Renaissance with the Road

It is not often that we are given a brief scope into a stranger's life. These chance encounters can provide the most profound, yet temporary space for conversations left to the unknown- a privilege and a free ride south.

Standing in the rain next to a busy on ramp outside of Paris, I resembled more of a vagrant than a gap year guru. My eyes groggy with last night's 'au revoirs', an unenthused umbrella and my assortment of carry bags screamed squatter chic. Although this did not deter my high hopes from hitching my first car. A BMW to be exact, bee lining to Italy via Lyon on a wine tasting venture. What were the odds? All late night uncertainties of robbery, rape and being run over vanished within minutes. This is it.

It took me two days ambling to Barcelona, stopping where I felt like and never waiting more than ten minutes for an open door. I was like a dog with my tongue out the window. As if fate, every vehicle offered something new whether it be perspective, fact or some siq new beats. I was couriered around by truck drivers, an acrobat, a sex shop owner, a deaf Albanian and at one point a guy from the French SWAT team. All generous, all interesting and all pretty funny. I was often reduced to charades or relied on my intuitive stick figures to convey my love of 'galettes' or how the Eiffel Tower is just a glorified capital 'A'. It didn't matter. I was on the road and it felt like home.

Travelling so intimately with the world dissolved my middle class harness. Suddenly, here could be anywhere and human nature didn't seem so tainted. I felt like I was caressing the landscape for meaning, instead of fighting for space on a bus. The further south I migrated, the hotter the days became and clutching onto a haggard plaque of cardboard seemed a waste of the warmth. I stood on the side of the highway, thumb extended and body open to the sun when I experienced a cheesy epiphany stemming from self satisfaction and overall delight. Freedom.

The transient and sometimes anonymous nature of hitchhiking is what makes the magic. Not only the cultural opportunity to expunge the road's offerings, but the chance to share a conversation with a stranger whom in most cases, you won't ever see again. Journeys within the journey.

It is by my thumb that I can go anywhere, but through these chance encounters that I feel at home doing so.