As I reflect on the countless highways that span this vast country, there is one that stands out as the ruler of my heart – Highway One. This particular stretch of pavement played a pivotal role in my spiritual journey, serving as the starting point for the cross-country trip that would ultimately lead to Emmaus. (An encounter with Jesus.)
While some road trips had specific destinations in mind, such as a cozy cabin in Pescadero or a visit to Henry Miller’s Library, Highway One tended to act as my confessor. A symbol of radical honesty and vulnerability. Here I could clear my cluttered mind and contemplate life’s mysteries.
On certain occasions, I would press down on the accelerator and speed away like a fugitive, using the road to escape from the harsh realities that I longed to leave behind in the rearview. But eventually, I’d have to meet those realities head-on. It is impossible to be a follower of my rabbi unless you are willing to carry your cross daily.
As my faith grew, I began to embark on solitary retreats with Jesus to a secret spot near the outskirts of Santa Cruz. The highway became my cathedral, a place to connect with the divine and seek solace from the chaos of the world.
Where I once rolled down my window and let the herb smoke act as incense to the universe, I now offered up prayer to the God who created the universe.
Above all, Highway One reminds me of the importance of family. My brother and I used to take the BART to Colma Station in San Francisco, where we parked our camper van, Scarlet. It was always a cause for celebration when she survived the night without being stolen or towed to impound. My brother would take the driver’s seat, and we’d head towards Pacifica.
Although we never discussed the plan, it was always implied. He would park the car at Rockaway Beach, and we’d climb up a hillside to sit and watch the sea, come rain or shine. We were travelers prone to traversing the paths of an unseen map.
We would wax poetic on our troubles and triumphs except during the sacred hours of sunrise and sunset, reserved for silence and meditation. Nothing needed to be said. God was speaking his Word.
Rockaway was our spiritual dojo, but no matter how often we visited her, she always had something new to teach us.
We learned that much can be discovered when you slow down and tune in. The shorelines of The One are ingrained in me, and no matter how much time passes, I always feel the urge to return, roll down the window, welcome the sea breeze, get drunk on nostalgia for a little while, until I’m ready to discern the miles ahead with renewed courage.
Nothing behind me everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.
Throughout our travels, we were known to imbibe the words of Steinbeck. He has a way of summing up the essence of the road that speaks to our wayfaring souls. In commemoration of those adventures, I share a quote from a book that serves as a second Bible to my brother.
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age.In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ships’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, once a bum always a bum. I fear this disease incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself….A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we not take a trip; a trip takes us.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
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