“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?” Jack Kerouac, On the Road
By: Gabriela Yareliz
Don’t worry. I won’t start talking about how I saw God on the road to Utah or how I tried to convince someone of their beauty à la Kerouac. This is my version. The version of a twenty-something year old looking at clouds through her car window thinking of fears she wants to vanish and a future she wants to rule.
Greetings from New Orleans! We are on the road, again. We made a lovely stop at the New Orleans’s French Quarter. It is a good 100 F degrees, and it felt like even the colorful shutters on the New Orleans’s buildings were melting. I noticed an absence of humans on Bourbon Street. I think New York has ruined me because now every city feels underpopulated and deserted as if an apocalypse happened. I end up wondering, “Where are all the people?”
The road is slightly bumpy, and we continue to cross over bridges with blue water and green marshes below.
There is so much to see and discover in this world. And while some places may be similar or somehow familiar, what makes them different is the people who live there. Us and our stories. We make places unique and special.
Humans and love, it makes things different; it transforms; it creates. This fact makes me wonder, why do we fear death so much? As some famous rapper says, we don’t die if our legacy is alive. We should fear being silent and not being who we want to be more than someday passing…
My toenails are pink, and they are glittery like the traffic outside. I am off to keep daydreaming and staring out of my window at the lovely Louisiana that is just outside.
“‘I just won’t sleep,’ I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road
GABRIELA YARELIZ 
Oh to be a twenty-something on a road trip with pink toenails again:). Enjoy!
Thank you!