old enough to know better, young enough to pretend

when i was ten years old, my old man and i did a mini-ironbutt through the upper midwest. for those not in the know, the ironbutt is/was (i have no idea, it's been a long time since i've had anything other than passing contact with that subculture) a nationwide motorcycle ride, named thusly for reasons i assume are fairly obvious.

i don't know why i'm stuck thinking about that this morning, maybe it's the weather. spring's dipping a tentative toe in midwestern waters, the kind of glorious day that sends college kids out into quads in shorts and flip-flops to play frisbee for the first time in months, forty degree temperature be damned.

i think maybe it's when i first fell in love with the road, with the possibility that existed and the seemingly endless stretch of concrete that always ended up taking you where you wanted to go, even if you didn't know it at the start.

i don't get to roadtrip much these days, not on my own, nor in a crappy, rundown van with some of the best people i will ever know. comes with the territory, i tell myself, and most days that's okay. most days i keep my wanderlust in check in recognition of the fact that at some point most of us have to grow up and realize that the things we did so easily at twenty are not so at thirty. and that's okay, because there are things i'm doing at thirty that are far better than anything i ever imagined a decade ago.

we traveled several hundred miles during that trip, my pop and i. that first night we were on the road late, later than a guy with a ten-year old kid on the back of his bike had any right to be, but there was a bible conference or something, no room at the inn. so we raced north, mississippi to the west and the moon above. ended up at some bed and breakfast in alma, last room left a double that left just enough room to turn around and walk out. the trains ran every hour across the street.

didn't matter, exhausted enough to sleep like the dead and what i remember most is even then, at ten, understanding that this was something special, something unique, that there were things that obligated you and tied you down and that little piece of freedom, of just following the road until the destination presented itself, was a gift and not an entitlement, and that opportunities for that same feeling would be less and less frequent as i came into my own.

and here i am, all growed up and chained to a desk in ways i never anticipated with the adult understanding of the sacrifices you make to give those pieces of freedom to the people you love, to give them something to daydream about themselves, during spring's first blush.

i can't wait til he's old enough for a road trip. destination unknown.