Wanderlust – The Posted Past

No one can quite pin down the origin of April Fool’s Day. One theory traces it to the shift from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, and New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1. Those who merrily celebrated the old date were mocked for their foolishness. Other evidence points to the Roman festival of Hilaria at the end of March, when people dressed in disguises and merriment was mandatory. A third argument simply blames the weather. Spring being notoriously unreliable, the fool is the farmer who trusts an early warm day.

Every court kept a fool, the one person licensed to speak the subtext. Under cover of bells and absurdity, they told the king what the courtiers would never. They didn’t matter and slipped away deftly, so they got away with it.

Shakespeare’s fools still deliver their wisdom from the stage. Touchstone sees everyone clearly in As You Like It. Feste in Twelfth Night diagnoses each character’s self-deception with a song. The Fool’s detachment is not ignorance; their folly is not fantasy. It is practical sense and functional freedom. The fool is often the one who tells the full tale as we go.

Let’s not forget all the fun in foolishness. Duckboy Cards gave us these guffaws from Hamilton Montana in the late 20th century.

In the Tarot, the Fool is the zero card, about to step off a cliff with a small satchel. The Fool’s journey is curious, flexible, and nonlinear, akin to the Buddhist beginner’s mind with the great powers of not-knowing.

The disciple Paul wrote that followers were fools for Christ, who knew that worldly measures were the real absurdities. Yurodivye, the holy fool in Russian Orthodox culture, courted ridicule and apparent madness as a form of spiritual freedom.

The Feast of Fools, celebrated across Europe in medieval centuries, inverted the church hierarchy for a day. Junior clergy elected a mock bishop and sacred ritual was gently parodied. The highest were made low for a day. The Church tolerated it for centuries, perhaps because it understood the release it provided.

In each of these traditions, foolishness is not failure. The Fool observes with a keen eye, collects information and assets, plays his cards carefully, and keeps his palm open.

Just such a jester has been riding alongside us this season. In Lucky Us, we find that only a fool pursues luck outright. In Spring Cleaning, earth itself foolishly hopes despite all evidence of winter. In Healing Ward, nurses stringing crepe paper garlands for a room full of wounded men, and show us the beautiful absurdity of insisting on Christmas.

My thanks to you fellow fools who keep reading. Only you know why!

To Read More

Shakespeare’s Fools — All the fools’ best lines from the Folger Library

Picasso’s Rose Period — From 1904–1906, Picasso absorbed French culture in warm pink and orange light

The Feast of Fools — A matter of great Catholic controversy still

The Tarot Fool — The British Museum’s collection of vintage Tarot cards

April Fool’s Day — Museum of Hoaxes theorizes the origins of the holiday

Unlike typical postcards that showcase famous landmarks or bustling cityscapes, this image offers a mystery. There are no identifying features, no tourist attractions, no clues as to its specific location. It’s a departure from the usual, instead inviting the viewer to project their own interpretations and desires onto the scene. This anonymity makes the unsent postcard all the more powerful, transforming it from a specific place into a universal symbol of journey and possibility.

The mountain silhouette ahead, is its conical shape a barrier or a beacon? The viewer decides. The road leading to this natural monument becomes a metaphor for life’s journey – full of twists and turns, all leading towards some distant, often unclear destination.

In a word, it’s wanderlust, that inexplicable urge to explore the unknown. In our modern world, where much of the globe has been mapped and catalogued, this image from the past reminds us that there are always frontiers to be explored – if not in the physical realm, then certainly within ourselves.

Traveling Companions

The open road has long been a symbol of freedom and possibility in literature, music, and popular culture. It represents escape from the mundane, a chance to shed the skin of our daily lives and reinvent ourselves. On the road, we are no longer defined by our jobs, our relationships, or our past mistakes. We become travelers, observers, seekers – each mile putting distance between who we were and who we might become.

In Robert Frost’s 1916 poem “The Road Not Taken,” the diverging paths in a yellow wood become a powerful metaphor for life choices and the allure of the less traveled route. Moving beyond familiar literary references like Kerouac, Steinbeck, and films like Easy Rider, we can find the open road in many stories across different eras.

Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God uses the road as a symbol of Janie’s journey towards self-discovery and independence, as she travels through Florida in search of her own voice and identity.

Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir Wild chronicles her solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, using the physical journey as a means to process grief and reclaim her life after personal tragedy.

Tracy Chapman’s 1988 song “Fast Car” portrays the open road as both an escape from poverty and a path to a better life, highlighting the complex relationship between freedom and responsibility. The recent popular cover proves our point about the enduring metaphor (and Chapman’s empathetic genius).

Chloé Zhao’s 2020 film “Nomadland” explores the lives of modern nomads traversing America’s highways, presenting the open road as both a refuge from economic hardship and a space for forming unconventional communities.

The open road represents more than just physical movement in these examples. It’s a space of possibility, where identities can be shed and remade, where the constraints of society fall away, and where one can confront the self in all its complexity. These works, created by diverse voices across different time periods, show the enduring power of the road as a symbol of freedom, self-discovery, and transformation.

Heading Inward

This photograph also hints at the solitude and introspection that often accompany such journeys. There are no people visible, no signs of civilization beyond the road itself. It’s a reminder that true exploration – whether of the world or of oneself – often requires a willingness to be alone with one’s thoughts, to embrace the silence and see what emerges from within.

In that silence, in the space between heartbeats, we find the opportunity to think differently. Away from the noise and distractions of our usual environments, our minds are free to wander new paths, to make connections we might never have seen before. The mountain and the road challenge us to question our assumptions, to look at problems from new angles, to dream bigger dreams.

There’s a healing quality to such landscapes. The vastness of nature has a way of putting our problems into perspective, of reminding us that we are part of something much larger than ourselves. In geological time, up against that ancient mountain, our individual worries can seem trivial. But this realization can be profoundly liberating, too. It puts us in sync with our time here on earth, and gives us permission to let go of the things that no longer serve us, to forgive ourselves and others, and to keep going.

The road in the image doesn’t reveal its final destination. It curves out of sight, leaving us to wonder what lies beyond. This uncertainty is both thrilling and terrifying – much like life itself. It’s an invitation to embrace the unknown, to find joy in the journey rather than fixating on the destination.

As we contemplate this scene, we might feel our hearts stirring with a mixture of emotions: longing, excitement, perhaps a touch of fear. The world is full of beauty and mystery, waiting to be discovered by those brave enough to venture beyond their comfort zones.

It challenges us to ask ourselves: What mountains do we need to climb? What roads are we yearning to explore? What parts of ourselves have we left unexplored, and what might we find if we dare to look?

Outbound Imagination

In the end, the power of this image lies in its ability to spark our imagination, to awaken the dormant adventurer within each of us. It reminds us that every day is an opportunity to begin anew, to set out on a journey of discovery – whether that journey takes us to distant lands or deeper into our own hearts and minds.

As the sun sets behind the mountain, casting long shadows across the landscape, we are left with room to wonder and wander. The road awaits, ready to carry us towards new horizons, new understandings, and perhaps, towards unexpected versions of ourselves.