Kansas, no place like home (Thoughts traveling from Rome, GA to Boulder, CO, conclusion)

There is not a lot to tell about what we saw on the way through Kansas and eastern Colorado. I can describe the exotic mountains and the way the highway climbs over these ridges without rail guards, where you can feel how, one turn of the wheel, and who knows how you’d do, making it down that slightly-dizzying slope? The highway was a means to an end. This was the day we finally saw our new home. I did not have the luxury of documenting everything in video and pictures; they might help, but I guess you must drive these things yourself.

We went into a McDonald’s to get her breakfast, rather than take the Uhaul through another drive-thru. This carryout order was our first time inside a restaurant in so long, and we were the only ones, no dining. The lady who took my order was very friendly; since it was so quiet, she pointed out, she brought our take-out over to me as I waited by the bathroom. I’d stopped to take a selfie in the silk scarf student Peter had sent me from China, and an N95 mask, sent by student Sophia and her Mom, when our country was hit hardest and masks, in competitive, limited supply.

I enjoyed a few fries, and her Quarter Pounder was definitely superior to the double cheese. I was trying not to eat too much. That morning, somewhere around my quick shower, I’d tried microwaving a cup of Mac n’ Cheese donated by Charlie. Then, I couldn’t find a spoon, so, I tried to make do with a toothbrush. That doesn’t work. That barely works at all! So, I warm up the Taco Bell layered burrito (what, rice?) I’d refrigerated after yesterday’s ride. I can’t spare the toothbrush, gunked in cheese sauce, from the trash. The burrito made an edible tool. I ate about half the macaroni cup using the burrito as snow lay settled outside our window in Salina, Kansas. We were on track to get out again close to eleven. I’d realized along the way, if you had to hit the hotel late, it’s better to stay and rest up the next morning. Your next arrival gets later, but once you’re behind the wheel, Rest is Gold.

I needed to put out a, I think, non-refundable $4.50 to guarantee I could get my Expedia reservation secured and, if we couldn’t make it, the money returned. When you are trimming expenses, you think you are going to make it to every hotel stop, because, why wouldn’t you? I misunderstood when I could cancel for full refund- if you go Expedia, you can’t, that day, sometimes, that must’ve been an earlier stop with those terms. So, rather than begin this day in Hayes, we had begun further east, 90 miles east, or was it 90 minutes, in Salina. I chose right, because Wednesday night was a day where I did not miss all the snow as I had hoped, but it’d been quite passable, but I had spent more time in St. Louis than I intended, and all-in-all, for every good laugh we’d salvaged on the way to find the Taco Bell in Missouri, all these steps had cost us about 12 hours drive-time. Maybe I thought I could make it as far as Hayes, even Wednesday night, but I was relieved, after turning around on that one early exit and highway, to get in and settle. What have I not captured? I didn’t quite put up every single photo of the Superman Square. I’ll put together a nice album of them in one last post.

I have quite a few for the Mittens Travel Shop. It’s so many posts and I’ll share them where else they’re appropriate.

I could mention the time we stopped in a Triple J, and she came out with some amazing coffee that empowered me to make it three more hours Wednesday night. That’s where I chopped the ice off the headlights. Wow! We’d developed an icy coating over the entire outside of Rom. Our car had a hint of voyaging cold space. Very regular Missouri and Kansas conditions- a surprise, a show of our vulnerability to the elements, unnoticed in the reliable safety of our Saturn.

On the long stretches of open highway, I want to tell you, I turned the mirror, so I could see how beautiful is the face of my passenger. I loved that gentle smile. After all, I could see nothing directly behind me over the Uhaul; I relied on side mirrors, at least one of which, I realize, is now cracked. A look at her, and I remember why I endure the drive. Yes, I’d love to have gotten more fit, had less belly to strap in! But when you see the person whose life will be better, if you do this thing, it all becomes meaningful.

I wanted to describe that, and the tightness in my hands, driving. I had to remember, especially after the four hour point each day, relax. Tighten up to keep the wheel controlled, but loosen the shoulders, roll the neck when you can; ease up on clutching the wheel you hold for dear life, as most everyone flies by even faster, and sometimes, as you take on the rocket role, yourself.

I thought of how, in thinking of what is best for us, I might’ve wished I could take everyone else- but maybe they are happy where they are.

I think I can wrap it up in one segment. Sometimes the days felt like two days- they all kinda did.

Did I mention how most often, we lived completely present there on the road? Did I say the mood was good most of the way, and for every pang of conscience at leaving people behind, there was still a bright hope for what life could be like, in the new city?

