The weight of my pack was shocking. So was the emptiness of the Greyhound station in Charleston, West Virginia. Maybe the fact that this was no longer a hypothetical journey had something to do with the way both seemed so prescient—the emptiness and the fullness.
Hi Holly! I just stumbled across this piece (thanks to Notes), and I really enjoy your writing. Although it’s a bit different than the bus, I took the train from LA to Seattle at a time in my life when I really needed to get away and just keep moving (if that makes sense), so a lot of this resonated with me. Thank you! I’m looking forward to reading more of your work!
“Didn’t I want to engage? To learn more about this at once vast and tiny place we all shared? I closed my notebook and smiled at the guy with the Bible.” What a perfect sequence of sentences—feeling the purpose, the vaster meaning and the internal conflict all at once. Imagining you and the wide-open road at 30 years young feels so right and enlivening.
Oct 4, 2023·edited Oct 4, 2023Liked by Holly Starley
Holly I just love your writing. I especially love that you set aside your upbringing, stretched yourself, and decided to talk with Bible-boy., knowing he could have been a thumper out to convert you. Life is too short to ignore the people around us. I am sometimes so painfully introverted that I am pretty sure I would NOT have talked with him...and I'm a Bible reader! I love your boldness...to do all that you are doing. And you lived in Seattle, just like I did (I'm now living on Vancouver Island). I can wait to see where you go next!
This was great. Your observations, your descriptions, and the story itself.
Your writing is beautiful.
I especially liked this —-
“Now, the guy on the bus a few rows ahead of me kept looking back—casual like, in that way of using one’s gaze like a fly fishing lure, tossing it back and leaving it there for just a moment in hopes the target will see the glint of an iris. If he tossed it just right, I'd glance up, and our eyes would lock, reeling me into the conversation he hoped to have.“
—- that was such a wonderful way to describe that moment.
Well, I failed to locate even one single shoe. That, however, will not make me give up the quest. Off to Pinedale, WY, in a couple of weeks for the month of September; and I’m hopeful for success.
That said, there is a find that I have seen before but not to this degree. Walking along the Beaverhead River every early morning, we would pass over a bridge. A telephone line crosses the river about 25 feet from the bridge. The river is about 15 yards wide. There we see many shoes, tied together and somehow thrown, tossed, or inched down the line.
Over the years more shoes have been added, but now I wonder if there is a story behind them (or if it’s all just for the fun of it).
A friend is going back to Dillon in September, and she’s going to take a photo which I will send to you.
So, it’s not the same, I know, as the one shoe….but now it has me thinking. Definitely I’m on the track for find some in WY.
Keep on having life’s adventures. We’re enjoying following you!
Hi Holly! I just stumbled across this piece (thanks to Notes), and I really enjoy your writing. Although it’s a bit different than the bus, I took the train from LA to Seattle at a time in my life when I really needed to get away and just keep moving (if that makes sense), so a lot of this resonated with me. Thank you! I’m looking forward to reading more of your work!
“Didn’t I want to engage? To learn more about this at once vast and tiny place we all shared? I closed my notebook and smiled at the guy with the Bible.” What a perfect sequence of sentences—feeling the purpose, the vaster meaning and the internal conflict all at once. Imagining you and the wide-open road at 30 years young feels so right and enlivening.
Glad you pointed the way back to the beginning, I don't think we'd connected when this dropped... xo
Holly I just love your writing. I especially love that you set aside your upbringing, stretched yourself, and decided to talk with Bible-boy., knowing he could have been a thumper out to convert you. Life is too short to ignore the people around us. I am sometimes so painfully introverted that I am pretty sure I would NOT have talked with him...and I'm a Bible reader! I love your boldness...to do all that you are doing. And you lived in Seattle, just like I did (I'm now living on Vancouver Island). I can wait to see where you go next!
This was great. Your observations, your descriptions, and the story itself.
Your writing is beautiful.
I especially liked this —-
“Now, the guy on the bus a few rows ahead of me kept looking back—casual like, in that way of using one’s gaze like a fly fishing lure, tossing it back and leaving it there for just a moment in hopes the target will see the glint of an iris. If he tossed it just right, I'd glance up, and our eyes would lock, reeling me into the conversation he hoped to have.“
—- that was such a wonderful way to describe that moment.
Very fascinated to read your story and the way you told the story is outstanding 👏
Hi, Holly,
Well, I failed to locate even one single shoe. That, however, will not make me give up the quest. Off to Pinedale, WY, in a couple of weeks for the month of September; and I’m hopeful for success.
That said, there is a find that I have seen before but not to this degree. Walking along the Beaverhead River every early morning, we would pass over a bridge. A telephone line crosses the river about 25 feet from the bridge. The river is about 15 yards wide. There we see many shoes, tied together and somehow thrown, tossed, or inched down the line.
Over the years more shoes have been added, but now I wonder if there is a story behind them (or if it’s all just for the fun of it).
A friend is going back to Dillon in September, and she’s going to take a photo which I will send to you.
So, it’s not the same, I know, as the one shoe….but now it has me thinking. Definitely I’m on the track for find some in WY.
Keep on having life’s adventures. We’re enjoying following you!
Brenda
Fantastic! Sucked me right in!
Great writing, Holly! I was right with you on that Greyhound bus!
While I read this, I feel your freedom, which lightens my own heart. Thank you!