Justin - Journey

About the writing

The toughest part about this piece was keeping the tone consistent. I tried to write it like it was spoken by a Cormac McCarthy character. I pegged down what I wanted to say fairly quickly but went back and forth a couple of times between too much and not enough. I think there is a balance in allegory where you start hinting at things you don’t mean or where you are so vague that you could be talking about anything. There’s also the balance between being way too obvious and being so layered and nuanced that no one can figure out what you’re talking about. If I fail on this scale it’s on the obvious side, but I’d rather it be understood than not, otherwise what’s the purpose.

On the Trail

I was born on the trails, everyone I know was. That may sound funny to you, but that’s how it is. I never thought much about it being strange, being on this epic journey, always moving, never settling. It was years before I wondered where we were going, if we were in fact going anywhere at all. It always seemed like we was preparing for something, about to get some place, but we just kept going; we still are.

The first couple years of my life I rode in the wagon, slept in the wagon, ate in the wagon. I guess if I’d of been asked, if I could of talked, I’d of said the whole world was a wagon. Now I guess I’d say it’s just a bunch of trails. Eventually I started walking by the wagon some, just a little at first. Staying close to the wagon, but being able to move around some. Seems strange to call it freedom, but I guess it was more free than riding. I started learning then a little about the trail; learned to look for sinkholes and to be careful when the scrub got too thick and too close. I learned from the ones driving the wagons and some of the older ones walking along beside.

Soon I started learning to watch a little further off the path; start looking for food and for danger. I’d tell the wagon masters if I thought I saw something and they tell me what it was; tell me those berries were alright to eat or that that animal couldn’t do us any harm. I started learning how things went together, how when I saw one type of shrub there was probably a snake near it, or a type of squirrel meant that there was certain edible nuts and berries. Sometimes these didn’t work out. Sometimes we would go looking for food after seeing a bunch of squirrels and we didn’t find it. We’d watch a wolf that was supposed to be dangerous and aggressive back away from the trail when it saw us coming. I started thinking that the hard rules I had learned about things maybe weren’t so solid. Maybe it was that this one thing usually means something but not always. I also learned to keep these thoughts to myself.

At a certain age, I was put on a mount and given instructions on how to scout. Sometimes off the trail looking for food or evidence of wildlife, predator or prey. Sometimes further up the trail to see what lay ahead and bring warning back to the wagons. It was then when everything was shaken. I would run into scouts from other wagons. At first I would veer off the trail and hide, wait for them to ride on. But one day I saw one reaching for some berries I knew were poisonous. I stepped out into the open and tried to stop him. He laughed at me; these berries aren’t poisonous. He threw back a handful while I watched in stunned silence then he told me something I’d never heard before. He pulled a book out of his saddle bag and showed me the shapes of different leafs. He said you could avoid the poison berries by color, but you’ll pass up a lot of good ones if you don’t look at the leaf shapes too.

When I got back to the wagon I asked around to see if anyone had ever heard about leaf shape, not just color had something to do with telling good berries from bad berries. I got a couple of strange looks, but no real answers. I decided if anyone did know, they weren’t talking and I should adopt the same policy. I started keeping my own book, trying to compile my own set of rules and knowledge. I started looking for other scouts when I was out, intentionally talking, trying to get any info I could. It was confusing. I ended up with so many different stories, so many different sets of rules many contradicting. One would say these berries are certain death, and another say they’re alright. Leafs and colors were just the start, everything was looked at two ways at least. These animals carry disease or make good pets. These trees have good wood for making tent poles or it will cause rashes.

I got to where I resented my training. I was taught some good things that surely kept me alive, but I was taught a lot nonsense too. The further I got with my book the more I felt I was starting from scratch. I had to look at each piece to see if it bore weight or not. See if there was any truth. Every piece of wisdom from my old wagon masters and everything I’d heard on the trails from other scouts was suspect. I wondered how I’d survived with such a mixed bag. And other people had it even worse like it was pure luck that they hadn’t killed themselves out in the woods.

I kept compiling and filtering and shaking out the truth the best I could but it wasn’t ‘til I was helping a new scout into the saddle for the first time that I realized something: I hadn’t arrived, no one has. I was taught by people doing the best they could. I learned some more from other people who were taught different from people also doing the best they could. And after all my efforts and all I’ve done to try to make it better and figure everything out, I’m still handing over an incomplete knowledge with some flawed thought processes. I thought when I was in the wagon and walking beside it that the wagon driver had it down. But now that I’m driving a wagon, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. I’m pretty sure like me they were learning as they went along.

I was on the trail with them, I was traveling with them but I thought they’d arrived and I held it against them that they hadn’t. But nobody arrives. We all just keep moving. Rider, walker, scout, wagon master, all traveling never arriving.