"She's got the urge for going so I guess she'll have to go..."

My parents, quite possibly knowing me better than I knew myself at 17, added this Joni Mitchell quote to my high school graduation yearbook baby photo (a charming photo of me with "My First Barbie"). I think I had been going through a Joni phase then, which I haven't quite left. Now Joni is played by myself and others far too frequently at the coffee shop in one of the many early morning play lists which will be put on every day because we are too sleepy to remember the names of any other artists. Too often the "folky rocky bluesy am stuff" is on when I get to work at 8, and day after day I will hear the same Joni, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Ray Lamontagne and Neil Young songs so that by 9:30 I want to chuck scalding hot coffee into people's faces while singing Dylan's "ONE MORE CUP OF COFFEE FOR THE ROAD, BITCH? CREAM OR MILK IN THAT YOU, UGLY SKINNY BASTARD! GET OFF YOUR F--king PHONE!".
At least it is no longer Norah Jones,( who I have wholeheartedly banished from my shifts via punishment of dismissal) whose voice once made me think of a candlelit love, and now makes me want to simultaneously vomit while forcing a fork into my skull and amputating my left leg at my shin.
So, Julie, this lovely woman comes into work yesterday all beauty and smiles and pleasantly asks how I am and, am I by any chance thinking of a new trip?
I had just walked out of the kitchen after losing myself in thoughts of travel... of my friends in Japan and contacts in Argentina. Of the benefits of South America versus Asia. Of opportunities to make money versus opportunities to explore.
I had been awake for a long time.
Her question made me blush.
"You have that look on your face." She smiled, knowingly.


And today I read this:

"When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. he has a built-in garden of reasons to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. And last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. "- Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

Steinbeck, at the age of 58, begins another destinationless trip that he realizes is a thing beyond him. It is not a something he admits to love about himself... saying things like "I fear the disease is incurable". He wanders not because he chooses, but because he is a "victim" and though he never claims to dislike his restlessness, he also never claims for it to be convenient, healthy or under his control or reason. To embrace loneliness, solitary train rides, language barriers, sickness and endless hours of waiting, uncomfortably in small seats with entire cultures and starry skies passing us by all for the sake of seeing something, or learning something new, to many is insanity, but to many is the purest form of joy.

I'll never forget my dad asking me "what are you running away from?" when I left for NZ. I answered defensively then,(and probably still would now.) So maybe I am afraid of loving people too much in one place, or loving a place itself too much to never want to leave it? But I think that is all besides the point. Wanderers are just as flawed as those of us who choose to stay standing in one spot. We just seem more briefly flawed perhaps, to more people.

All this occurs in the wake of my dream, where I am being tugged by a dog on a leash whose name is Journey. We are flailing through an early spring campy/foresty site... and I am indeed the one being "walked."

She's got the urge...