Even in the modern era, with Internet and pictures, leaving is a bit like dying; a way of life is passing away.

I felt reverence for it. I couldn’t be superficial, as though we were only going for a vacation somewhere brilliant.

Have I mentioned how much I understand the ritual now of a Going Away Party? How much I see you need that time spend once again, one more reminder, one more exchange of what is now, what will be, what was? How much the person leaving really needs that gathered offering of Love and Kindness, because there is a burden in each isolated quest we take away from the tribe?

How I thought of the little favors, like the road snack food, the visits I’ll miss. There’s something profoundly sad, at the same time we’re driving towards one more possible place for our dreams. Even with the pandemic on, we would at least once a month or so go down to visit, even if I wondered often were we being cautious enough.

The hardest part, for me, was dealing with what our absence would mean to other people. I was sorry for everyone now who at least took comfort in us living nearby. Now those visits were no longer among the possibilities when this ended. All the maybe-friendships, now packed away. I realized a good many people I thought I’d see down the road, I’d never seen, likely, again.

I want to say, the issue really is, how can I show my appreciation, and see my friends as part of what makes their city, good? Take the friend who came to our apartment, Mo, so she could pick up her signs. With those signs, she let people know she was running to be Superior Court Clerk. I am so proud of her! We were all reminded, four out of five people who vote in Floyd County, vote for a Republican- maybe, no matter what. They are very tradition-oriented, and rather than understand what Democrats say, it is easier to not think about politics and try to vote best for whomever will keep everything as much the same as possible.

Here's the book, based on Volume ONe of these columns! Mo is the central friend of the people I liked most in Rome. She makes Rome seem like a place something special can happen. Thanks to her invitation, we met her friend, Erin, who led an effort to raise money to help people affected by a tsunami in the Phillipines. Bridge The Sea: we hoped it would be only one of many times we would play original and cover songs, for a good audience. I like the idealism of Erin, Mo, and Mary, who made the extra effort to come talk and sit with us during the pizza dinner after we played, on the top floor of Mellow Mushroom. We had made a new music demo at a studio that fall. Maybe we had not planned to stay in Rome, and living with family, we tried living away in Rockmart and Cedartown, which were so far from what we wanted to do and see. But even in those towns, someone is always trying to make something colorful and special exist. I will tell you about the Rock and the United showcase of artists, from that first year, sometime. We hoped to be part of whatever there was. We didn’t know how sorrowfully lonely it would be from my perspective. I have always been amazed how the Marc Kane never seems to need anyone but me. If you had to need anyone else, Mo and her friends, like Thomas, her husband Hai, Jeremy, Mary, Erin- her bandmates!- those were cool people, friends with pretty cool people, too. There was a time for parties, occasionally, and there is more to tell. We both have known how difficult the Coronavirus era has been, how very against our feelings and reflections were these times in Northwest Georgia. “I will be sure to tell people out west how there are unique individuals,” I told Mo, “different than what you might think everyone’s like.” (And truthfully, outside our region, how many people really had an idea what we were like, so much as we seemed to have, ourselves?)

“Yes,” says Mo, “we’re hidden here!” And ‘hide’ is exactly the feeling, describing how hard we are to find.

“We’ve all gone through a trauma together,” Mo wisely put it. “The day is coming, when we start to see what artists make, to finally respond, share our observations of this time. A lot of artists are in stasis right now. But the trauma is lifting. One day there will be a lot to say.”

It’s true. I dropped off a painting we made, over the summer, for Mo’s charity auction. I took the Girl Playing Tennis over to the road perpendicular to that modest court in the park. When I left the painting- in a wrapper provided when my friend Mark England had mailed me a manuscript about Egyptologists encountering vampires during Victorian adventures-I realized sadly how, this whole time, Tom and his family hadn’t been a mile away. The street to his house could be reached just off Redmond Road. Early on, he’d suggested, when he saw us hilariously trying to learn Tennis, that we could all gather in the yard and talk one day- that should be safe. He and Katie were on a stroll, her on her bicycle. My request to find the house specifically wasn’t seen, once, and he wasn’t home the other time. It’s a pity, because we all needed a change.

Tom got his friends together, apparently before and early on in the lockdown spring, to record his wife singing beautiful and upbeat country and folk standards. Now, like my copy, he was giving away the printing, an amazing gesture to have on hand. We were happy to get it, even if our CD player didn’t work, darn it. Art had lived during this time. Artists would have something to say. It wouldn’t all be in reply to our culturally-embattled Corona response. Some would simply be there to remind us what life was like, before.

