Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it

Host: The sun hung low over a dusty plain, spilling amber light across the edges of a worn-down gas station that seemed to be waiting for its own end. The sign squeaked in the wind, a tinny, lonely sound. Dust devils swirled lazily on the road, carrying the scent of oil, earth, and distant thunder.

Inside, the small diner beside the station hummed with a flickering fluorescent light. The coffee pot hissed, a radio played an old folk tune, and somewhere behind the counter, a man coughed in rhythm with the static.

Jack sat in a cracked vinyl booth, sleeves rolled up, his hands stained with grease. He looked like a man halfway between leaving and staying — grey eyes scanning the horizon through the dusty window, cigarette smoke curling upward like questions without answers.

Jeeny walked in, brushing sand from her coat, her hair tangled from the wind. She slid into the booth opposite him without a word, setting down a notebook full of bent pages and road-worn scribbles.

They sat for a moment in silence, letting the hum of the radio fill the space between them. Then she spoke — softly, but with that familiar spark in her voice.

Jeeny: “Woody Guthrie said it best, didn’t he? ‘Life’s got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.’”

Jack: “Yeah, well, Woody never had a mortgage or a middle manager breathing down his neck. It’s easy to say ride with it when you’re living out of a guitar case.”

Host: Jeeny smiled — not mockingly, but with that quiet sadness reserved for people who’ve stopped believing in the wild.

Jeeny: “You think that’s all he meant? He wasn’t talking about drifting. He was talking about adapting — about not letting your own notions strangle you. Life changes. People change. The trick is not getting stuck.”

Jack: “Change is overrated. It’s just a polite word for losing things you thought you could count on.”

Host: The waitress, old and slow-moving, poured more coffee into their cups, the steam rising like a soft curtain between their faces. Jeeny’s eyes followed it, lost in thought.

Jeeny: “You really think that, Jack? That change is just loss?”

Jack: “What else could it be? You wake up one day and realize you’re not the person you were — and half the time, you don’t like who you’ve become. Everyone says it’s growth, but it feels more like erosion.”

Host: The radio crackled — an old recording of Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” faded in, scratchy but defiant. It filled the diner with ghosts of open fields, dusty highways, and people who kept walking even when the world told them to stop.

Jeeny leaned forward, her hands clasped, her voice firm now.

Jeeny: “Erosion can make valleys, Jack. It shapes things. Maybe the loss isn’t the problem — maybe it’s what you do with it. Guthrie wasn’t afraid of losing his ground because he knew there’d always be more road.”

Jack: “Roads run out too. You just don’t see it until the end.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s why you keep moving — to see what’s beyond the last signpost.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He looked out the window at the endless stretch of road, where the heat shimmered and the asphalt looked like it might melt into memory.

Jack: “You sound like a poet who’s never had a day go wrong.”

Jeeny: laughs quietly “You think poets don’t live through hell? Guthrie rode boxcars through the Great Depression. He sang for people who had nothing but hunger and dust. But he kept singing, Jack. He changed with every mile because not changing meant dying.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flickered — just briefly — like a spark catching on old kindling.

Jack: “And what if I’m tired of changing? Tired of the constant patchwork? Every year it’s something new — jobs, rules, even the way people talk. I miss when life made sense.”

Jeeny: “When did it ever?”

Host: The silence that followed was long and heavy, like the pause between thunder and rain. Jack didn’t answer — not because he didn’t have words, but because he knew she was right.

Jeeny reached across the table, tracing a finger along the edge of his coffee cup.

Jeeny: “You can’t milk a dead cow, Jack. Guthrie said that too. You can’t get life from what’s already gone. Sometimes, you’ve got to let the old notions die before they bury you.”

Jack: “You make it sound easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. It’s messy. It’s painful. But it’s necessary. Change isn’t something that happens to you — it’s something you learn to dance with.”

Host: Outside, a truck roared by, scattering dust across the diner’s parking lot. The window glass rattled slightly. Jack’s reflection shook with it — his own face blurred, momentarily unrecognizable.

He sighed.

Jack: “You know, my dad used to say almost the same thing — ‘You can’t ride yesterday’s horse into tomorrow’s storm.’ But he never learned it himself. He kept waiting for life to go back to what it was. It never did.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why he said it. Some truths are easier to speak than to live.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, her gaze steady and tender. The light shifted — sunlight breaking through the dusty window, striking her hair with a faint golden hue.

Jeeny: “You don’t have to keep everything, Jack. Some parts of you were only meant for certain seasons. The man you were five years ago got you here — but he’s not the one who’ll get you further.”

Jack: “And if the next version of me is worse?”

Jeeny: “Then change again.”

Host: The wind picked up outside, rustling the old flags tied to the gas pumps. Somewhere down the road, thunder rolled — deep and promising.

Jack looked down at his hands, rough and worn, then at Jeeny — the quiet conviction in her eyes like an anchor against the storm.

Jack: “You make it sound like riding a bull.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. You don’t control the ride, you just hold on till the dust settles.”

Jack: “And then?”

Jeeny: “Then you get back on.”

Host: The radio changed songs — an old harmonica tune drifting through the room like a sigh from a different time.

Jack took a deep breath, his shoulders easing, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Jack: “Guess Guthrie was right, then. Life doesn’t stand hitched. You either ride or you rust.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And rust is just another word for regret.”

Host: They both laughed softly — not with joy, but with the relief of two people who’d stopped pretending that life would ever make perfect sense.

Outside, the first raindrops began to fall, heavy and sparse. Jack stood, tossing a few bills on the counter.

Jeeny followed him out. The air smelled of wet dust and renewal. The storm was coming, but so was the cooling wind behind it.

They stood beside his truck, watching the horizon darken.

Jeeny: “You ready to ride it like you find it?”

Jack: grinning faintly “Never really stopped.”

Host: The thunder rolled again, closer this time, echoing across the wide plain. Jack climbed into the driver’s seat, Jeeny beside him. The engine roared to life, its sound blending with the music of the storm.

As the truck pulled away, the camera lingered on the old diner’s sign, still swinging, still creaking in the wind — stubborn, weathered, alive.

Host: And above the rumble of rain and engine, Woody Guthrie’s words seemed to hum through the air itself:

"You got to ride it like you find it."

Because life — like the road — doesn’t wait for anyone who insists on milking dead cows.