Everyone eventually goes on a journey.

"I remember packing a suitcase and carrying it out to the kitchen, standing very still for a few minutes, looking carefully at the familiar objects all around me. The old chrome toaster, the telephone, the pink and white Formica on the kitchen counters. The room was full of bright sunshine. Everything sparkled. My house, I thought. My life. I'm not sure how long I stood there, but later I scribbled out a short note to my parents." What I said, exactly, I don't recall now. Something vague. Taking off, will call, love Tim." --from "On the Rainy River" by Tim O'Brien

You leave home and undergo trails and rites.

"The minute I walked in and the Big Bozo introduced us, I got sick to my stomach. It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning-- it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race." --from "Recitatif" by Toni Morrison

You come back from the journey transformed.