vidalia

I took my first by-myself road trip, only to end up skinned-kneed, wet, and keyless, sitting in my car waiting for rescue.

Somewhere along Clam beach, just as the sky clouded up and started to rain, my keys were lost and never recovered. I was alone with my dog, waiting for my friends in Eureka to pick me up, and eventually, for my spare key to be sent to me.

I didn't feel alone on this trip, as I have in the past, and I didn't feel afraid. I wonder what has changed.

It was good to be away. I don't believe that home holds anything else of value for me. So, in my feeble attempt to find answers, I ran away early in the morning. I ran to the redwoods, the beach, the Road. I want to keep running but I'm not sure how, I don't know where it will take me, and I don't know anyone who has traveled who has not done so in part because of alcoholism. But then, I have not met so many people.

My life out of a backpack again. Myself daydreaming of such alternate lives. A knot in my stomach for the existence of Future.

Puffs of industrial clouds' slowdrift draws me out into the darkening evening, uphill, to view the city: bits of highway, bits of trash, immaculate, rotting, century-old buildings, warped glass, crumbling brick. Beyond the strip malls the sea still shimmers, it's salty breath wetting everything.

Outside of Redding is the World. And the World is vast, strange, welcoming, unknown. I wish that wanting to make things better badly enough would work. I am thinking simple thoughts, I am walking slowly, I am planning only as far as tomorrow.