Howdy Internet,
A couple months ago we made the long drive to New York for the National Buffalo Wing Festival. A silly dream of mine, we finally went for.
Below are a couple journal entries I wrote, just before and after our trip, about the whimsical woo of wanting silly things, like Buffalo wings and a meaningful life.
I hope you enjoy them 🙂
Thursday, Aug 8th
Later this month, we’re gonna drive 21 hours to Buffalo just to eat hot wings for three days straight. It’s completely absurd and I am so excited about it. We’ve been dragging our feet, but we need the adventure and I think a dose of the absurd may do us well. Going to the National Buffalo Wing Festival has been on my Life Goals List since the list was written. It’s a goofy goal, but life is not all Everests.
Some peaks are simple pleasures and my next peak is Mount Chicken Wing.
Monday, Aug 19th
A week from today we will be back on the road. Not for as long as I’d like, but healing is healing even in the slow lane. A long drive, turns into long drives. Early mornings and gas station coffee. When days begin to blur and where we are is held simple as far gone, away enough, or here now.
The old wise man says “Wherever you go there you are” and I begin to think this is a two-sided coin. When you are unhappy with yourself it does not matter where you place it. But when you are comfortable with yourself as center, then wherever you are becomes yours. There is no where to run to, no where to get far enough away from. When you are your center and the you is not the self, nor the soul, but this eternal spot in time we’ve plunged into, this moment here pierced by the Self outside of self, the belly pressed to hilt and the blade extends forever.
When you are content and aware and in love with your place in the universe, then Running is not escape, but spinning a globe. Let the world twirl about you, let your heart be the axis from which time dances, and let not the goal be to see Buffalo, New York from your eyes, but to see yourself from Buffalo’s. Place your finger on the map and pin yourself again and again. The point of going is not to get there, but to already be there and be your self, to be aware there is no where to go.
Monday, Sep 9th
We are back from Buffalo, belly full and body light. We have set out for Adventure and returned with story and boon, with new hope and home, purpose and pin point focus. We know why we have left and where we are going, what is to be done and that, when is now. We know what drag the next journey will dress in and we are readying for the glitz and glamour of digging in before the big show.
Buffalo was a lovely reset, a much needed, light-hearted and meat-heavy dance with a decade’s long dream. Going for things is important, even when the things aren’t. Even when the dream is just a buffalo wing, life is always worth reaching for.
To turn off the poet for a bit, the Buffalo Wing Festival was so much fun. A simple and serious goof. A favorite food, a four day drive, a few thousand wing freaks flocked to the same perch, pilgrims come home to roost in roasted meat. Mecca tossed in hot sauce never tasted so good.
So full, to be here with you in the center of all things. The Now, a chicken wing circled in blue cheese, and me, hungry again for wanting.
Wednesday, Sep 11th
The funny thing about taking the trip, is how quickly I forget my life back home. How easy it is to let go of the daily routine, all the things I let define me slip away, and now I am only the bucket seat. Only the next town over. Only the familiar hope of the unknown coming. Just me and you floating in this in-between, this aluminum bubble hell-bent on the going. Floating 80 miles an hour, but only 8 minutes from home.
On the road, all that I carry, too heavy or too light, is tucked comfy in the truck bed or back seat. All my worries and pet peeves, now old flings left flustered in the wet heat of what used to be all important to me.
Used to be is the key to finding whatever really matters. Anything that melts away in two days on the highway, ain’t much to cling to. But the true Muse is a sticky bitch, a tune too catchy to leave two states back, still singing old love songs whether we hear her or not, and we are Wailing Wall ready for that high note. To climb out of the forest and finally see, the trees and the smoke rings of what we’re leaving. If we just left and it’s already gone then what was the hold up? Desperate hopeful to catch a bystander glimpse of those bell tower hips, those baked sun lips part potato chip and the feast of leaving is getting there all at once right away.
The funny thing about taking the trip, is that gone comes just as fast as going. Home another poor metaphor for where we draw our circles, what place we put into holy and what we choose to take with us when we leave.
I love and hate to write this way about the no-thing that is a chicken wing.
To try and pull some mystical meaning from fried food and a long drive is the great burden of my “work” as a poet. A long running sentence that never seems to get where I’m going.
My purpose, if there is to be such a thing, is simply to keep carving the mountain down. What runs of it, is less and less of my concern.
Thanks for reading y’all!
Alex
