Hitchhiking Memoir Part 8: Mosquitoes, Truckstops and the meaning of life

Here is the next part of the Hitchhiking Memoir. It is an autobiographical documentary of a near 10,000 km trip I took. You can hop in and read this one and probably get something valuable from it... but could have some missing context. If you read these from the beginning they will make more sense. If you enjoy it... let me know. Upvotes and resteems are nice... but we can have a conversation too... don't forget that! I have a link to the first 7 parts... click if you want to read more.

Part 1:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-1
Part 2:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-2-globalization-callcenters-and-drywall
Part 3:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-3-sobriety-warehouse-workaholics-the-big-idea
Part 4:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-4-humanity-stripped-tourism-and-fear-doubt-courage-and-the-will-and-a-bmx
Part 5:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-5-tipping-point-survival-the-homeless-and-getting-robbed
Part 6:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-6-day-one-on-the-road-cannabis-homophobia-and-cold-beans
Part 7:
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-7-waking-up-under-a-bridge-sexism-and-15-000-litres-of-malt-liquor

Enjoy Part 8!!

Waking up with the sun is easy when you are sleeping outside. I had a nice layer of dew that had penetrated my sleeping bag but I was alright all in all. It was much like paradise as the sun shone through the thick lush bushes. I did not know what time it was but I got up and started packing. There was still that really fresh morning smell in the air and the sun was not very high. I walked out of the trees with my pack on and saw that the truck carrying all of that malt liquor more than halfway across the second largest, dare I subscribe to the ‘forefathers’ vocabulary and classification of land, nation in the world. I was not too late to keep up this really quick pace.

The truck driver was up and pretty much ready to go. It said 6:30 on his clock. He wished me a good morning and got himself some morning supplies, aka coffee. We were off just after 6:30 in the morning into the great unknown... at least to me. Truck drivers do this long haul through Ontario enough to know it pretty well.

Gord! Gord! Gord! His name is Gord. He was telling me a story and slipped his name in third person. I felt a weight lifted off of my back. He drove me over a thousand kilometres yesterday and was about to do it again today. The least I could do was know his name. Well... I guess that is not quite true. The least I could do was absolutely nothing. Just hang out and then die somehow... likely in a tragic way like choking on a dorito while playing playstation. But, since I was not eating doritos nor playing video games and was out on the road trying to find a story and a life worth living, it is probably best to know the name of a friend. A friend being a complete stranger willing to take a chance on a brother out of the goodness of his heart. Gord was a good man. I could tell. I could also tell that he had gone through a lot and came out of it all in relatively good shape.

We talked quite a bit today. I think Gord was comfortable with me and I was comfortable with him. We spent the whole day together yesterday and we were past the small talk. We were in for another couple of days together as it stood right now, so we got into it.

Gord has never been married. This was surprising to me, somewhat, cause he was such a nice guy. He did seem to enjoy being alone and had a really good relationship with his dog Poo. The dog was named Poo, he was not a weirdo who had a realtionship with dog poo, that would just be weird.

Gord was engaged when he was 21 years old to a 29 year old woman who had 2 kids. “Yikes!”, I thought to myself while he was telling me the story. Pretty soon, Gord told me that he backed out because he was not ready for such a commitment. I could see that. At 21 years old the only thing I was committed to was not being committed and pushing every limit that came along with that commitment. I could not see it and I guess neither could Gord. He was with another girl who was pregnant with his child. The baby miscarried. At this point in the story, Gord turned to me and said “there is a God.” I agreed with him and he continued his story.

Gord said that she hit the bottle pretty hard after the miscarriage. She just couldn’t deal with the loss. It got so bad that he knew that the relationship was not going to work. Another love, another scar I suppose. He had another girl when he was living in the Caribbean. He was a bartender for a short period of his life. He said that it was a blast living down there. He would just soak up the rays during the day and be at the party known as work each night. When he was not working he was enjoying life. She was a part of that life. He loved her. I could tell by the way he told the story. I think of all of his scars... this one was the deepest wound. His voice wavered just so and you could just feel the pain in the way he explained it to me. She was a player girl. She liked to tease him and make him jealous. Gord knew what was up and could deal with it. One day though, she confronted him.

“You don’t love me... why are you with me?”

He didn’t really know how to continue the story at this point. There was a pause and he managed to continue by saying that he just turned around and left. Like finding out that some fights are not worth fighting halfway through the fight of your life. A tragic piece of understanding that can only be found the hard way.

