It was hard. We drove through Frostburg (where the temperature dropped 10 degrees) and Friendsville (where we shared a kiss) and other places with ridiculously appropriate names until we reached her little hometown. We drove down a road that suggested I was inside her mind for the moment. The trees leaned in and crowded out thoughts beyond them. When we could see the sunset, it was beautiful like an Albuquerque sunset.
The playlist we had made seemed to forget all about my selections and played only songs that she had chosen. I don't know how it felt to her, but after a week of increasing intimacy, it was cathartic for me. Like everything else on this journey, this relationship feels streamlined. When you attack experience without fear or timid feelings, things tend to move faster. Now, here I was, riding through a dream in her mind, a memory made flesh, and as her childhood home came into view, I knew her better in that moment than I've known anyone in a long time. I've seen the lawn where her childhood pet is buried, the porch where her favorite memory of her father took place, the woods she explored with her brothers. I have visuals to go with those stories. I squeezed her hand and we continued on, back down the hill towards Charleston.
She is covering some legislative business for the paper (a panel on marijuana legalization, if you want to know) and I, in the usual fashion, was just along for the ride. Our goodbye was hard and unsure and it's technically still going on as we are both still in town.
Last night I stayed with a new friend and enjoyed the hospitality of his wife and their animals. We drank coffee and chatted about married life and politics. They are staunch Trump supporters, confident in his ability as an outsider to restore real freedom to the country. Me, I'm still not so sure. I tend to think that there will be new frontiers of freedom soon, if not made by Trump and his team, at least brought forth because of them.
Emily is worried that I'll die trying to wander the country with my backpack. I constantly claim that I have no money and no plan, and things are getting closer to that actuality every time I say it. My current standing is $80 in the bank and a soft plan to ride the backroads of the South all the way to New Orleans. That's about as far as I've gotten.
Of course, there is a job in a bookstore in Martinsburg that I could take if I feel too scared about the unknown. A nice couple owns the local shop and they offered me a modest price if I would help them with their inventory and organization. I could stay in the shelter there until I got a little pay, then I could rent a room where I would be close to Emily and this new beautiful connection that I've found. Like several other times along this road, I totally have the opportunity to bail out and be normal, but my past failures in this arena still haunt me and inform my decisions now.
So I think that I'll probably roll the dice and see if I can have it all. Emily insists that she's not going anywhere if I still need to wander around a little bit. Most of the time (when I'm not looking in her eyes) I feel that I do. I made a promise to the universe to do whatever I had to in order to change it for the better, and the road in the other direction from Martinsburg seems to fit. Along this path are places like Amandasville (Mandy's town), Scottown, OH (sheesh), Scary, WV (yikes), Ulysses, KY (great book), and Bowlin Green (where John Prine's Grandma went to school). I feel like Emily deserves a partner who does the hard, crazy (stupid?) thing. That's why she liked me to begin with. Would I be worth her time if I was a book stocker in Martinsburg? "What does your boyfriend do, Emily?" "Oh, he's a homeless clerk?" Nope. How about: "What does your boyfriend do, Emily?" "Oh, he's trying to find the answers and save the world. That, and he's got my fucking back. That's what he 'does'."
Yeah, that sounds better. So what if I don't know what will happen, how I'll get along, or where the next adventure will lead me? When do I ever?
No comments:
Post a Comment