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Now, it was my turn to nod. What else could I say? I was leaving for six months, and as
she walked out and back downstairs, I could only hope that she would still be there when I
returned. Because part of me wanted to say yes to that adventure with her. The only prob-
lem was that every time I was home, I couldn't help but dream of where I might go next.
But before I went anywhere, I needed to find a tank of gas. I knew gas would probably
be my greatest challenge. Food and water are actually easier to come by than most people
realize, and if worst came to worst, I could always sleep in the sidecar of Kindness One, but
the one thing that could definitely stall my journey on any given day, in any given location,
was a lack of gas.
Lina might have called it running, but as I stepped outside my house and onto the street,
the energy that coursed through me spoke to a far different word: freedom. The freedom
of not knowing what lay ahead, whom I might meet, whom I might help, and the shocking
realization that this truly outlandish idea was about to become reality.
I headed to Hollywood Boulevard, not far from where I had first seen the homeless man
who had inspired the light-bulb moment in the first place, but he was nowhere to be found.
Instead, I found far less generous people. Maybe they had just never seen the sign, “Kind-
ness is the best medicine.”
The first people I approached were two young men sporting fedora hats and what looked
like their sister's jeans.
“Dude,” the taller of the two admonished me, “You need to stop dreaming. Go home.
You're wasting my time and your time.”
Really, dude ? You're wearing a fedora hat in the middle of summer. But I moved on,
finding a young couple, walking with two Louis Vuitton shopping bags in hand. There you
go, I thought, they've already opened their wallets today—and it looked like some pretty
sizable wallets. Maybe they will open them to me.
“Sorry,” they replied, assuming I was begging for money, which at this point, I kind of
was. “We don't have anything.”
Sadly, I too have made the same reply to a homeless person on the street, refusing to
help when I knew that I could.
The next guy I asked appeared to be a tourist, or at least I hoped he was, as he was in the
middle of paying Iron Man for a photo. Not the real Iron Man, just one of the many strug-
gling actors who dress up in character and roam Hollywood Boulevard. Once the photo op
was done, I explained my journey.
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