I looked, but the book I’d dedicated to her daughter the year she was born, I couldn’t find where I thought I left it. Why had everything stopped coming together in Rome? The book was begun for my friend, T.J., another, gone-too-young ally, most greatly missed. That’s why I began writing posts just like this one: I intended to catch him up on my life, as I’m doing, here. I admitted I was sorry to go, because now when the pandemic was over, I would still not see the friends I moved to town to spend the last year with. The waiting for someone as outgoing as I had been excruciating to accept. The chance to begin again would probably come sooner in Boulder than Rome- the sheer number of people, vaccinated- but who knows.

I sat at the doorstep, with the lady, her purple-streaked dyes, expressing to me how happy she was that we found a place in Boulder. It sounds like the kind of place we might all like to go live, you know. She was the person who gave out our names again. It was her friends who wanted to make a documentary, one I am now gaining a new life to provide an ending to that footage, if we can get together again.

! And any time we played live, even just with friends, we either had Dixie and Charlie present, or to thank, or even remembered in a song. They did the most to make Rome feel like home, even when the time we’d meant to go, passed by, on resources again promised and taken away. They offered company and tried to make it more than life somewhere, stranded and unappreciated.

I felt most sorry for Dixie and Charlie because we were about the only company, and were good company at that. Our visit the week of Christmas was laugh-a-minute for long stretches. I will miss their friendship in person. I miss going home with groceries donated by Charlie because it is good to be loved that way. I wish I didn’t have to make anyone sad to make this move. How do you move on to a better life, guided only by a feeling and some fore-knowledge, without making people sad they don’t know when you’ll spend time together again?

The other reason I want to hang on to the details is, this is likely the last trip like this we’ll ever make. Maybe we’ll move across the country again one day, and maybe not, but I want to savor this one. It carried a sense of loss, along with so many happy thoughts. I realized, one more day, and never again would our home in Boulder be imaginary. This last time, we’d try to picture Boulder and what we might do there and what life might be like, and from this day on, we’d have a solid idea of our home and our new stamping grounds.

I want to catch that feeling you get when you unpack for the night as lightly and logically as possible. You know morning will come, and if you leave anything, you’ll never see it again. She went back in to the Metropolis Super 8 for our phone charger! It was tough enough that our cigarette lighter doesn’t work, so we had to conserve our phone, the main source of tunes, and only source of directions.

We had to take care in the stores. Our trip inside to order McDonald’s was the first time we’d been inside a restaurant together in a year. It’s hard to imagine we’ve been hearing about this, so long.

Under the contemporary situation, it was a small relief to have just a cursory glance at the news. We drove across long miles with Trump billboards and yard signs- never Biden/Harris. The White House was busy making government work again where it did not, yet we talked daily, but now with good-humor, about the Republican Party’s Trump question. Somehow the anger and fear and concern were now set-aside, for the directness of watching the road, staying present, feeling the potential danger and imagining, in too-tired a state, the hitch detaching and sitting suddenly in front of anyone behind us. That minor catastrophe was no real threat, and I resolved to stop the dark fantasies about side-swiping vehicles. I can barely understand how I can function with so many disturbing images, keeping me awake and alert with low-level stress. You’re in the middle of something you can’t simply stop; you’re obligated to see the whole ride through. The biggest blessing out there, in between displays of Nature, is the ability to go as fast as humanly possible!

There’s really only the non-masker graphitti on back of a truck, Badfinger and Stevie Wonder tunes in a groovy 70s set that included “September”- one of the quintessential 1970s songs, by Earth, Wind and Fire.


Around noon, there was the elk we saw running across a snow-dusted field on her side, and the store where you could go upstairs and take a walk through what I believe was the actual taxidermied heads and bodies of the wildlife nearby. I was eager to go up and do that one; we were distanced, the animals took you to all those places in Kansas/ Colorado you might never seen, and honestly, anywhere safe and out-of-the-weather was welcome, so, perfect.

Deer Trail, our last tank-up, where I discovered our license plate, gone. She bought some stones for her plant pots, decorated by the store clerk, who painted them as animals.

This song reminds me of something the Marc Kane said in reply to it. "That's a little how I feel," she said. "Free of people's expectations. Like I drove miles away from what they thought I should be, what I should allow, who they expected me, and family, to be!" Aside from feeling tired and confused and getting a bit turned-around out of highway uncertainty along S-431- my God, what if this wasn’t the way to Boulder? Are we looking instead for the place to pick up U.S. 36?

She tried taking us along an alternative through a town, to pick up 36 and drive straight in. I was sorry I hadn’t mapped the specs of the road bypassing Denver, but I thought it’d be as simple as following an exit. Why keep the way to Boulder a secret?

