This post is not about movies, not in the strictest sense of the word. No, instead it focuses on the movie that is my life. I think I have been lucky enough to have a few, or more than a few moments in my life cinema worthy. I have the shots set up in my head, camera placement and all. The lines are delivered just as they should be and nothing is as it shouldn't, and the best part is that its all real life, my real life.
I took a trip to Maine and Washington D.C. a few days ago, from Sunday morning until Wednesday evening I was in the car for 40 hours and driving a considerable amount of it. I want to just focus and flesh out some of one of my turns behind the wheel. Radek, a friend who came with me had just finished up his shift as we pulled into a rest stop to use the bathroom and fill the gas tank. As we got out of the car we saw a young cat eating McDonald's fries from the cement, it was probably about 50 degrees out. When she saw us in the dim glow of the far over head lights she scampered off into a bush near the entrance to the rest stop. As we walked by the bush we heard the distinct sound of a kitten crying. After we had used the bathroom Radek stepped into the bush looking for the lonely mother and her kittens but was unable to locate them. We got back into the car and returned to the road.
It was at this point that my turn behind the wheel took on a very familiar feel, that made me sad, and happy. Angry and calm. I think its important to mention that when we switched drivers and it was my turn it was about 4 in the morning. I love to drive during road trips, something about the movement and the quiet. The way the road turns and curves and waits. And even more than that I love driving at night, especially alone, as long as I'm not to tired I find it a great time to reflect on things. Now I wasn't alone per say but I was alone enough. Radek had laid down in the back seat and slept since it was 4 in the morning. I got the car back on the road and continued to head south, we were between Boston and NYC.
Boston Ive been to, but never NYC, its like something out of a book, or a far away land. Ive seen it in movies, but never with my own eyes, which is actually incredibly sad. Well that changed, the GPS was telling me to drive right through it, and no problem there. As Radek laid in the back I allowed me mind to travel to a place I didn't really want to go to....the first time I drove to Lincoln Nebraska. It was on a night only slightly earlier in the summer, and four years ago. There was a lot of possibility in that trip a lot to look forward to and things happened I didn't actually expect. Since this trip is so linked in my mind to this stretch of drive I might as well explain it.
I was recently dumped (this is 4 years ago) I saw it coming, and I knew it would be bad and it was, although I guess me and the girl were never really going out, and she wanted to return to her high school sweet heart, how could I compete with that. So instead of visiting her for a few days in the summer like I had planned I took up another friends offer to come see her in NE, and she had just the girl for me. The day was long, and one that shaped who I am today, I could even feel it that day. I got up and went to class, I waited in the sun at the train station near the Columbia Film building, when I had gotten back to my parents place I had a classic dinner with my friend Brooke. Our deal was she would come over, we would watch a movie, eat Chinese food and then just hang out, and that is exactly what we did.
When the movie was over, and she was gone I went into my parents room to bid them a goodbye and then climbed behind the wheel of my brothers car and set out at around 11 at night. I had my Ipod set up in the car and I listened to "Rent" it meant something to me at that time beyond just the music and the play, it was something I shared with the girl who had just broken it off with me. As I drove I watched an electrical storm, every color lighting touched down in the corn fields near me silently. I called my best friend and left a message with her as well as the ex. But for the most part I was alone, me and the car on the road. I watched the sun rise, I took a pee by the side of the road with green mist surrounding me as I waved to people who passed by. It was fun, it felt like it was a next step. And I was excited, as I should have been because later that night I would meet someone very special. In those 8 hours of the drive a lot of things changed about me and I was remade into a better person, I couldn't have told you that then, but that's what seemed to have happened.
In that trip I stepped into another phase of my life, and I'm hoping this trip is like that one, something that will signal a change a new direction that my life will take. The tapestry's threads are changing color, hopefully.
Back to the trip I just took, as Radek was asleep in the back I turned on the satellite radio and sped off across Connecticut towards the New York City. The east coast is much different than the Midwest, their roads are akin to if I dropped a plate full of spaghetti on the floor and said "Road plans are done" I was surrounded by trucks and cars all trying to do 80 miles per hour heading towards the city. The sickly yellow glow of the street lights making a funny little rat race out of the whole thing. I have never seen so many cars trying to smash by one another at 530 in the morning to get to work. As the black velvety sky turned into deep blue swirls and eventually pale powder blue I broke into NY State. As I drove through one of the Burroughs I hoped at the last minute that an old friend from school would call me back since she lived in NYC I could see her and get a closer look. Before I had even realized it I was off of Manhattan and over the river on the Washington Bridge. The sun was just breaking the horizon and was lighting up the towers of buildings. They were far away and much smaller than I would have thought. This city, a favorite of someone I know, here it was, looking back at me.
I didn't know that this country could go from being beautiful one minute to being so ugly the next, as the bridge ended and Jersey began I saw the raw industry of the country, not that I'm not used to it coming out of Chicago, but we don't allow that to happen here. I was obscured the view of the city by monoliths and cranes, anything that could make the city look bad was put in Jersey. As the upset sunk in I was able to get another view of the city as the machines broke and parted further south. My mind was racing, and I let the thoughts spill out and over, filling me and the car with it. What did this mean? Why was I seeing this city now, today, this minute, right as the sun is rising?
As quickly as I head entered the city I had left it. There was a huge space missing at the lower end of the island from where the WTC was supposed to be. A certain emptiness. Waiting to see what would happen next I was reminded of someone telling me that as they approached where I was they felt a great anticipation as if something big was about to occur. And it did, but why did it turn into this. Saying I would never speak to her again is not something I ever thought I could, or would say, but I'm over that now. I gave many chances for wrongs to be righted, and neutralized. As there is a gap where the towers are missing in NYC there is a huge part of what made me who I was those last 4 years gone as well. Trying to see how to fill that hole has been the worst thing. I'm reminded of a lyric from a song "I don't want to be a soldier, who the captain of some sinking ship would stow far below. I took my love down to Violet Hill, there we sat in snow. All that time she was silent still" I remember her telling me not to play that song to often, she liked it and wanted to make sure she wouldn't get sick of it. My memory is bad, but I remember everything about her, why?
I washed my hands in the Atlantic while in Maine, I walked on a beach made of sea shells and I let the wind play on my face and relax me into forgetting something. I couldn't tell you what it was because...well I forgot it. I stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial when there was no one else in it, feet from the base of the statue looking up at it. How many millions of people had stood there before me, how many peoples lives changed because of this one man's life.
If this trip to Maine and Washington DC was meant to be something more, internally, then I'm waiting to see where its going to take me next. Waiting to see the next cinema moment I will have. I wrote a short story about the first trip to Lincoln, that I seemed to have lost, it all exists in my head, but I still want those words back that I had written when they were fresh, and untainted.
I was describing life to someone a little while ago as being a series of little deaths, he didn't know what I meant by that so i was forced to detail what I meant by that. Examples: When you break that last piece of childhood innocence off, something dies inside of you, and as death is definite you can never get it back. Having sex for the first time, something dies in you then, a change occurs that you cant counteract. Most of these little deaths are actually viewed as positive things, and I cant deny that, but that doesn't mean i have to like them.
I have blathered on long enough. I just wanted to get this out before it also left me and found a place to die. Life is................different, from day to day. So here goes another, and I can finish shedding off the last shreds of the last part of me that died.
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