Tuesday, July 15, 2008

No More Fussing and Fighting

Big Sur, California, JULY 2008

I met a young quiet man who's going to Europe with his girlfriend who is going to study abroad for a year. He hopes to find work there, "somewhere under the table" before his money runs out. To most mainstream folks that would sound very risky and just downright crazy. Most of live in a neat, sweet, little compacted world of 9-5 and trips to Target and WalMart three times a week and the rest of our time is spent driving to get somewhere for something that we have to do for our family or a friend. We live in smog and fight traffic composed of crazy people driving SUV's and pickup trucks who live in the suburbs. Why they need these big machine I don't know because they don't have a lot to haul except pine straw and their neighbors kids. Oh I forgot about the occasional trip to the mountains or coast to leave their garbage there instead of at home in their own landfill.

There is a lot of disparity between his world and mine but for some reason I long to do what he does, just for a short time. He has a total aversion to the kind of lifestyle that I live but yet he sees and understands so much more than I can see. I do know that there has to be something better than the way I am living now. So, I come to California and dream of living in Big Sur where the air is clean and there is no traffic and all those trips to Target aren't so important. Just how much stuff do I need?

It just seems that I am just fussing and fighting with just about everything in my life. In Big Sur there's no fussing and fighting with the world except for the occasional drunk tourist and his girlfriend passing through. Simple things have passed them by. But it's now real and I have to go back to my smoggy world of traffic and face my daily mundane chores as I try and find something that will remind that life can be simply. It's just how you make it.

So who are we to judge the quiet young man who just wants to live a simple life and see the world. Someday he will marry and settle into a quiet place that gives off no illusions. His children will grow up loving their parents and he will teach them something new everyday in a quiet place full of meaning.

I'm going up the country, babe don't you wanna go
I'm going up the country, babe don't you wanna go
I'm going to some place where I've never been before
I'm going, I'm going where the water tastes like wine
Well I'm going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can't stay
Now baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know we've got to leave today
Just exactly where we're going I cannot say, but We might even leave
The USA 'Cause there's a brand new game that I want to play
No use of you running, or screaming and crying
'Cause you've got a home as long as I've got mine

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