Last night I hitched a ride in an ambulance, and nobody knew ...
Today I walked around town with no underwear (under my brand new pants!) and nobody knew, too ... until now.
(I laughed on both accounts.)
Why do I hitch-hike? Well, I guess I wanna feel ALIVE. Prove to myself every day that there's a world out there to explore. Yes, Life! I want to BELIEVE that people are good-natured in their heart of hearts. At the core. I wanna push the limits, challenge conventional measures, live on the edge, get away with it. It's an experiment in humanity. Who are we? I dig such things. I also dig "beating the odds." Yeah, I guess that's my kick. Last night, 300 kilometers in the rain, and yes, I HAD THE MONEY. But I chose to rough it, and rough it I did ... and along the way, I found some gems. Man, it was pouring down, and some people looked at me as if I was crazy. The street is my stage. Hitchin' helps me conquer any fear of any sort of nutty whatnots I might do on the stage with the band. Anything goes! The first guy rolled down the window, drenched himself for 20 seconds as he told me that he could only take me to "the border," meaning East and West Germany. Yes, the border is still there ...
Half way into our journey, it started HAILING and it was so loud on his hood that we couldn't even hear each other. People were pulling over - it was nasty. Then we started laughing, bearly audible over the tin-tin-tomp of the hail on metal. After it died down a bit, he told me his story, one of escaping to the West when he was younger. He said the Commies are the "biggest ass-holes in the whole world." He's glad the Wall came down, but said he doesn't dig the inflation. Heh. Dropped me off right at the old border, now a cozy gas station, and right there in front of us was an ambulance. They had license plates from the very town I was trying to get to. "Um," I went, "can I join you?" The first guy of the two mumbled something about legalities and lawyers and wrongful damages (?) in case of an accident, limiting the legality of me joining them, but I think we both knew that I was going with 'em. The other guy said, "Aw, let's take him with us." And the rain was so bad that they just couldn't say no. Strapped me in, and off we went into the night. I wanna thank those two souls who helped me re-assure myself of goodness "out there," and who dropped me off safe 'n' sound at my destination. I zonked in and out for the next two hours, lights zipping by, which was totally surreal, ("Wow - I'm in an ambulance!") but at one point I woke up and it was VERY real as I realized:
"I am in an ambulance, and I'm HEALTHY."
And maybe it's because she told me that life's too heavy, and she wanted to end it all - don't you dare! (I DOUBLE-dare you to live ...) So sad when a beautiful soul wants to die. As if beauty must perish. So I just rebelled, thinking, "Isn't life just wonderful?!" In this passage, I'm sending you some light, my dear friend (you know who you are) and a little water. Quench your problems and make it a thirst for life. And I swear to you, last night out there on that road, as it started pouring, as I felt my leather jacket getting heavier and heavier with serious water logging, and the weight of it all, I laughed and put my face to the sky, feeling the water streaming all over me, and said, "This ... is ... INCREDIBLE ... this ... is ... amazing!" And it was very cold, but also very true. The raindrops seemed to be like tears for us all, humanity indeed. Someday I'll hitch-hike around the world, and we'll call it a "Tour." And so a little water never hurt anyone (as they say in Hawaii) and since the world is 90 per cent water, today I feel that the world is a pretty wonderful place. Peace. -Todd
Posted by calico at March 28, 2006 02:53 PM