This is my second entry of my journal while I travelled. At this point I am still in Chicago where we spent a full day before departing on our flight to Dublin. So after this everthing will concern my time in Europe, but I wanted to add one more entry that expressed what was going on within me before we left. Sorry for the delay, but due to the ice storm in Oklahoma internet has been a privelage that was not always readily available. Enjoy…
—October 14, 2007. Today we left for Chicago, part of the way Charlie and I talked again about life in general, about how we are just so confused. There really is no sense of normality, and I am not sure if there ever was. I started to feel tired, and I could tell Chad was feeling a little isolated in the backseat, so after we had a lunch break I let him get up front, and I laid down and got my iPod out to listen to some Bob Dylan. Dylan is almost like a ghost to me at this point, I always hear people talking about him, paying their homages and tributes, and articulating how he influenced them. So before I left, I bought some of his music and decided I would give it a try. I start out with the familiar “Like A Rolling Stone”, then move to “My Back Pages”, “Lay, Lady, Lay”, “Gotta Serve Somebody”, and end up at “Make You Feel My Love”. His voice is not the most appealing, but the words hypnotize me, and slowly I find myself drawn into the story that he is weaving together through song.
I check my phone to see if friends have called, wishing me well and telling me their last goodbyes. But nothing is there and I start doubting the vailidity of all the people I’ve binded myself to. How often I gauge my relationships based on text messages and voicemails, missed calls and call times. Its ridiculous when you really think about it. After a small nap, I rise in a daze and start to see the skyline of Chicago from afar. Its amazing really, somehow I recall Dorothy when she saw Oz for the first time, the way it glistened compared to the sky around it. It is proud, upright, inviting. We drive past Navy Pier and then into downtown. We eat at Uno’s Pizzeria, walk the streets, and the time seems to pass so slow. The city is on display for us, and while it is huge it also is vulnerable, quietly showing us more of itself.
I don’t want to lie to myself or others, I want to be who I am and free of my fears. There are so many fears that need to be addressed. I want to be free to take them on, to deal with them and be changed by the fight. I think that this trip is part of the battle in three acts; actually planning it and committing to it is the first part, the second part is the actual lived experience of it, and the final act is the return home, to come back and see how I’ve grown from it all. It is with a prayer of hope that I write these words. We will see what happens…