Those were the three scars that Gord has gotten so far along the way. He seems to be really nice guy who may stumble upon a gold mine yet. Although he seems pretty content riding the river he is on. It’s got some gold nuggets in there still I am sure.

We got onto the topic of nice guys and being “too nice.” Gord is of the opinion that there is no such thing as being too nice. I agreed. There is fake nice, there is trying too hard to be nice, but genuine kindness has no bell curve to it. The more the merrier. I told Gord about my stance on lending money. If you ask for a sum and I am able to provide, I will and I won’t expect to see it again. If I do see it again then I know you are good for anything. Nice guys can get taken advantage of because of this and I have been burned a few times so I keep my head up and screwed on tight. In all honesty though, people that take advantage of other people wear out their welcome quick and I am not the kind of guy hanging around with these types of people on a regular basis. Ultimately, on that note, if you are doing wrong to your brother, it is your problem in the end. It hurts us both, but in the end...

At this point Gord piped in and told me a story written way back in grade nine. Gord asked his friend if he could borrow two dollars. Gord’s friend, who grew up on the reserve, did not feel a large attachment to money and lent it to Gord without a second thought. Gord paid him back next week as promised. This came as a major surprise to his buddy. In fact, it was the first time he had ever been paid back, but not the first time he has lent out money. Gord had proven to be a man of his word. His friend said to Gord upon the payback of the two dollar loan that if he ever needed a favour to look no further.

Shortly after this, his buddies little sister, who was in grade 8 tried to date Gord, rather awkwardly. Gord was keen to the situation and asked “Did your brother force you to be my girlfriend?” She nodded. Gord, who was not really interested in her either said that he would sort it out with her brother and that she needn’t worry about continuing on in the “relationship.”

I got a real kick out of that story. Prove to be a man of your word and have favours promised and girls hurled upon you. Pretty smooth.

There was much peaceful silence. I had some naps. Poo liked it on my lap (the dog... come on!). Quite the little attention suck that dog was. We stopped at a truck stop for lunch. Pancakes for $6 plus a 15% tax... Highway robbery comes in many ways shapes and forms, but mostly just ticket form. We made it to Driftwood Ontario. That was where we were going to call it a day. There was a nice truckstop there. We had supper. I had the toast and eggs and soup of the day and invested in a map book to help me on the way. $20 well spent I suppose. The same deal applied. Be up early and get a ride. Gord even offered to honk 5 minutes before departure.

It is dark. The mosquitoes are horrible. I am snug tight in my sleeping bag wearing a mosquito mask but it does not seem to matter. The buzzing is loud and they are everywhere. I can’t sleep and I gave up fighting. I am not sure if I had slept at all. I am frustrated and at this point I decide to pull my head out of the sleeping bag. There is no sense in fighting off the mosquitoes... I am gonna try to coexist with them.

BANG! I am hit by an infinite tiny lights. I have not seen the stars like this in a long time. A long long time. It is amazing. I forgot all about the mosquitoes and just stared. Wow. I am sure everyone who is into good art and true beauty can relate to this experience. We know the stars are there and every now and then you see them shine and pay homage to them. But once every blue moon they decide to just knock you off your feet and stun you. Stun me they did! What a spectacle. I saw a few shooting stars, I followed a satellite across the sky and saw tons of bats flying blindly around. No surprise at the amount of bats... judging by the amount of mosquitoes there were.

I tried to sleep a little bit more and did mange to catch a few z’s. I heard a honk. I jumped out of the bag and quickly packed up. It was still dark but I did hear a truck engine start. I rushed over to the malt liquor mobile to see it shut off and closed up tight. Gord was still sleeping. I didn’t mind to much. I was ready to go and likely would not have gotten any more sleep anyway.

I sat around and watched the sky. There was a crack of light on the horizon. Sunrise was not due for a fair amount of time. I pulled out my book and wrote. One thing that I was pondering a lot was some lyrics from a blue rodeo song. I like blue rodeo. I had been pondering these lyrics for quite a good chunk of time so I wrote this down in my little log book.
“Somebody waits for the time I know will never come,
You get yourself so high,
Then you come down feeling blue,
One day you’ll wake up and realize you’ve had enough,
There’s a thousand shining moments
Waiting just to happen to you.”

