How the Road Began
“Everyone has their unique journey, the story of their lives. If no one has told you before, your story is important, your story matters, and here’s part of mine.”
This is the culmination of many ideas and iterations and by design will continue to evolve and adapt just as I do and maybe beyond outside of myself. For a long time now, I’ve wanted to tell stories, the stories of myself, friends and family, and even the stories of complete strangers. What is life, if not a journey of individual and interconnected stories, linking generations and continents of people. Within the stories we tell are the shared and un-shared experiences, the full spectrum of the human experience, full of thoughts, emotions, beliefs and visions. By listening to the stories of others, you can gain insightful wisdom and knowledge from the experience of someone else with many or fewer years of life than you. Listening to others can be a bridge in difficult times, even if one has a difference in opinions or beliefs. You don’t have to agree with someone to hear what they have to say. The nature of being heard, follows along the path of constructive progression. By listening to others, you will learn that each of us has a story to tell, and you will hopefully be reminded that you are included in that sentiment. Just as others have a voice, so do you, even if it’s not as loud as others.
I remember writing an Instagram post on my personal page back in 2017. It was a post where I was trying to describe or explain part of my internal mechanism. This driving force, that has usually kept me moving forward during times when it was difficult to do so…
In some ways however, it has also made it difficult to choose and stick to one exact calling. Instead of just being in the moment and present, able to take things on as they come, you become paralyzed in viewing or anticipating the outcomes of your decisions. It’s the fear of choosing the wrong thing, the wrong job, or the wrong person, etc., and reaping the consequences of that action. Of course, with age, life experience, and hopefully wisdom you will also understand the consequences of not choosing as well. Not deciding can also cause regret, but this kind is worse as you may always wonder “what if?”
I’m sure I could delve deeper on this topic, but for the here and now, this is an introduction of what “The Road Beckons” is, and how it began. In 2018 I moved away from the west coast of the United States. I was born in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County and lived several years in Altadena, Camarillo, and Santa Barbara. However, I truly grew up in the Pacific Northwest, outside of Seattle, WA. In 2012 I took the journey back to LA county, and lived in Pasadena, CA for six years. It was there in Pasadena, towards the end of my stay, when things changed. “The Great Exodus” if you will, as many others have experienced and gone through their own versions. The “California Dream”, sold to so many, which kept me motivated and moving forward, was turning into a nightmare. Despite my best efforts, life was calling me to a new purpose, a new path forward. The saying that your new life will cost you your old, is true.
Exhausted, defeated, and just trying to survive, is when you tend to make a decision that is sometimes outside the realm of reason and understanding for others. For myself, it was for the chance of a new beginning, the chance of having a shot at whatever remains of the American Dream, it was the chance to return to something older, something rooted somewhere in time. That story is one for another day, but it was this journey that sparked the importance of wanting to tell the story of my own journey. To document through photos and videography the literal “Road to Austin”, and the stops I would make along the way. I never knew if I would ever want to share this journey, or even do anything with the footage. But I knew that whatever was happening, or going to happen, was going to be important, even if only to me, because it was going to be the story of the journey of my life. It was one step that forced me out of my comfort zone, and as a deeply introverted person, holding a camera up in public, was exactly what I needed to do.
There’s nothing like driving thousands of miles across the country, to a destination you’ve never been to. Not just to visit on vacation, but to start a new life there. Since that journey to Austin, TX, I’ve taken many others. It’s the culmination of those journeys, those experiences, and subsequentially the documentation of those journeys in various ways, which finally caused myself to search for the right medium where I could begin to share them with others. What is life, without being able to share it with others. Maybe it’s the people you care about, close friends and family, but maybe there’s a chance that you could share it with a stranger and have it resonate with them as well. Then maybe, you are no longer strangers, maybe then you have created a bridge or a road, not just to locations, but to people. For me, it is no longer about destinations, it is about the overall journey of life. Many places, many cultures, and many people. As a deeply nomadic person, I know that home is wherever you feel welcomed, wherever you have people that you love and care about. I know that as the journey continues, as the road beckons, I shall answer the call. I hope that you’ll join me, and I hope that you’ll embrace your own journey as well and be willing to take a chance on yourself and whatever endeavors that really speak to you. - G. R. L. F.
“Ever have the feeling like you’re just getting started when others are packing up? Always searching, adventure always calling, new places waiting for exploration, makes it hard to be tethered in one place, overwhelmed with different paths to take, always moving… ”