Was there a way to pick up with the narrative about Superman's visitors in little Metropolis? You could make it car thieves, you could make it weed traffickers, but you bring Superman into their path a couple of times, I guess. Be funny if they drive on to Colorado and forego their heist. Then Superman happens along with their stolen license plate, outside Denver?

It is a land of gigantic proportions out here. As the sun sets, and you are weary, you do not want to be caught in the speedy rush hour traffic!

I felt nausea just looking how high up these roads are suspended. It’s beautiful, but not what you want to drive, tired. Not when you are trying to go to fix what has gone awry in your body.

But rather than detail all that, let me say, she grew tired, and uncertain of her ability to help, and needed a bathroom stop, where we could re-orient. As she went inside, I felt a wave of compassion for her. I imagined that dear woman, stuck here at the kindness of strangers, if I simply couldn’t wait to get back on the road. This was a sign, if I could utilize any human quality, now, Patience. Think of all the long miles she’s come with you, I thought. Think of the sacrifices she’s made to come to this new home, so far away. I thought of how vulnerable she was, after embracing this journey without hesitation- after mulling over all our options together with me, for all these years. I thought of how very much she deserves this last trek to her new home. She deserves the best life she can find, there. Now, endure whatever turn-arounds there might be, figuring out which crossing exit is the one we need, ignoring the time and resources spent looking for another parking lot off another road where we didn’t really belong.

Traveling seems to be everything. But you are actually almost Home.

Now, this, too, can go towards the end:

I did try to order us delivery of a new mattress, to go with our successfully-packed frame, from Broomfield, CO. I stayed up a little extra long to concentrate on that, before bedding down in Salina. Already it was Thursday, so, the soonest I could get it delivered would be Saturday, the 31st. If I thought that was bad, wait ‘til I found out that order was canceled, and my recognition of it that night hadn’t gotten it put through, so, we ‘d be spending five nights on a palette. But thanks to this Thursday drive, now we were going to actually make it. Somehow.

I did consider getting one last hotel room- we did get a call in Salina from our Hayes reservation. So, we burned one, anyway, but it was like $46. There were other losses to be revealed in the transit, and there was exhaustion from all it had cost us in every way. But we didn’t stay somewhere comfortable with iffy-Wi-Fi; she was teaching by 1 AM Friday morning.

Upon arrival at Lashley Lane, we managed to unload the entire UHaul and Saturn, in time to also carefully back out of the complex parking lot, and find Drift before they closed. They were very friendly and helpful. I soon discovered nearly everyone working with the public’s very pleasant, out here.

I think I was running on the push to keep moving through Friday, when I got up, delivered the Uhaul across town, and got new Insurance. I remember how it felt, driving with that Uhaul empty behind me now. It felt like a natural part of the whole, almost like a companion to me in my days of need. As I gave it up, the fellow who unhitched me, Jason Robinson, told me his story of making a similar-length drive from California, in the middle of bad Utah snow weather with his classic car towed behind his Uhaul truck. He told me where he now lives and hangs out, an open offer to be a friend, not twenty-four hours after arrival. >My body, still riding on the cocktail it summoned to surmount our trial, soaked in the pleasure of the sunny day and the promises of that talk and sights of South Broadway, even stopping for what was surely to be a necessary Starbuck Espresso in the very-nearby King Sooper’s before turning home. Illness was finally to catch up with me, but my first memories, the sweet-looking neighbors and the big white dog on his walk, the multitude of mirrors, our Cosmo Pizza (I felt guilty for not eating more cheaply, simply), the sheer motivation to see it all through, had established the real ending of this trip. I was here two more days before I realized fully, we were not packing out again in the morning, everything we own on wheels. Home to stay!

Everywhere We Go From Here is Forward

With her picture-taking, and the hum of the road, a lot of the snow miles were not full of Maya. The highways north were well-prepared for this normal January weather. From Metropolis Illinois to St. Louis, the way exhilirated me. It was not dark, not hard to work together with the other lanes of drivers. This song is the best way to describe the way I used a 70s Pop Cultural Coccoon to make our inner children feel safe without any conscious meddling. The French Horn reminds me of the way you might remember colorful people you never see again. You remember people you love. Your place in America right now is an introspective drive-by in snow. We're getting further apart, physically, and how can it maybe be, this need only hurt everyone the least, possible, to be my bit of homesickness a few days more I couldn't stay?

