.
The greeting card industry is really keen on the idea: It’s not about the destination but your journey. And you know what? They’re right. It’s totally true. And the novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, the guy who wrote Treasure Island, he phrased it in a far more eloquent way, one I always liked, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”
Before this summer ends, go get some of that great affair and move. Tear up some open road. Even if it’s just a long weekend. Grab your significant other, or a few friends, maybe your sister, your brother or your favorite cousin and set out for the horizon and some destination you’ve never seen.
If ever there was a country made for road trips it’s the States. America boasts numerous regions so distinctly different from each other they really ought to be their own countries. But thanks to a violent history, we’ve remained one grand experiment stretching from sea-to-shining-sea across a vast and still rather wild continent. And unlike say, Australia, here in America there are people everywhere, so there’s plenty to do, plenty to see, and plenty of help if things go wrong. Also, unlike Australia, we have very few animals that’ll try to kill you. But I recommend you watch your ass, if you go down to Texas. Anyone who’s been there can tell you, Texas is a lot like Australia… just without any of the class.
Speeding across America, the best thing you can do is get happily lost. Take that road less traveled Robert Frost advertised in his poem. Because no matter how far you wander from the freeway, you’re never more than an hour away from a good cup of coffee, and/or a tow truck, which makes traveling a lot friendlier. But that is the one thing about road trips you must remember… shit will go wrong. And really, in a backwards way, it’s part of the charm, the question of how you overcome unforeseen bullshit.
Like, I once ruined a car engine climbing a mountain grade out of Salt Lake City. Something about the gas pump and how I kept the engine in overdrive as I floored it for miles and thousands of feet of our ascent up a rather steep incline. The engine didn’t like that and crapped out. While we waited in Park City, Utah for someone to deliver a matching fuel pump and install it, we spent the afternoon, sliding down zip lines and riding snow-free summery slopes on luge sleds, which was an absolute riot. Would’ve never planned to do it but we were stoked to enjoy some Olympic-style sports while we waited for our broken car to be fixed.
That’s how road trips constantly surprise you. They remind you it’s crucial to stay open to whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Road trips are great practice at what Zen Buddhists, life-coaches and New-Agers like to call “living in the moment.”
The trick to an epic American road trip is pick destinations and places to stop that are absolutely ridiculous. Like, when else are you gonna see the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas? Or a nearly abandoned amusement park filled with life-size Flintstone houses? Or a real-live rattlesnake round-up? And eat foods you can’t pronounce but you’ll probably never forget?
When you share odd memories with your partners on the road, your experiences cement in your memory because they’re such specific stories. And if you get to be old-and-grey and you’re struggling to remember where you put your teeth and your house keys you’ll still remember the time when you vomited blueberry pancakes outside that Waffle House in Pensacola. Memory is funny that way.
The shit you experience when you’re living outside everything you normally do, while you’re free of it all for a brief spell, because it’s like some weird non-time, your memory gets filled with those rare experiences. We tend to easily recall four aspects of our lives: the most, the best, the worst and the least. Road trips are filled with all sorts of those moments. The most you ever laughed. The worst place you ever slept. The best meal you ever ate at four a.m. somewhere under the stars. And the least you ever paid for a new pair of cowboy boots you absolutely love and can’t believe you lived so long without. We write those moments a little more deeply. And it’s why road trips etch lasting memories.
It doesn’t matter if you’re bumming it this summer, broke as a public pay phone, there’s always a way to enjoy a road trip. Borrow a car, plan with friends, save up for a month and then take whatever money you have, throw it into gas, groceries and sleep in KOA campgrounds, or if you’re totally strapped, sleep in the car…. but get out there on the highways and byways of America, you’ll never regret that choice. Be curious. Wander like you’ve escaped and some authority was dumb enough to give you a driver’s license. It’s one of the greatest perks of being alive and able to drive… the reckless abandon of a Great American Road Trip
In Los Angeles, the jacaranda trees have started dropping their lavender blossoms, and they’re covering the cement sidewalks in color, like Prince painted the streets with purple rain. Those fallen flowers always indicate to me it’s officially the end of Spring and summertime is here. Now, if you’re a parent this means it’s time for you figure out what to do with your kids since they won’t be in school. And thank you sweet Baby Jesus, I’m not one of them. If you’re like me and you don’t have children, the arrival of summertime means something totally different. It’s time to get out on the road, because summers are made for road trips.
My mother gave me gypsy blood. She loves to travel but like a penguin she keeps to the ground. You see, she refuses to fly. So to satisfy her wanderlust she’s always criss-crossed the country like a long-haul trucker. Every year, soon as school ended, my sister and I both knew it was time to load up the car and hit the highway. Thanks to our mother we’ve visited nearly all 48 contiguous states of America. And after seeing so much of this country, I strongly recommend you get to know the highways and freeways and see those purple mountains’ majesty and all that promised beauty for yourself. An American road trip is something of a birthright. You have to go see the country, you’re a damn fool if you don’t.
