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Lost In America
H. Wayne Cleghorn
January 2009
In 2008, after watching the movie Bucket List, my wife presented me with an empty note book. The only writing in the book was at the top of the first page. It simply said, “Wayne’s Bucket List”. If you haven’t seen the movie, the character played by Morgan Freeman finds out he has terminal cancer. He begins to make a list of all the things he wants to do before he “kicks the bucket”.
For a long time I would pick the book up and just look at it. Then one day I wrote something down. A few weeks later came something else. Then one night, I picked up my bucket list and for some reason wrote “To be lost in America.” Why did I write that? What exactly did it mean?
My best guess is that I wrote it because sometimes in a person’s life we get lost. I am not talking about the kind of lost where you stop for directions or press a few buttons on your GPS to get you back on the right road. No, it is not that simple. I am talking about the kind of lost where a person can no longer find their way in life because you forget who you used to be. You forget what you used to stand for. You forget the simple pleasures in life that you once enjoyed so much. Simply put, you no longer know who you are. And, of course, you do not know how you got to this point in life.
You look in the mirror every morning. You look like the same person you have always been. However, you do not understand who that person in the mirror has become. The person in the mirror that once smiled back at you; now looks at you like he does not recognize you. There is still a slight twinkle in the eyes, and thus a ray of hope that the person you once were will come back home.
So how does this happen? You look the same, you speak the same way, and you exhibit the same mannerisms. So what has changed, and why?
At times, we become our jobs. We work long hours in these days of “do more with less to beef up the corporate bottom line”. Because we are working so many hours, we lose touch with our families and our friends. These are the people that love and care for us the most. They are the same people that molded us into the person we were before we got lost. They look at us and say to themselves or other family members, “He is just tired, or she is under so much stress at work”. Both statements are true, but they cannot see the hollow feeling inside us.
At other times, we lose touch with ourselves because we do not make time for ourselves. After all, isn’t that selfish? As a result, we forget who we are. We start trying to become the person that we perceive others want us to be. Most of the time, this perception is not correct. It is more a function of the level of expectations that we have put on ourselves.
So how can a person find their way back from being lost inside one’s self? The answer to that, for me, lies in the pages to follow.
After much thought and self-examination, I came up with the idea that the only way to find myself is to get completely lost. This time I do mean the type of lost where you stop for directions or look at your GPS. Only I feel the need to take it one step further. Don’t ask for directions or listen to the voice in your GPS. As a matter of fact, I am talking about rolling down the window and throwing the GPS as far as you can throw it…preferably at a high rate of speed and in the direction of a dumpster.
I have concluded the only way to find myself is to get so completely and utterly lost that I have no idea where I am, and even more appealing, neither does anyone else, except for my beautiful and understanding wife, of course.
So, I started thinking, “How do I do this?” I considered many adventures I might take, both on foot and by car. I finally decided that the best way for me to get completely lost, Lost in America, was to fly from point A to point B, rent a car, drive to point C, and fly home. I started looking and thinking about an old fashion road trip, alone.
The first thing I thought about was to drive some of the remaining parts of the old Route 66, or the “Mother Road” as some call it. Initially, this had a lot of appeal to me. I could fly to some large city close to Route 66, rent a car, and drive. The more I read about Route 66, the more I decided that this was not a good place to get lost. The biggest reason though was in my reading, I learned that major interstate highways now parallel Route 66. Major interstates mean people, lots of people. I had no desire to be lost in a crowd. I wanted to be lost in America, alone!
Then I considered a road called known as The Loneliest Road! The Loneliest Road is US Highway 50 that runs across the United States from Ocean City, Maryland to San Francisco, California. If you have read Blue Highways author William Least Heat-Moon, he describes US 50 this way “for the unhurried, this little-known highway is the best national road across the middle of the United States.” Time magazine dedicated an entire issue in 1997 to US 50, referring to the road as the “Backbone of America.”
I thought,what better place to get lost than on the “Loneliest Highway”? No traffic, no crowds, and lots of places to get lost. I knew I didn’t want to go to the east coast. I knew I didn’t want to go to the west coast. On previous air flights, I had looked out the window as we crossed over Utah and Nevada. There was almost nothing down there, except for some a few small towns, some beautiful mountains and the Continental Divide.
The more I considered this crazy notion, the more energized I became. The idea of being lost and alone scares most people. I, on the other hand, have always enjoyed spending time alone. If you see me at a party, I’m the one standing in the corner watching and listening. You won’t see me being the “life of the party” dancing with a lampshade on my head. Now that I think about it, there was this one time…that is another story.
Now all I have to do was to find a way to tell my wife, who also happens to be my best friend and guiding light, that going away without her is something I need to do. Carol and I have been very fortunate since we became one. We have had the opportunity to travel to some beautiful and romantic places together. There is no one on earth I would rather have for a travel partner than my beautiful wife.
How could I make her understand that I wasn’t trying to lose her, I was trying to find me? The fun loving, happy-go-luck “me” she married and hopefully lose the “me” I had become. The “me” that walks around wondering what happened to the “me” that I was before I was consumed by my job.
Over the last few years, I have allowed my job to drive me into a shell, or “cave” as Carol refers to it. I have been spending so much time in my cave that I have allowed the person I love the most to feel “devalued”. When she told me that, it cut into my heart like a knife. It was the ultimate wake-up call!
But was it selfish for me to go away for a week looking for “me”? Would I do more damage than good? Was this a crazy, male mid-life crisis? The answers I came up with were yes, it was selfish to embark on such an adventure alone. Yes, it might do our relationship more harm than good. Then I reasoned that by finding “me”, Carol and I could get back to being “us”. God, I miss “us”!
One of the other things that I had written in my “bucket list” was that I wanted to be the best husband that I could for Carol. Maybe marking one item off my bucket list could help me accomplish another.
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Mike
non-member comment
Well done intro and background on the motivation for your trip. My son's Scout Master is an Army Ranger. Surprisingly, he has a regular tendency to get us lost on our backpacking trips. To which he would always respond in his calm, steely demeanor, "Being lost is never permanent. Now, let's enjoy ourselves." That's my wish for you. I also want to share with you my favorite Psalm that I enjoy reading when I'm backpacking - O Lord My God, You Are Very Great 104 l Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, 2 covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens police a tent. 3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. 5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth. 10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;they flow between the hills; 11 they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. 14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth 15 and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart. 16 The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. 19 He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. 23 Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. 24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it 27 These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. 28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. 31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more! Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!