Written September 1, 2024: As I have reflected on this trip over the past forty-seven years, it remains one of the absolute best decisions of my life on so many fronts.  The trip allowed me to actualize and to test many of my beliefs, questions, and doubts about who I am and what it means to “live a fulfilled life”.  Giving notice to my employer and to my landlord, disposing of car/assets/obligations, and buying a Jansport backpack to hold all the possessions I would use for a year literally set me free on a tangible level–one really doesn’t need much “stuff” to be very happy and “less truly is more”.  Spiritually and psychologically, it also set me free to “be a Pilgrim” of the type that many of my favorite artists and authors had inspired through their words and songs:  Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” and “Everybody Knows”; Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim”; Bob Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street; John Prine’s “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Any More”, and Jack Keuoac’s On the Road (“Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain’t this and that at all?”); (More recently, my two favorite guides about “how to travel” are Rolf Potts, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-term World Travel; and Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred.)  Personal and spiritual “searching” remains a life-long pursuit.  The trip confirmed my deep belief that the world and each of us need more love, peace, and understanding. My 1978 trip didn’t “answer all my questions” but it did satisfy me in many ways and taught me that if I primarily stay present in the moment and actually listen and watch, “more is revealed” and I feel both a connection and a freedom that is divine.  As Leonard Cohen puts it so aptly:

Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free...