Traveling around Europe, I did what the locals did and took trains. And consequently, I feel like I missed a great portion of, and possibly the best parts of, Europe. You don’t stop and eat from as many bakeries when you go by train. There’s really no comparison to how it is when you’re traveling by road. For me, there’s a fundamental difference between planes, trains and automobiles. Planes are way too fast. They feel weird like time-travel. Trains are too limited. They feel like speedy sightseeing tours. But automobiles, are kinda like Goldilocks’ porridge, they’re just right. You really feel a journey when you travel by car. You can actually smell the world. I like that.
The greeting card industry is really keen on the idea: It’s not about the destination but your journey. And you know what? They’re right. It’s totally true. And the novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, the guy who wrote Treasure Island, he phrased it in a far more eloquent way, one I always liked, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”
Before this summer ends, go get some of that great affair and move. Tear up some open road. Even if it’s just a long weekend. Grab your significant other, or a few friends, maybe your sister, your brother or your favorite cousin and set out for the horizon and some destination you’ve never seen.
If ever there was a country made for road trips it’s the States. America boasts numerous regions so distinctly different from each other they really ought to be their own countries. But thanks to a violent history, we’ve remained one grand experiment stretching from sea-to-shining-sea across a vast and still rather wild continent. And unlike say, Australia, here in America there are people everywhere, so there’s plenty to do, plenty to see, and plenty of help if things go wrong. Also, unlike Australia, we have very few animals that’ll try to kill you. But I recommend you watch your ass, if you go down to Texas. Anyone who’s been there can tell you, Texas is a lot like Australia… just without any of the class.
Speeding across America, the best thing you can do is get happily lost. Take that road less traveled Robert Frost advertised in his poem. Because no matter how far you wander from the freeway, you’re never more than an hour away from a good cup of coffee, and/or a tow truck, which makes traveling a lot friendlier. But that is the one thing about road trips you must remember… shit will go wrong. And really, in a backwards way, it’s part of the charm, the question of how you overcome unforeseen bullshit.
Like, I once ruined a car engine climbing a mountain grade out of Salt Lake City. Something about the gas pump and how I kept the engine in overdrive as I floored it for miles and thousands of feet of our ascent up a rather steep incline. The engine didn’t like that and crapped out. While we waited in Park City, Utah for someone to deliver a matching fuel pump and install it, we spent the afternoon, sliding down zip lines and riding snow-free summery slopes on luge sleds, which was an absolute riot. Would’ve never planned to do it but we were stoked to enjoy some Olympic-style sports while we waited for our broken car to be fixed.
That’s how road trips constantly surprise you. They remind you it’s crucial to stay open to whatever circumstances you find yourself in. Road trips are great practice at what Zen Buddhists, life-coaches and New-Agers like to call “living in the moment.”
The trick to an epic American road trip is pick destinations and places to stop that are absolutely ridiculous. Like, when else are you gonna see the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas? Or a nearly abandoned amusement park filled with life-size Flintstone houses? Or a real-live rattlesnake round-up? And eat foods you can’t pronounce but you’ll probably never forget?
When you share odd memories with your partners on the road, your experiences cement in your memory because they’re such specific stories. And if you get to be old-and-grey and you’re struggling to remember where you put your teeth and your house keys you’ll still remember the time when you vomited blueberry pancakes outside that Waffle House in Pensacola. Memory is funny that way.
The shit you experience when you’re living outside everything you normally do, while you’re free of it all for a brief spell, because it’s like some weird non-time, your memory gets filled with those rare experiences. We tend to easily recall four aspects of our lives: the most, the best, the worst and the least. Road trips are filled with all sorts of those moments. The most you ever laughed. The worst place you ever slept. The best meal you ever ate at four a.m. somewhere under the stars. And the least you ever paid for a new pair of cowboy boots you absolutely love and can’t believe you lived so long without. We write those moments a little more deeply. And it’s why road trips etch lasting memories.
It doesn’t matter if you’re bumming it this summer, broke as a public pay phone, there’s always a way to enjoy a road trip. Borrow a car, plan with friends, save up for a month and then take whatever money you have, throw it into gas, groceries and sleep in KOA campgrounds, or if you’re totally strapped, sleep in the car…. but get out there on the highways and byways of America, you’ll never regret that choice. Be curious. Wander like you’ve escaped and some authority was dumb enough to give you a driver’s license. It’s one of the greatest perks of being alive and able to drive… the reckless abandon of a Great American Road Trip
Monday, June 10, 2013
20's
Every woman in her late 20s goes through a period where she just doesn’t believe love is out there anymore, but it is. And I think the minute you stop looking for it is when it comes for you. -Kristen Bell
I’m never so sure as I was in my mid-20s. -Meryl Streep
When I was in my twenties, it felt like I was riding wild horses, and I was hoping I didn’t go over a cliff. -Chaka Khan
[H]appiness comes out of being willing to do your work in your twenties to find out who you are, what you love. -Candace Bushnell
I’m never so sure as I was in my mid-20s. -Meryl Streep
When I was in my twenties, it felt like I was riding wild horses, and I was hoping I didn’t go over a cliff. -Chaka Khan
[H]appiness comes out of being willing to do your work in your twenties to find out who you are, what you love. -Candace Bushnell
Pajamas Over People
Ode to Isolation
"In a gentle way, you can shake the world"
-Mahatma Gandhi
"There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas"
-Susan Cain
“Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”
"In a gentle way, you can shake the world"
-Mahatma Gandhi
"There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas"
-Susan Cain
“Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”
-Saint Francis De Sales
Friday, May 31, 2013
Life is a Verb: Day Three: Bread and a Lily
"When you have only two pennies left in the world, but a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other"
-Chinese Proverb
"...being practical and safe and always logical is way overrated."