I am purposefully writing this book with no regard to the standards of publishers, to the compliance of academic precedence or anything like that and I do not have permission from blue rodeo to use these lyrics. I do, however, recommend you to check them out if you have not already. “The Days in Between” is the CD that “Somebody Waits” can be found on but they got a lot of gems.

Back to the lyrics in this song. They are fairly self explanatory but very pertinent to those prone to hitchhiking. Spending a life in waiting... a “one of these days” type existences. Saving up money for that rainy day and when it rains end up cursing the bad weather. I have been working to the bone. I was not particularly fond of any job I have had... but happy to have met some great people. It seems to me that people are great everywhere. So why wait? Here I am with a world at my fingertips, great people everywhere and some shackles in my brain tying me down to an economic reality manufactured by forces beyond comprehension. Work is a reality, but waiting to live a life need not be. When it is time to go... it is time to go. Remember that, it will come in handy when it is time for you to go.

Well my friends. I have woken up. I have had enough. I have been high. I have come down. I have felt low. Enough is enough. There are a thousand shining moments waiting to happen to me. I am not going to wait for those moments... they are waiting for me. I seem to find a whole bunch more of these moments now that I have broken out of the every day. The norm.

I want to live. I know it is about as cliche as it comes these days, but it is true. I guess I have kinda just came to that realization. I was walking through my life because that was what we were supposed to do. Peoples expectations piling up on me. Living for the stereotypes. Living for the society that alienates me. Living for madness. Living in a box I manufactured in an industrial hell hole to keep me on a track I don’t want to be on. “All you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be. Run rabbit run, dig that hole, forget the sun, and when at last your work is done, don’t sit down it’s time to dig another one.” That is words from Breathe by Pink Floyd off of Dark Side of The Moon. If I were to take my life in context of that song. I would much rather touch and see everything than just a shovel and a million holes. The only digging I plan on doing is the metaphysical variety. That is where I can find the treasures of eternity... although, they are cleverly hidden.

Let’s now digress from the beaten path and delve into insecurity for a moment. Where am I going? What am I doing? What am I writing? The spiral into the infinite abyss of misery. Screw on your head and keep it on there tight.

Where am I going? Where I am going.

What am I doing? What I am doing.

What am I writing? What I am writing.

That is what I call a reality check. Every now and then, or... more often than not, these rhetorical questions sink into the conscious layer of ones inner being. (Listen to this science talkin' mumbo jumbo... who am I, Freud?) The questions can be switched around and give you the answer. Sometimes the answer is not satisfying, even though it is the truth. When you get where you are going, the truth will manifest itself before your eyes and at that point, you will get the real answer, although... at that point, the question will not only be forgotten, but will also be irrelevant. With this understanding... there is no sense allowing that abyss to open itself up to you. If it does open up, there is no sense jumping in. You got all you need right here. So do I.

So here I am, standing on concrete, under the stars and a big hummin gas station light at the crack of dawn, next to 30 or so sleeping big rigs, in the middle of nowhere (no offense to any bears that live there) watching the sun come up. I have contemplated life, death, the direction of the riverboat I am riding to where I am going (which has yet to manifest itself, although the truth always does) and I need no answers. I need no questions. All I touch and all I see... I see the sun rise. It is magnificent. I want to touch every persons heart like the sunrise touches mine. That is life. That is the goal of this little riverboat. I hear the pay sucks... I hear the rocks hurt. I hear all of it from an abyss that I am closing up. We may stare to face a giant pit of nothingness again. Afterall, I am far from perfect, but the river seems to be flowing in that direction. That abyss is a man made damn attempting to halt the flow of the water. It can literally suck out my will to live, if I let it. It can stop the river and keep me in hole digging mode... if I let it. Awareness is a powerful thing. Once you know, going back seems like a joke. “Now, let me get this straight... you want me, ME, to go back there... that place I was... that sucked. Hahaha. Good one man.” The abyss closes. The damn bursts open. Sweet life, thunderous and flowing... in all of its glory. It feels damn good to be on that moving river, destined for destiny, whatever that may be... the journey and the destination wrapped up in a lesson of a lifetime. A perfect gift of pain and pleasure... joy and sorrow. Sunrises and garbage dumps. There is no place I would rather be and it feels good to acknowledge that fact. This somebody is no longer waiting on a non moving river inside an open abyss... and it feels good. I knew that it would. HEYYYYYYY! (James Brown doesn’t work on paper very well, does it?)