VERONICA KUFFEL

Departure Log 9:

The Longest Miles – Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona, AZ

NOVEMBER 8-11

“Across the Universe” – The Beatles, 1970

“Jai guru deva, om.” That’s a phrase repeated throughout The Beatles’ hit, “Across the Universe.” I’m a little humiliated to say I would mumble through it until writing this article and choosing the song. 

There’s a lot of meaning in that line. At face level, it’s Sanskrit, translating to “Glory to the shining remover of darkness,” “Victory to God Divine,” “Hail to the heavenly teacher,” and other interpretations.

Some take the song as addressing life’s overall struggles. Some see it as a drug trip. With my own interpretation, I could probably go on for hours. But I’ll take it from the perspective of my trip.

The next two days were a light blur. I drove from Page to a dispersed campsite in the Coconino National Forest, about thirty minutes north of Flagstaff. The next day, Walie chugged along the mountainside road leading to the city.

Parts of that drive kind of summarized the trip. The early darkness of the trees resembled the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was pleasantly surprised to see green in the Southwest, but there were splashes of its classic orange and yellow desert among cliffside conifers.

In the last hour, I’m not going to tell you I reflected on the trip. It all happened so fast I hadn’t the time nor energy. Instead, I drove through the towns of Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and Sedona and listened to The Beatles and Mac Miller. But mostly The Beatles. I mumbled the bridge to “Across the Universe” over and over.

“Jai guru deva, om.”

I knew the road would be a teacher, my personal guru deva. The people I met, the places I visited and the pursuit of travel would be the shining remover of darkness. My last miles would prove to be the victory to god divine. And maybe none of that is true.

The guru deva, the heavenly teacher, may be experience. Or maybe, the experience is itself and I am the shiny remover of darkness, dissecting everything that’s happened and finding the good and valuable.

God, I sound like Jules from Pulp Fiction. To that point, maybe the road is the briefcase and the answer is hidden inside it.

So, maybe like “jai guru deva, om,” I’ll never completely understand what the trip meant to me. But it did teach me one discernible thing.

“Nothing’s gonna change my world.”

I went on this adventure because I thought there was something missing in my life. Something that living in a van and traveling would reveal to me. I learned a lot, but I didn’t change. The unhappiness and anxiety I feel, it’s the same as when I started. Except now, I have a van.

I think you need to go on these trips to realize they don’t fulfill you. People get caught up in planning these trips and living for two weeks out of the year. And don’t get me wrong, it’s good to get out. But that’s not fulfilling. That’s not living.

This adventure that everyone craves? There were so many times I wished to be in my own apartment with a cup of tea and a book, waiting for the weekend to end and work to start.

Fulfillment may start with these adventures, but it’s not the end of it. It merely opens your eyes. All of it–adventures, or lack thereof–is life. Happiness has pretty minimal requirements.

I’m not a scientist, but I’m a reader. So if you can take one more culture reference, here’s Tolstoy’s take on the pursuit of happiness:

“I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour — such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps. What more could the heart of a man desire?”

Simplicity.

So, I’m passing downtown Phoenix. I’m pulling into the Ahwatukee Foothills and I’m feeling that soft dry heat of fall. I don’t reflect. I don’t piece together how I’ve changed and I don’t ask myself if I’m happy. I don’t try to find meaning in the Beatles.

I turned the key and the ignition stopped in my grandparents’ driveway. I sat back and I hummed the song.