Drifting, Drifting Away
In the end, life is just about collecting great stories
John Scoles
remember once introducing a friend to my grandma.
“Oh,
are you a drifter, too?” she asked my friend.
It was a little surreal, but it was also comforting that my family
was always OK with having a member whose main focus in life was
drifting.
Last week, a friend and I drove 3,900 miles down through Texas
and then back up around Tennessee and Missouri way. The weather
was virtually perfect, the rental car was great on gas, and the
tape deck was loaded with albums such as Night Train to Nashville:
Tennessee R&B From 1945-1970. It felt good to be back on the
highway, and it put me in mind of what life is all about —
stories.
One of my favourite stories is about the time I once used a welfare
cheque to go gambling in Las Vegas. Even though I know it was
wrong and caused a lot of kids to go without Kraft Dinner for
a day, I still think people eat too damn many noodles, anyway.
Another time, thanks to an AutoDriveaway error in exchange rates,
I travelled from Winnipeg to London for 40 bucks. It was a good
thing the trip started out so cheaply or else I wouldn’t
have had money for smokes while sleeping in those Paris parks.
Cheap travel is a funny thing. Most people will tell you that
you have to plan ahead very carefully in order to save money,
but my experience has usually been just the opposite. That may
well be because I think my adventures will be in one place, but
then somehow they end up in another.
For instance, I was once on my way to Tahiti but ended up in Belize.
Needless to say, Caye Caulker was a helluva lot more reasonably
priced than Papeete. I remember once reading a book called If
You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably
End Up Somewhere Else. I think they meant that to be a bad thing,
but I never saw it that way.
Cool people like to refer to themselves as ‘travellers’
rather than tourists. Not many people want to be thought of as
‘drifters,’ but being a drifter gives you a lot more
freedom than most other pursuits. You basically have no other
obligations than to be going somewhere at all times. And, really,
isn’t that the whole point of life?
The key aspect of drifting is being able to sacrifice security
in exchange for stories. If you really understand that stories
are ultimately about all you can ever own, you’re probably
already sleeping on someone’s couch — in which case,
my work is done.
The drifter’s love of the story comes from a deep appreciation
of the way faith can work miracles. It may sound corny if you’ve
never taken any really big chances in your life, but it’s
the very act of needing a miracle that helps you learn how to
find one.
All storytelling aside, it’s not my intention to fill anybody’s
head with delusions here. But I will say that if you’re
looking around for a little grace from God, that heat wave shimmering
over the horizon isn’t a bad place to start.
John Scoles is president and janitor of the Times Change(d)
High & Lonesome Club. |
Uptown
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