We were heading north out of Tucumcari, NM when I first saw what I’d been looking for, which was… nothing. We’d just spent a couple of days driving on what’s left of “the Mother Road,” aka Route 66, through western Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, and into New Mexico, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but which is far from nothing.

OK, it’s not actually that far from nothing, but what it is is a series of kitschy souvenir shops spaced irregularly across the remains of what was once known as the Main Street of America, but which, like most of the Main Streets in America, has fallen into disrepair. If not for the nostalgia-driven tourists, most of whom seem to be from elsewhere, there would probably be no Route 66 today. Which would be a shame, in that I love both the history and the schmaltz of it. To be able to look back at the cars, the motor courts and the old roadside attractions, and to do it surrounded by other equally wide-eyed folk- including, as we did, a group of Canadian bikers- is a wonderful experience. I want to see more of it, and we will at some point in the not too distant future.

But there, a hundred miles from nowhere, alone on a desolate stretch of road that ran straight ahead as far as the eye can see, I saw what those road warriors of old must have seen driving west on Route 66, the thing that my compatriots of the last couple of days would never see whilst on their nostalgia trip, which was… nothing. Miles and miles of glorious nothing.

Of course, there is no nothing. What I was actually seeing, apart from white stripes on cracked blacktop, was the endless beauty of the northern New Mexico high plains, all red dirt, rocks, mesquite trees, and cactus. All this while driving past at 60 miles an hour until finally we decided to stop just to take in the quiet splendor of it all.

It may not look like much, but being there, no sound but the wind in my hair, eyes wide open to the consonance of it all, it filled me with gladness. Gladness to be alive, to be here in nature, to be here with my love, to have begun this adventure; I knew then that we had chosen the right path.

When Wendy and I began this odyssey, we thought people would think that we’d lost our gourds. Why would we give up our jobs, get rid of much of the detritus of ordinary life, give up security? Why would anyone jerk the rug out from under their own life? Surprisingly, most everyone took it in stride; after all, it wasn’t their lives we were messing around with. Our concerns about other people were mostly masking our own insecurities. It’s scary to take off down a road when you don’t know where it’s going. Ultimately, though, we realized that we had always been on the long cut, that we are all on the long cut, whether we are aware of it or not.

So what does it mean to be on the Long Cut? Well, in one sense, it is the antidote to the world that most of us live in, the world of hurry, hurry, the world of more money, more things, more distractions, and more stress. We tend to behave as though our lives are dictated by the pressures of living this American life. Today’s America finds us working harder for fewer rewards, trading our time and life energy for a dream, largely unfulfilled, of being as well off as the people we see on TV. And at the cost of our health, our families, our very lives. The Long Cut is the antithesis of that. But it is also a good deal more.

It is common wisdom that one should stop and take a huff of the roses. We all know that family and friends are important, even though that knowledge may come at a distance. If we didn’t already know, a quick read of the obituaries will remind us that life is short. Those of us who are not Hindus, Jainists, Buddhists, or Sikhs are fairly sure that we only live once. Platitudes aside, all of these things are true, and though we tend not to give these ideas too much brain space, we mostly know it. To be on the Long Cut is to live it.

In another sense, the Long Cut stands opposed to the shortcut. To take a shortcut is, often, to fail to be thorough, to do a shoddy job. In this sense, the Long Cut would be to roll your sleeves up and get to the real work of living, to do things the right way. Yes, it might be more difficult, it might take longer, but the work will prove to be its own reward. And that’s the thing; as I said earlier, we are all on the Long Cut. Our lives are short and singular, our task is to live it to the fullest, and though it may seem difficult to achieve, it is our responsibility to live it the best we can.

So we are driving down the backroads, taking in the scenery. We are stopping to sniff the air, and we’re going where our nose takes us. We are doing the work of living. And of creating, which is, perhaps, the best response to life that we can have. More about that later.

STAY TUNED.