Of my many passions over the years, two have withstood the test of time, emotion, and growth.
Travel, and music.
Before I can remember, I was a regular through airport terminals and gas stations. Pictures of proud parents with a small boy, eager to stare into the endless distances of land or air. When my parents were alive, particularly my father, I would be reminded of stories lost to any memories my mind had created; about how well I traveled, how I'd listen to Dad's Blues tapes while we drove across the country, silently enjoying the views. How a man on a plane we took, regaled to my parents how astonished he was about my behavior...and not having to sit near a "crying baby".
Once I picked up on how to read the paper roadmaps that kids today will likely never use, I was obsessed. I do remember that. I guess I was just born to...go. I particularly enjoyed traveling at night, letting my imagination run wild with the possibilities of what may be going on off in the darkness. Were there still cowboys sitting around a fire out there somewhere? Maybe a pack of wolves, waiting for us to pull over, that we may need to fight off.
One day, I couldn't tell you when, something changed. Instead of excitement of "going", an attitude or longing slowly pierced its claws into my wanderlust. I didn't want to "go" anymore, I wanted, and sometimes believed, I NEEDED, to LEAVE. I think it may have actually been me not wanting to ever go back home... we would sit together on the last day of a trip and I wished that I could stop the sunset. I wished to be able to reach out and grab it, hold it, keep that last moment alive so I didn't have to "go back".
This became problematic as the time approached to leave important people behind. Moments shared with those truly loved, I needed to leave the place, but not the moments. Maybe, just maybe, if I tried hard enough I could grab the last flaring blues and oranges of a sunset and keep that moment going for five more minutes before the darkness came, signaling that the scene was over...time to move on. I begged for that.
"I don't want this moment to end, but I CAN'T stay here..."
Does that make sense? Sure it does...the moments we long for, to go back, just one more time, with those people; us as kids not knowing, but feeling, that this may be our last moments together. I can still smell the bonfires, hear the music playing...could we do the chorus just one more time?
Speaking of music...
I've always been enamored with emotionally charged music, and I thank the constant flow of Dad's blues cassettes and records for that. As I grew on the roads I began to appreciate the idea of turning powerful, negative emotions and memories into something flagrantly beautiful and relatable. Granted I knew nothing of heartbreak and loss, but in some way the process was something tangible that could be grasped in a weird way.
It was a Tuesday in 2001. We watched The Towers fall, we were scared and confused. Unbeknownst to us a revolution was coming. The Hardcore kids of the 90's had given birth to a new generation that felt misunderstood and disregarded. A war-time generation that had to find a voice, a group who's parents were too glued to the news to offer help navigating the emotions of growing up. We were Brand New, and determined on Taking Back Sunday. When we could drive, our Dashboards were our Confessionals. Singing and screaming from being The Used, a group of All-American Rejects going to MySpace Secret Shows across town in Hawthorne Heights, or Linkin Park. When school started in the fall, Warped Tour was the Story of the Year. In our own minds, We the Kings would Say Anything to Escape the Fate of some emotional void. We dreamed of sitting through a sunset in Bayside, but instead we were at a Funeral for a Friend.
You get the idea. We found our voice.
And here's the thing...music hits different at night, in the darkness.
"Sometimes all I wanna do is head west on 20, in a car I can't afford, with a plan I don't have..." ~Baby Driver.
Heading west has become my favorite kind of drive. It gives the opportunity to go back to the idea of "if I could just hold this moment a bit longer, if I could only reach out and grab it..." as one races against the inevitable envelopment of that hallowed darkness of night. I've learned to embrace this yearning, as I did Wednesday night. There is a sick kind of anticipation tied to knowing all your voices are about to resonate even more as you sing, scream, whisper and cry along to the lyrics. Can't do that on a plane... And here's the thing about those voices, on shuffle, they come when the universe sends them.
This particular night I had been reflecting, fighting to get out of my own head, remembering when I was such a passionate, motivated, ambitious person. As I asked myself to be honest with the only person in the truck, about what happened to "him", the Emo cosmos decided that "Poetic Tragedy" by The Used, was the only song appropriate as soon as the darkness took the last silver of blue and orange away from my horizon.
"The cup is not half empty as pessimists say, as far as he sees nothings left in the cup...a whole cup full of nothing for him to indulge, SINCE THE VOICE OF AMBITION HAS LONG BEEN SINCE SHUT UP. A singer, a writer, He's not dreaming now of going nowhere, gave heed to nothing, and all that HE WAS is just a tragedy."
Y'know...a real kick to the balls.
And it was perfect. sometimes you need to send a sledgehammer into a door to get it to crack. And crack I did. The rest of the drive was a one-man concert orchestrated by whatever the universe deemed I needed, by myself, in the darkness. Before I knew it, I was coming out of the mountains, and from up there, heading into the home stretch...the city lights burn, like a thousand miles of fire.
I don't remember sleeping that night, just thinking about that last moment of light on the horizon that even now, I willed, if even for a moment to be able to grab. Some sort of sad history of beautiful nostalgia.
Heading back, I would have to drive into the sun, and as soon as the music started, it felt different. More of a Soundtrack to a Headrush than Karaoke Tuesday at the local dive. A cloudless sky positioned the moon seemingly directly in my path, and that's when it happened. The Clarity of Darkness.
As a child I was obsessed with astronauts, space, and the Moon. As the moon sat in my gaze, a memory snapped its fingers, taking me back to our living room circa 97-98. Dad and I were watching a documentary marathon about the space race. This Particular hour was about the tragedy of Apollo 1 (you can read about it on your own time). It wasn't the fate of the men on board that caught me, although the thought of how they died terrified me...but something else. The closing narration went something to the effect of this...
"And every so often, the Moon appears to align with the Apollo 1 pad, perfectly, as if searching for those men that were destined for her."
In that moment, something changed. The ambition, the motivation, and passion seemed to stir.
In that moment, I longed to be able to reach out, and grab her, maybe if I just reached out hard enough...I could have that for a moment.
In that moment the decision was made: sunglasses on, accelerating forward into the light of day. The opportunity is there, and yes the darkness will come; and heading east it will come more quickly. But, maybe if I reach hard enough, I can get a taste of what it was like to be "him" again. And take that guy into the darkness with me, with clarity.
Buckle up, put your fucking shades on. It's time for greatness, if we dare to reach passionately enough.
Oh, baby, here comes the sound.
