American Ramble, Neil King Jr

Neil set out with a wonder stirred by sickness (cancer). A jolt of fear had opened a seam of freedom, and he slipped through. He went out to seek and give meaning as most of us do, with giving being a key part of the conversation. When you look at the landscape as a place imbued inch by inch with meaning… it can reward the respect you give it, just as some people do. Soon after Neil began his walk from DC to NYC it was easy for him to become condescending toward vehicles… lethal metal boxes on their way to nowhere. He began to notice we as a country had farmed out our hospitality to hotels, transportation, and restaurants… we’d sanitized and made a business of the whole of it… the old ways of putting someone up or making them dinner has, for the most part, mostly been left for rare moments in time. The walk without a destination… it doesn’t exist… it’s your purpose, your destiny. Even nomads go in pursuit of game or water.. their destination may shift but we always have one, when when we aren’t sure where it is.

We continue on, no matter how severe the forces push us back. We all have them… we push on. The days and all the steps he’s taken pried open a part of the human spirit that magnifies the potency of otherwise simple things… the common became a touch of the divine. That’s the lesson in life really, isn’t it? If you go out your front door with an eye for all that amazes, enchants, baffles… and keep at it day after day, it’s astonishing what can ensue.