Last night was a night to remember. For those of you that have traveled, you may relate to this: That when you’re traveling, and you finally embark on the adventure you’ve been saving and looking forward to, there is almost always a tiny hint of disappointment somewhere along the way. It’s as if that excitement and anticipation was the best part of the trip, and once you arrived you feel a little bit like, “Okay, now what?” It’s kind of an inevitable emotion that usually fades in and out in between the beautiful and exciting parts of the journey.

I pulled out my tattered copy of Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley” that I’d shipped to Josh while he was fishing in Alaska and found this quote that kind of sums it up:

“In long-range planning for a trip, I think it is a private conviction that it won’t happen. As the day approached, my warm bed and comfortable house grew increasingly desirable and my dear wife incalculably precious. To give these up for three months for the terrors of the uncomfortable and unknown seemed crazy. Something had to happen to forbid my going, but it didn’t. I could get sick, of course, but that was one of my main but secret reasons for going at all… I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-individualism. …In my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity… I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theatre as well as bad living.”

Steinbeck is, of course, speaking here about his travels. But I don’t think people who don’t travel necessarily “hood their passions” or “smother their impulses.” I confess I’ve done those very things since I’ve been over here. I think we’re all capable of settling– and that has nothing to do with sitting still or moving about.

Needless to say, the “disappointing moments” for me are seldom. The rest of the moments are good, fulfilling, etc. But every once in a while on any trip, and it has to be somewhat seldom to remain precious, I have moments so meaningful they give me chills.

Last night Josh and I went to a little pub near here with the family we’re staying with (who are amazing, by the way). There were several men having a bit of an open-mic-night-jam-session. After having a pint, Josh joined the line-up and played an old folk song and then Paul Simon’s “Duncan.” It was one of those rare moments in my travels that felt genuinely pure and beautiful. I listened to that song quite a bit this last year, especially when road-tripping up and down the west coast this past fall.

(Josh took these next two)

“Just playing my guitar, lying underneath the stars, just thanking the Lord for my fingers… for my fingers.”

So good.

Incidentally something else gave me chills this morning. Josh sent me a link to this youtub video of Wisconsin’s finest (no, not CHEESE), Bon Iver, singing their song “For Emma” in a public hallway somewhere in France(?). Doesn’t do justice to their live performance at Outside Lands in San Francisco, but it will do.