GRAND CANYON: THE JOURNEY CONTINUED

After a few days of rest we are on the road once more. We will return to a place of beauty my wife has discovered in my absence. Like Ponce de Leon she was seeking magic waters of enchantment and eternal youth. Hot Springs in North Carolina is as close as she’s likely to get. Nestled in the Smokey Mountains, amongst the white bark birch and deciduous brush, it is accessible only to those who know its secret. We are reminded by a mining operation, halting traffic in both directions, that nothing lasts forever.

We set up camp at the side of a gurgling creek by day and walk leisurely down the trail to the hot springs at sunset. There in a world of torchlight and canopies we are as removed from civilization as we would be in Outer Mongolia. A storm brewing as we are escorted to our private spa. It is a magical night. I cannot imagine a more enchanted setting for renewing the bonds of love.

From the deep bowels of the earth spring the waters of heaven. The sight of my love’s silken skin, the joy of her touch, the gleam of her eyes under blue moonlight, combine with the earth’s splendor to form a feeling of well being so profound that death itself could not disturb the peace. Even the crack of thunder from the ever closing storm and the collapse of a nearby tree limb under the force of a strong wind only heightens my sense of wonder and delight.

My wife holds on to earthly reason and rouses me to dress before the storm hits. An escort is on her way as she speaks. Electrified customers would not serve their plans as a great escape for the rich and famous. We are promised time tomorrow to complete our allotment of time. To me it is perfect. A full hour of this indescribable beauty and we would be in danger of no return. At it is we prepare ourselves for a drive to the coast with a relaxing soak in the cool air of morning.

We are scheduled to meet a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he is hoping to start a new life. From there we will follow the stars north or south to an Oceanside paradise.

Myrtle Beach is a golf town. There are stores on the main drag devoted solely to golf balls. There are at least twenty golf courses ranging from inaccessible championship quality country clubs to a high priced public course. The streets are filled with tourists and the beach itself has been cut down to thin sliver by encroaching summer homes and oceanside resorts. We find our paradise down the coast at the Barnacle Inn in Garden City. I serenade my love on a borrowed trumpet and we make sweet music before and after a moonlit walk on the sands of the Carolina coast.

There is no place I’d rather be than
On the sands of Garden City
Beneath the moonlight rays of dreams
Counting the endless waves of time
Arm in arm hand in hand heart to heart
Soul to soul, her love embracing mine

We gather seashells and ocean carved rocks and allow the waves to carry us to far away places where we recline on sheets of satin in a deep cave at the top on a crystal mountain. She speaks of making an offering to the sea as a token of our love and gratitude. At the moment she stoops to gather in a stone with sacred markings, the jewel she has long treasured slips from her necklace and is swept away. We look for it before deciding it is as it is supposed to be. She will wear the newfound beach stone in its place.

We arise at dawn, walk down to the beach and hit five irons into the Atlantic. Mine sails, rises and bends into the seventh wave. Hers skips and plops into the first. She’s new to the game. Good people of all makes and sizes walk by with smiles, seagulls soar closely overhead scavenging the shoreline and my mind drifts in fond memory to a thousand places at once: Grand Canyon and the eyes of the crow, Albuquerque and a poetry café, Graeagle and a family reunion, Motown and a sacred circle of friends, Berkeley and modern poetry sage, Monterey and golf in the kingdom, Yosemite and the Tioga Pass killer, Sonora Pass and a sky of a million stars, Boulder and the gypsy dancer, Kansas and a round of adversity, St. Louis and the bulging rivers, Nashville and a homeless angel.

This journey has no end, not for those who live each day, each hour, each moment as if it were the only moment of their lives. Not for those who embrace life in all its wonders, seeming good and seeming bad, its glories and its trials. The most fundamental lesson is simple as true thing are: all our trials are for a reason. They instruct us by leaps and bounds to what otherwise would take us centuries to absorb. Life is too short not to embrace all of its experiences. We are no stronger than our adversaries, real or imagined. Like the Native Americans and the warriors of old honored their enemies in battle, we too must embrace the trials that befall our paths. They make us worthy and strengthen our spirits. As long as we keep trying, keep listening, keep learning and remain open to the lessons of the never-ending journey, we will make it.

On the road back to Nashville we stop and make camp at Altoona Reservoir in the Red Top Mountain National Park just past Woodstock and north of Atlanta. We plan to get a good night’s rest but end up staying two nights and the better part of two days. My wife busies herself with a thousand projects, playing guitar, making a doll from found materials, improving the campsite, communing with nature. I spend most of mine studying the rocks in their rich variety of petrified wood, crystal, stones of red, white, amber and ash. On the second day, as I wash and examine the rocks by the Creekside, there is a great commotion in the sky. At least a dozen crows are gathered in the trees overhead. I make eye contact with the leader. He tells me I have found it. Nothing more or less. With a great caw he takes flight and the gathering of crows is gone.

All is well. All is as it should be. There is no journey greater than this we are living. There is neither end nor beginning greater than love.









AFTERMATH


Eighteen years later:

The author is happily married and living in central California. The marriage chronicled in this journey lasted four more years. He is still writing, still dreaming and still playing golf.

Wiz (aka wZ) is living in northern Florida. He often journeys cross-country and is a legend at the Burning Man Festival on the desert of Nevada.