"I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD."

When I said I wanted to travel when I got older, I didn't necessarily mean Greyhound buses and forty dollar taxi-cabs. But it's moving, isn't it? Isn't that what we need to do? Move?

I finished my last exam at 12:25 this afternoon. 25 minutes after it began. Studying pays off.

My friend drove me to the Charlotte Greyhound bus station this afternoon and I found myself waiting amongst a large group of soldiers who were headed to New York. I finished up Into the Wild and watched people as they ate mini-pizzas and spilled colas on the floor. I kept to myself. Lately a lot of people have been telling me that I need to make more of an effort to meet people. It's scary. I don't like putting myself out there.

As much as I didn't like the main character in Into the Wild, I liked what he stood for. He had this grandiose idea that he could kill this megabeast inside his soul that was a slave to the corporate world. He was arrogant and rash and ill-prepared. But it's hard to argue that he wasn't passionate. Passionate and adventurous and reckless.

I was sitting on the bus and made a conscious effort to sit in a seat caddy-cornered from this mountain man. The term "mountain-man" isn't really fair. Most time it conjures up an image of a man with fur pelts and a full beard with leathery skin and squinty eyes. However, I just use the term when talking about disheveled guys with scruff. This guy was no different. He had a thick beard, ski cap, a couple of t-shirts and jackets layered one over the other, some khakis and hiking boots. Dirty fingernails. Dirty, disgusting fingernails. He was reading The Republic by Plato and eating Clif Bars. Just like every other guy on App State's campus. But he seemed nice.

And he was really, really good looking.

He struck up conversation, but his voice was suspiciously low. A mumble almost. We talked about our final destinations and the plans we had upon arriving home. I discovered he had simply been traveling by bus for the past several days. I asked if there was any particular place he wanted to stop and he just laughed. He talked about how he would be spending time with a friend in Asheville for a few days before heading on to Atlanta to find a job. His plans weren't definite. He was wandering.

He asked me where I was headed and if I liked living in Indianapolis. My responses just sounded chirpy. I was nervous to be talking with someone I didn't know. Critiques of my sentences kept running through my head and I was fully aware of every movement my body made. On the other hand, he seemed really calm. I envy people like that. He introduced himself as Shawn (Sean? Shaun? I'll never know.) and preceded to give one of the wimpiest handshakes I've ever come across. That or maybe I just gripped his hand too tightly.

Our conversation was interrupted when the older gentleman directly in front of me, who was reading Breaking Dawn, reclined his chair all the way back forcing me to scoot closer to the window. Every so often the mountain-man and I caught each other's eyes, but the man in front of me refused to budge, squashing all hopes of finishing a pleasant conversation. I had planned on saying something along the lines of, "Good luck in Atlanta!" when we got off the bus, but my taxi was waiting for me.

So here I sit, five hours until I come home, wondering his last name, trying to draw similiarities between Shawn's (Sean's? Shaun's? I'll never know.) life and that of Chris McCandless, glad that I finally talked to someone. People are now flooding into the lobby which means it's time to check my bags. Perhaps I'll have another opportunity to talk to someone else. But two people in one day? Let's not get carried away.


"On the other side of the page, which was blank, McCandless penned a brief adios" 'I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!'
Then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had sewn for him and slipped into unconsciousness. He probably died on August 18, 112 days after he'd walked into the wild, 19 days before 6 Alaskans would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.
One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave, beatific farewell. He face was horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours--because he was so young, because he was so alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down--it's not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God."