On their 2001 album, 'Time (The Revelator)', Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings close out with a sweet, sparse, fifteen minute, song that drifts, lifts and rambles its way from pain to hope and back again, in the golden way that only they can. The song is called 'I Dream a Highway'.
Oh I dream a highway back to you love
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and rest my soul
I dream a highway back to you
A winding ribbon with a band of gold
A silver vision come and rest my soul
I dream a highway back to you
In my favourite moments of self-determination, this song is exactly how I see this whole wandering routine that I'm on. I'm simply heading my way back to you, I just need to find the ribbon with a band of gold that will lead me there. That's wrong, actually. I have found it and I'm trying now to find you. I must have found it, for I can see it. It's real. In my mind anyway, but I can see it and if I can see it, it's real. A real passage with real moments. A real winding highway.
Its definitely gonna be winding. Yeah, forsure. It has certainly had it's undulations and deviations up until till now and I see it following along that same theme. I want to come around an arching right hand bend, as it pulls up to the top of shallow plateau and smell the rain held in the mist of the low lying clouds, that spread out across my windshield. Above is a sky total in one perfectly consistent shade of grey. Down, off in the forward distance in the valley below me, I will see the vertical trails of a deluge and will wonder if the rains are heading back towards me or away from me. It won't matter, cause either way, I'm heading towards them.
And you. Heading towards you, as I now cross a single-lane, iron suspension bridge, uneasily paved with rough wooden slats. I take it slow, for in my mind, if not in reality, they're bound to be rotting underneath me. When I reach the other side, I drive past the old man, sitting in his faded yellow pick-up and matching faded yellow hat, who had been waiting for me to pass. He shakes his weary head straight at my eyes and grimaces in disgust. Round here they take the bridge far quicker than my cautious crawl, out of consideration for others waiting their turn to go back the other way. I'm sorry to disappoint him. There a particular type of shame experienced when one disappoints a senior north of 60 years of age, but it passes quickly, soothed by the image of you. I'm heading this highway back to you and you are gonna take all of my shames away.
I'll stop for lunch, once I find a place clean enough for my tastes. Yesterday's little food break, still tastes uneasy in my stomach. That'll be the last time I risk a menu like that one again. I'm gonna take a beer or three with my meal today. Totally irresponsible and somewhat dangerous, but I reason that I haven't passed a living soul on this highway for ages and if I do do damage, it'll probably be only to myself. I need the booze. Not enough to get drunk, but just enough to get the feel of a buzz to numb the nervous anticipation of you. For you. You will certainly be there. You have to be. You're the whole reason I'm riding this stretch of tar.
I begin to imagine how you'll look. You'll be tired. I want you to be tired. Tired of what has come before, honest enough to know it and brave enough to let those exhaustions and truths remain you free of games. And standing. I want you standing. I often think about the difference between Standing and Waiting. Standing is what you call waiting for someone who is not and never actually was coming. So, I want you standing, so when I come along. I can rescue and rename your history from simply Standing into Waiting. Waiting for me to ride this highway back to you.
I'm not gonna drive in the dark. This is a daylight highway back to you. At night, I'll pitch a tent over a lamp and a Nick Hornby ditty or crash at a motel when I want to watch the basketball or find another option at the local dive bar, when I want brief accommodation, with a more physically robust companionship. I'll need distraction from life without you. I know you're there at the end of this highway - this highway back to you - but I just don't know how long this ribbon of gold runs until I do reach your silver vision. Until then, I have to play by the rules. By the rules of the road. By the rules of this road. Distraction and distracted is the form those rules demand and I'm fine by that. As long as I can read the distraction. Know that its temporary. Know that, just like an epic basketball finals series, no matter how intensely consuming it becomes, it has to end and there is no expectation on loyalty on either side, for next year, every year, there's another time - another finals series and usually with different combatants.
I'll move back on, at first light. Gone lightly in that dawn light, I will leave nothing behind, as I pull out with Connor Oberst's MOAB blasting through my scratchy speakers. I'm gonna play the same songs over and over as ride. MOAB, Isis, Golden Touch, It Makes No Difference, Kindhearted Woman Blues, Don't You Do It, Show Me A Little Shame, Lover You should Have Come Over, Good Morning Blues, It Hurts Me Too and Careless Love. That's will get me through the first half of the day . The first half of a day, back on the highway to you.
Back to Mine and back to dreaming a highway back to you.
And you. Heading towards you, as I now cross a single-lane, iron suspension bridge, uneasily paved with rough wooden slats. I take it slow, for in my mind, if not in reality, they're bound to be rotting underneath me. When I reach the other side, I drive past the old man, sitting in his faded yellow pick-up and matching faded yellow hat, who had been waiting for me to pass. He shakes his weary head straight at my eyes and grimaces in disgust. Round here they take the bridge far quicker than my cautious crawl, out of consideration for others waiting their turn to go back the other way. I'm sorry to disappoint him. There a particular type of shame experienced when one disappoints a senior north of 60 years of age, but it passes quickly, soothed by the image of you. I'm heading this highway back to you and you are gonna take all of my shames away.
I'll stop for lunch, once I find a place clean enough for my tastes. Yesterday's little food break, still tastes uneasy in my stomach. That'll be the last time I risk a menu like that one again. I'm gonna take a beer or three with my meal today. Totally irresponsible and somewhat dangerous, but I reason that I haven't passed a living soul on this highway for ages and if I do do damage, it'll probably be only to myself. I need the booze. Not enough to get drunk, but just enough to get the feel of a buzz to numb the nervous anticipation of you. For you. You will certainly be there. You have to be. You're the whole reason I'm riding this stretch of tar.
I begin to imagine how you'll look. You'll be tired. I want you to be tired. Tired of what has come before, honest enough to know it and brave enough to let those exhaustions and truths remain you free of games. And standing. I want you standing. I often think about the difference between Standing and Waiting. Standing is what you call waiting for someone who is not and never actually was coming. So, I want you standing, so when I come along. I can rescue and rename your history from simply Standing into Waiting. Waiting for me to ride this highway back to you.
I'm not gonna drive in the dark. This is a daylight highway back to you. At night, I'll pitch a tent over a lamp and a Nick Hornby ditty or crash at a motel when I want to watch the basketball or find another option at the local dive bar, when I want brief accommodation, with a more physically robust companionship. I'll need distraction from life without you. I know you're there at the end of this highway - this highway back to you - but I just don't know how long this ribbon of gold runs until I do reach your silver vision. Until then, I have to play by the rules. By the rules of the road. By the rules of this road. Distraction and distracted is the form those rules demand and I'm fine by that. As long as I can read the distraction. Know that its temporary. Know that, just like an epic basketball finals series, no matter how intensely consuming it becomes, it has to end and there is no expectation on loyalty on either side, for next year, every year, there's another time - another finals series and usually with different combatants.
I'll move back on, at first light. Gone lightly in that dawn light, I will leave nothing behind, as I pull out with Connor Oberst's MOAB blasting through my scratchy speakers. I'm gonna play the same songs over and over as ride. MOAB, Isis, Golden Touch, It Makes No Difference, Kindhearted Woman Blues, Don't You Do It, Show Me A Little Shame, Lover You should Have Come Over, Good Morning Blues, It Hurts Me Too and Careless Love. That's will get me through the first half of the day . The first half of a day, back on the highway to you.
Back to Mine and back to dreaming a highway back to you.
"The bravest people I know, are those not afraid to lose control. The least courageous people I know, I don't actually really know"
