My Spring Break is from March 5-13. Ordinarily, I would have unquestionably already allotted this as a time where I would drive home and be with my family-- however, this time my sister will be in France, and my brother's break doesn't start until March 18th. So, while I love my folks and would be perfectly fine spending nine days with them, I've been thinking-- maybe I'll do something else.
Like go on a pilgrimage somewhere I've never been before.
One of the things I want most to do is get in my car and drive west until the world flattens-- until everything is huge and hot and endless. My parents love to tell me a story about how, back in the first years of their marriage, they were driving across the plains of... Nebraska, I think... in the middle of the night. It was my father driving; my mother was asleep. And suddenly, he pulled over to the side of the road and woke her-- and they looked and the stars were so bright the sky was white. You could read by the stars, my mother says. And I picture her, twenty-something and beautiful, slender and green-eyed and with straight blonde hair to a waist that stopped traffic, and my dad, a writer-photographer still too stupid to know that life isn't wonderful, out there in the middle of nowhere staring at the sky and radiating love together.
And I want that. Alone, with someone, I don't care. I want to stand at the edge of white-hot oblivion and feel my life give out beneath me. I want to light a fire under my apathy and remember my mortality-- I want to drive 2,000 miles for thirty seconds of freedom.
So I think maybe I'll plan a trip to the Grand Canyon. MapQuest is telling me my route will basically take me through (or near) Nashville, Oklahoma City, and Santa Fe; I don't know if I'd necessarily stop at all of those cities, but maybe. I'd like to see them. I'm a bit nervous at the prospect of going alone, though, so I'll have to give this at least a few more days of thought.
But I'll try to find a way. I swear to God, my life depends on it.
Like go on a pilgrimage somewhere I've never been before.
One of the things I want most to do is get in my car and drive west until the world flattens-- until everything is huge and hot and endless. My parents love to tell me a story about how, back in the first years of their marriage, they were driving across the plains of... Nebraska, I think... in the middle of the night. It was my father driving; my mother was asleep. And suddenly, he pulled over to the side of the road and woke her-- and they looked and the stars were so bright the sky was white. You could read by the stars, my mother says. And I picture her, twenty-something and beautiful, slender and green-eyed and with straight blonde hair to a waist that stopped traffic, and my dad, a writer-photographer still too stupid to know that life isn't wonderful, out there in the middle of nowhere staring at the sky and radiating love together.
And I want that. Alone, with someone, I don't care. I want to stand at the edge of white-hot oblivion and feel my life give out beneath me. I want to light a fire under my apathy and remember my mortality-- I want to drive 2,000 miles for thirty seconds of freedom.
So I think maybe I'll plan a trip to the Grand Canyon. MapQuest is telling me my route will basically take me through (or near) Nashville, Oklahoma City, and Santa Fe; I don't know if I'd necessarily stop at all of those cities, but maybe. I'd like to see them. I'm a bit nervous at the prospect of going alone, though, so I'll have to give this at least a few more days of thought.
But I'll try to find a way. I swear to God, my life depends on it.
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Many years ago, I took my first independant road trip.....over a thousand miles in a rusted out shitbox Ford Taurus to see my favorite band live, for my first time, to celebrate the release of a new album....destroyed the car on the way back, but by Bob-I did it. And without sleep-5 day trip, there and back.