The Croutons
There was a time when I would have sat down and said something constructive. Something planned on a napkin or scrap of paper. It would have been polished, as best it could, manufactured and precisely written. And ultimately the chances are very good that it would have gone on and on about some revelatory invention that the road offered me, those hard lessons of life and truth and of love. But things are different now.
I don't care any more for that. I can't put in writing the sweat on a wine bottle. There is no way to convey the true kindness of strangers. Any attempt to describe the poverty, the smiles on the worn faces of the locals or a simple kiss on the neck of your loved one instantly marginalizes and cheapens the experience. I can't do it.
The road is not a place. It's a state. The happy confluence of people, place, and circumstance. There is no gamut of life it will not interject, sometimes gently, other times not so gently. It's indescribable to those who have lived it; wickedly extrinsic to those who have not. And so for the last few weeks while engaged inside this beautiful monster they call Lima Peru I have somehow found myself reevaluating the relationship I have with this site. It was inevitable.
If you've ever found yourself here looking for the polish and the shine, I have nothing left to offer you. Lima has offered me the kindest advice. Like Lima, life is about grit. It's about the off the cuff happenstance of daily life. It's not always pretty. It's not always profound. It just is.