A road trip with no destination...

Sometimes while I'm sitting....sitting in my life, wherever I may be at the moment; at home waiting....waiting; in line at the grocery store; or here in class watching the clock on the wall tick-tick-tick, second by second - or specifically sitting behind the wheel in traffic, I become lost in thought. I finally snap out of some mental Calgone commercial I flitted away to and realize that I'm now 20 blocks down the road, and I can't remember how the fuck I got there. I don't recall any of the traffic signals; none of my fellow travelers in cars adjacent to mine; not a single landmark along the way. How the hell did I get the car there without SOME sense of awareness? Sometimes it scares me...sometimes it humors me and sometimes I just don't give a shit.

I listen to those old nastolgic tunes on the rock station - no, nothing considered "classic" but that rock/alternative from the late 90's that defined my teenage existance. The time in my life where true living started; where I was in such a state of self-discovery; and discovery of my surroundings and the great big world outside of my cozy little scope. And I feel meloncoly and nastolgic. I look back to those people I've walked away from intentionally, some for the good, some just because I'm lazy and I long for JUST a moment for that dynamic once again.

And I feel like I'm on a road trip with no destination. I remember being back in college with Ann. Some of the best times of my life. We had many road trips back then. Many journeys late at night down the back roads of Chico, CA, just pedal to the metal and the music up and the bowls a-burning. The kid was sound alseep in the back, sometimes not (asleep)...but it was always dark. The roads were narrow and shoulderless. The trees that skirted the two lanes of asphalt were over-grown and they'd often tickle the roof of the Jeep as we'd zip by. The windows would be rolled down because it was always sweltering and humid in such a luscious environment even late at night. We'd be able to smell the Sacramento River on the heavy air. The cat tails and the other nameless aquatic plants that lined the riverbanks brought a peppery earthy smell to our noses as we zoomed along the serpentine roadway. Its a smell I miss now more than I ever realized. The windshield would be plastered with bugs not 5 minutes into our drive because of all the moist agriculture in the surrounding fields. Sometimes we'd stop and talk outside the Jeep in some of the day-camp picnic areas talking about who knows what.

It was always bitter-sweet to get back in the car to return home. I hated going back. It always felt like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight when everything turned back into pumpkins....all the magic was gone-used up. The rural community lights seemed a little too loud and the cars and general humanity of a college community impaired the effects of the drive.

The real road trips back then, when I actually took them, were trips back home to see my folks. And frankly I hated those trips. Not so much actually seeing my parents, but it was a road trip with an end, 5 measley hours. And they went quick, like the blink of an eye. I guess now in retrospect, I hated for them to end because I was on a journey, I had a mission, and the journey itself was infinitely more important-more paramount for me than the actual getting there was. There was some peace, some solace in those passing fields, the freeway interchanges, the monontanous prairies of vast emptiness. A solace that allowed me some escape from reality. A literal escape. And a destination only confined me; it only proved to be transport from one prison to another.

And now, some 10 years later, I reflect on those carefree (well carefree in some ways anyways) moments with a heavier heart....A sense of awareness but also much less optimism. Where'd it go? Did I use it up too soon? Who knows, I think it just went on vacation; certainly not lost forever. I hope so anyways. But I sit in traffic on Wilshire Blvd at half past 4 on a Thursday and that song comes on the radio...whatever song it might be-the one that strikes a chord in my memory and I feel the familar pangs in my chest...The "what coulda been" pangs. My mind flitters to that same scene, well not the same one, but similar. Me behind the wheel, on a road trip to nowhere, but the music is a stream of auditory consciousness playing in an infinite loop in the background. The sun sets, the stars come out, the darkness, my favorite time, envelops all the land in its cozy inpenetrable blanket....the sun rises, misty mornings, and the drive begins again. The sun casting light on all the new surroundings. Rinse and repeat.

I guess now what I long for is not so much a road trip to NOWHERE but perhaps the luxury and the freedown to hop in a (dependable) car with all the necessary creature comforts and just drive.....drive and drive and hit all the continental states. I almost want little to no itinerary but I WOULD like to see some of the more memorable landmarks in some of these states. And just drive, and drive and drive and see and see. Until I've seen it, drove it, tasted it, heard it, felt it and moved on to the next. Not a pie in the sky dream I realize but we'll see.....we'll see....perhaps my road trip with no destination isn't impossible after all.

Right now, its a start....right here.