Velocity, city after city. Entering and leaving states. Driver's licenses and passports. Automatic time zone shifts; kilometers and miles; gallons and air; hours and months. Exits. U-turns. Lyft. Uber. Gas stations, union stations, terminals, airports, apartments, houses, and hotels. The tar of the highway and the tar of marijuana, and all of these make up the bedrock of my American manhood.
Route 66 is who I am. Interstate 180. 5 south, 5 north. That is what I see when my mind goes blank and when my eyes close. That is what I wonder instead of engaging small talk. I go silent, and I am back on the hillside of the long ribbon of asphalt that cuts through soft, breezy prairie.
I see the horizon, the sky, and the earth. I see the constellations, the moon, and the sun. I feel the discomfort in sitting sleeping in a vehicle or airplane too long. The snap of seatbelt, the speckled rear view mirrors, the growl of engine and song. All of these are who and what I am when I say or do anything or even just nothing.
I smoke my pipe, blocking but carrying all the names, numbers, images, and baggage in the smallest kernel in my cranium. When I get high I see the future instead. I don't care that I don't have a home. I don't care that there's no turning back. I make my childhood dreams come true. As I honor others, I honor my heart.
I have moved 25 times in the United States. My life no longer makes sense. But I never forget, I am an American in a world where you can live anywhere and still feel incomplete. I work in an intangible place where I am often asked if I'm supposed to be here and I angrily say yes I belong.
I have stood in the Iowan cornfields, on South Dakotan cliffs, in New York tunnels, in New Mexican deserts, in Coloradoan mountains, and on the Pacific shore. I am this land but no land is mine.
I am the urban and I am the wild. I am the shine and I am the lost. I am the sought and I am the contracted. I am the millenial survivor, without ties or roots. I am in this world but I am not of it. Exactly like tar, I am manmade forged from fire and new.
My world... is the future. And one of these days, I'll show you. I'll show you I belong. I'll show you fireworks, I'll show you shuffling curtains, I'll show you something to cry out for, I'll show you who you are that you never even knew, I'll show you where I was, I'll show you where we'll be, I'll show you magic, I'll show you answers, I'll show you I belong...
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