Action Challenge: "I don't want to be a passenger in my own life" -Diane Ackerman
"Imagine you are in a car, driving down a street near your house. Write for five minutes in great detail about what you see and notice as the drive of the car- and about what decisions a driver makes. Stop, read what you've written. Not imagine you are in the same car, driving down the same street. But this time you are a passenger. Write for another five minutes in great detail about what you see and notice as a passenger in the car- and about what decisions a passenger makes. Read what you've just written. Notice the difference between being a driver and being a passenger. Who ultimately decides where you are going? Who sees more?"
Driver: I'm driving down University going 57 in a 45, which isn't abnormal because that road should be at least a 55 or 60, but whatever. I drive past Metzler's and check to see if my friend's car is at work. Looking back to the road I realize I'm going ot have to go through the yellow light. Challenge accepted and mission accomplished. I look down at my spedometer and realize it has inched up to almost 60, so I begin slowing down coasting down the long street. I pass the bowling alley and the trees on the right side of the road, I check for the cop who normally radars by the church, but he isn't there. Who cares, I'm at a nice 47mph. Legal. Enough anyway. I go through the Nottingham intersection, deciding to wait until later to turn so it will be easier to pull out of my driveway later, plus I can keep on going fast for a little bit longer. I pass Sonic on the left and check to see if it's Happy Hour because a Diet Cherry Limeade sounds like a slice of heaven. It's 4:08pm. So I keep driving down University, also called 380. I pass the sketchy gas station that my mom loves for some unknown reason and I turn into the left turn lane at the intersection of Old North and University. I yield and then turn. That smart car is sitting at the doctors like always. FIN.
Passenger: The music is playing some song that I don't really know, but I don't know if the driver likes the song so I just sit there trying to tap out the beat and listen to the lyrics. I get wrapped up in the song and put my feet up on the dashboard if I know the person well enough. While I tap out the beat on my legs I look out the right side of the window and notice the sketchy motel that always seems empty, the bowling alley, the trees and the youth center for the church. I get bored and look over at the driver, talking with them about mutual friends or recent adventures. I finally lean over and change the song. I notice Sonic as we pass by. I straighten up in my seat and wonder if that gas station out of my window is even open. No one is there. The apartments right next to it look sketchy. But I bet the rent is cheap...Ijust couldn't leave anything nice in my car. Oh, we're stopped at a light now waiting to turn left. I would have gone like four cars ago, but I guess they don't like making left turns and are going to wait for the protected arrow...whatever, it's nice to be hanging out with them. I guess I don't mind waiting. I like the interior of the car, but I don't understand why they have so much trash in the floorboard. FIN
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Life Is A Verb: Day Two: Open, True, Real, Flat-Out, Honest
So I'm really bad at these "daily" reading kinds of things. I think it's why I've always been bad at keeping up with my scriptures and book clubs. So here it is, day two of Life Is A Verb...just a few days late.
So the action challenge today was to take ten minutes and create a tiny collage of something that brings you joy or holds deep meaning in your life. Make it wallet sized so you can carry it with you. This is a picture of the one that I made. It took me 12 minutes...I cheated a bit. The movement challenge is to pull this out continuously to remind myself of my sense of wonder and what I hold dear. It doesn't look exactly the way I imagined it, but I really do love it. It's going in my purse right now.
So the action challenge today was to take ten minutes and create a tiny collage of something that brings you joy or holds deep meaning in your life. Make it wallet sized so you can carry it with you. This is a picture of the one that I made. It took me 12 minutes...I cheated a bit. The movement challenge is to pull this out continuously to remind myself of my sense of wonder and what I hold dear. It doesn't look exactly the way I imagined it, but I really do love it. It's going in my purse right now.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
#summer2k13
This summer is dedicated to living an unpatterned life. Obviously I have my job and responsibilities which I love and don't want to shirk, but my free time will become something free. Reading back through my posts from this semester I realize I had more than I normally do, but they were all very negative. I hate who I am when I focus on the negatives. I become someone I don't recognize and I don't enjoy myself. This summer is about living in the positive and making sure to lift people up instead of tear them down. To laugh with others instead of gossip. To take long drives and go somewhere instead of watching a season of television in a day. To watch a season of television in a day because that is exactly what I want to do that day. I dyed my hair blonde. Blonde. And honestly, it doesn't really even look super great, but it is my reminder to myself to act a little different, think a little different, and interact with purpose. This summer is about fun. It is about finding out who I am after the last 3 years. It is about enjoying my last summer in college and making sure I leave with only the positive by the time that I walk out. Don't worry, I'll be back to brunette soon enough. This summer is about the blonde.
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