odyssey

Yesterday I drove down the coast of California. I dropped my uncle at the train station and got a cappuccino and an audiobook and went through green forests and windy hills, along cliffs above rocky beaches. I looked at tall trees. I sang along to my music, loudly, happily. In Monterey, waiting for the library to open, I walked to the shore. I watched boats in the harbor, looked at the pink and green buildings lining the wharf and imagined I was a secret agent. I listened to people walk in groups. Can we hurry? It's already noon. ... Did you see that? ... I guess this is supposed to be pretty good ice cream. I walked back to the library, unrolled the microfilm, got lost in 1962. When I finally emerged, it was late-ish and the sun was sinking and I felt a little panicked.

I drove for a while with my audiobook, thinking and listening and wondering about people. About life. Where are we all, on this planet? What do we do when we aren't connected to each other, talking to each other? Sending each other messages? Those moments are beads on a string, or drops of water on a web, but there is space in between when we have to be ourselves. Alone. Just me, where I am. Just you, where you are. As much as I try to cluster them, or to put in music and words and memories in the gaps, there's still room for it to be just me, no matter who is around me or what.

I turned the audiobook off. Peered up into the dark through my windshield. Goggled a little at the blanket of stars. Thought of Shakespeare and Jerome K. Jerome and everyone who's ever written about the magnificent, impassive calm of the night sky. Cried, a little bit. Looked at the number of hours until home and bed and settled in. I have two hours, I said to myself. It is just me.

I am turning thirty in one week, and I am learning to know myself all over again.

* * *

I'm just writing with Heather of the EO today. Come play along?