A Journey Doesn't Tell You Its Name

Before each journey, Rusty burns the journal number and date into the leather cover. The title waits until the trip is over, when the miles have earned a name.

Folks are forever wanting to know where I was headed.

Reckon that's a fair enough question.

Usually I can answer it before I leave.

North.

High country.

River country.

Wherever my boots happen to point after that.

Easy enough.

Before I pull out of the driveway, I heat up the old wood-burning iron and mark a fresh journal.

Journal number.

The month I leave.

Maybe the first day's date if I'm feeling organized.

Those are things I know.

Harder question is what the trip's going to be called.

Never have known that beforehand.

Couldn't if I tried.

A fellow might set out thinking he's headed for high country and come home remembering nothing but rain.

Or think he's spending a week learning a river only to discover he spent seven days learning patience.

Funny how that works.

There's always an empty place waiting on the cover.

Wouldn't seem right to fill it in before I left.

A journey's got to earn its name.

Sometimes that takes a week.

Sometimes it takes the whole drive home before the right words finally settle in.

By then the gear's drying.

The truck's unpacked.

The mud's mostly swept out of the floorboards.

I heat up that old iron one more time.

Then I burn the title into the leather.

Not because it sounds adventurous.

Because, by then, I finally know what the journey was really about.

Folks figure the title tells them where I went.

Most of the time it tells me what I brought back.

That's not always the same thing.

— Rusty Pickett