Writing from the Road

Sam Nelson
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Listen. I’m about to tell you what I’m doing for the next few months. But let’s not call it a journey or a quest or a statement. It’s not some kind of a kinesthetic manifesto of the things I believe. It’s just what I’m doing for the next few months, or longer. This is what I’m doing: I’m getting in my car and driving. I’m writing wherever I stop. My horse is a 2000 Subaru with almost 200,000 miles on it. It’s been hit multiple times. A bus driver having a stroke hit it last year. It looks like shit. It has little reason to still be running except my dad is a natural mechanic (and persistent and generous).

I packed my car with these things: a box of English language usage books, a tent, a sleeping bag, a few pounds of oatmeal, eighty granola bars, a full-tang machete, iodine tablets, a water filter, a file box, a thousand sheets of loose-leaf paper, a toolbox, a folding desk, a folding chair, a piece of 2x2 birch plywood, a flip phone, a road atlas, a laptop, a camping stove, a coffee filter, old cd’s, several composition notebooks, a box of favorite pens, and an assortment of other things I’m not sure I need.

My goal: I’m not sure. I’d like to see more of this continent. I’d like to spend more time in the woods, where I feel more human. I’d like to traipse around new places like parks in Utah and California and Canada. I’d like to return to favorite places like New Orleans and central Mexico. I’d like to see friends who I haven’t seen in too long. I’d like to lay the groundwork for a book. I’d like to write, write, write. I’d like to do what I want to do, and I feel I have both the rare privilege and right to do it.

I don’t know if I’ll write anything worthy of a wide audience. Failure is possible. But I believe in process, not product. Writing and life are reflexive like that. I believe that language and freedom are good friends, and I believe my ability to think for myself — and understand my relative place in the world — depends on that friendship. I plan to explore that as I go.

I had been teaching for eight years, and I loved it — the kids, the families, the communities. Black and Latino Communities and Black and Latino Arts have gifted countless times in my life, they’ve helped make me who I am, and I won’t forget that when I write. At some point — and I know many teachers feel this way — I felt like I was giving away too much of myself to employers (but not the communities; I’m still in debt to them). I’m stubbornly independent, and there are things I fiercely protect as my own: my intellect, my time, my energy. I’ll share them, but I won’t give them away anymore; they’re coming with me on the road too, packed snug against the folding desk in the backseat.

Thanks to everyone supporting me and helping me as I go. I’ve worked hard for this opportunity, but I couldn’t do it without the past and future generosity of friends and strangers.

If you’d like to learn more, feel free to message me. Cheers.

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    Sam Nelson

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