Dear Abby,
Some of the last words I said to you right before you left for New York were, “Don’t forget your cup!” You looked at me like I was crazy and then I explained that I was referencing a hobo cup and you rolled your eyes.
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.
What I didn’t explain was from where, in my strange way of alluding to things, the idea of carrying a hobo cup came. In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” Ford Prefect tells Arthur Dent that Earth is being destroyed to make way for an intergalactic superhighway. This comes at the same time that the English government is destroying Arthur’s house to make room for a thruway. Luckily, Ford isn’t from Earth and is actually a hitchhiking alien. He tells Arthur to grab his towel and hold on.
They are picked up by a spaceship just as Earth is destroyed. Luckily, Arthur and Ford have their towels. Which may seem like a strange thing to consider lucky, but when one considers the fact that if you have the composure to make sure you always have your towel with you, then you’re probably going to be just fine. As the story continues, Ford gets Arthur in many a tight spot. Having watched everything he knew be destroyed, you can imagine how distraught Arthur was. He soon begins to find comfort in knowing where his towel is and learns why it was so important for him to have it with him.
I’m sure that Douglas Adams randomly picked a towel as it seemed like something most people don’t travel with and would seem strange. But the idea is solid. Realizing that almost everything is strange and out of your control can drive a person insane. Finding one thing that is ordinary and completely under your control can help make sense of everything.
And that’s what I was really trying to say.
A few weeks back I wrote about traveling without an exact destination or plan. Mom mentioned to me that that idea scared her intensely. I already knew this as I grew up with her itineraries and hearing her freak out in big cities. I also personally knew what that fear felt like as I had experienced it for the first 20 or so years of my life. I am familiar with what it means to move across the world to a new place, new people. Sometimes having one thing that you can hold onto and have under your control helps make you feel like everything is going to be just fine. Unfortunately, most of what happens around us is so outside of our control that worrying or even planning for it is pointless.
Life is just one big hobo trip.
I think it’s important that you understand how proud KB and I are of you. While you were going to school, there were few days that passed that I didn’t tell someone about my little sister who was going to law school in New York. It may seem like an ordinary feat, that of graduating from law school because you know so many people who have, but to the rest of us it’s a huge fucking deal. You set out three years ago with a sole purpose. You put in the hours, the heartache and came out the other side with exactly what you set out to acquire. There’s few people who can say that they have done that. As your big brother, I hope you know that I look up to you and what you have accomplished.
In many ways I envy where you are in your life. There is nothing concrete about your situation or where you are. Hell, you just left SG and as far as I know you still don’t have a place to live at the end of the week when mom comes home. Sure it’s scary, but right now you get to make so many decisions because nothing is set in stone, nothing has been decided for you. You are standing at the edge looking down at what you want and all you have to do is jump and hope that you hit where you wanted to.
The image at the top of this post letter is the cover to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” It happens to be some of the best advice I’ve ever read. Don’t panic! Just make sure you know where your hobo cup is and keep moving forward. You may end up being forced to listen to some Vogon poetry right before being thrown out of an airlock. But don’t let that get you down. It doesn’t matter if you are thrown out of an airlock as long as you don’t die when it happens.
So, what’s the moral? Don’t panic, keep your hobo cup close just in case you are in need of some change and everything will be just fine.
Love,
Moose K. Nuckler