The white world of the countryside, we preserved, photos to take with us - one of America's beauties. I didn't pick up on her taking her pants off, did I? Well, she had to change- I'll pass on saying why- so here we were in the humorous position of flying up I-24, over seventy miles per hour, with one passenger naked from the waste down. No truckers got lucky in the few minutes she took to change. You would think driving into snowfall would be distracting enough. Truthfully, it was a straight-away with good road maintenance. I thought it'd slow our trip, but the snow static was perfectly visible. I kept going near the same speed, with careful, careful lane changes. When you are not from snowy lands, the farmlands decorated in white can be quaint. She loved the ice on the bare tree limbs best.

I simply describe the tranquility of the drive up to St. Louis. Then it got a little Daimon Hellstrom because I passed what I could see, too late, is 70 heading to Kansas. I imagine that exit, too far over to the right, would have saved us the part of the trip that came for the next hour, really. It was beautiful, nostalgic, funny, scary in a running-low-on-gas way, and thankfully, over in time for more snow sloshing out of the long road from St. Louis that still seems like you’re in St. Louis, especially after you’ve already driven Lindbergh Avenue enough to see where life is a little tougher. This is the first place I feel we might’ve had our tag taken off with a screwdriver, but we’d been waiting for everything. We didn’t even stay to order anything, just paid for our gas at the pump. But we were supremely glad to get to a gas station. That Phillips 66 was a sweet relief, even if now our shoes were getting the dirty snow. We had driven all the way around the airport, no gas stations, and then tried the exit, Natural Shoulder Original Road. Would you believe it takes you back through the airport area again! Then you loop back out, and there it taunts again, and you say: Damn you, Natural Shoulder Original Road! But that detour started with us passing near the St. Louis Archway. This day couldn't be like the first one where we went inside, but that was the biggest thing we'd ever done besides make love and get married, that first day looking out of the arch.

So our moods were still OK here, but of course, I didn’t like driving in multilane traffic with the Fuel Light on. You cope. Your co-pilot tries to then come up with the closest course, but you keep driving, so it’s hard to get a fix, and you take Lindbergh Avenue just hoping it surely takes you to a gas station. But you’re going to go a few miles yet and need to turn back around, to get it right. Here was probably the overall most stressful part of this leg of the trip. This one is about one half the total.

We got a little turned around when we tried to guess where Taco Bell was off I70 in small town Missouri. We passed a place that sold the kind of not-pot they have in Dalton, Georgia, too. We put our money instead into some late afternoon burritos and…I will have to think, what she likes eating, the fries, cheesy fries is it? You had to go one way, and it was too snowy to park and eat. We had one of our best laughs, thinking about the Stuckwayze again. Imagine the fun of their population signs, city limits, and directions, we said. Our favorite sign was miles down a country road. Officially it would say: You Don't Know Where You Are Now! She was trying to feed me, and we were figuring it out. Then my dirty windshield became indecipherable. I had to carefully find the shoulder, which, fortunately, one for trucks, a big one, loomed right, so, with my water apparently frozen in my wipers, we took the soft drink, I popped out and cleared our view. Can't drive without a faithful window west! But I really did feel the danger of that moment. You realize life is fragile, when you're moving around so quickly and really do not see. You are so glad to get off alongside the highway and have Rom out of danger Oh, yes, ROM has always been our name for the Saturn since the day we bought him/her. The best part of this day, however, had been the first parts, but the belly of the beast stuff gave way to our determination to make it on, to Salina, KS. I enjoyed checking the distances with her. We had to slow down to drive around in Kansas City, which escaped the other drivers, but we stayed straight on while I bemoaned the lack of middle of the road reflectors.

But in the quiet of the snowfall in the daytime, and again as we sought out our safety, in our hotel, I guess you could say I could feel and sense the prayers for us. There were many times, and we agreed aloud there in Missouri, Buddha, Superman, Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, Allah, whomever wanted to help, Thor, we'd take it all! What it took to get us the rest of the way across the snowy midlands, however, from the time we shook free of the outskirts of KC (I was careful not to repeat my mistake from earlier), we at one point put on some BTS, and that energized us, even after we pulled out near that huge Monster Truck billboard for Trump. I really should look for a photo of it, but it was night, nothing doing for us but to muse over how it loomed over this darkened Kansas highway. You would see billboards about Jesus and Gospel radio and Republican candidates, as though that were the very deliberate standard, while windmills loomed impossibly large above.

But with night fallen, now we were uncovering temperatures nearly lower than any other we'd known! Yet, even with the best coffee I could summon, roadside, I had to switch off the heat. It was so low, and she was so patient, as we drove into nine degree Fahrenheit weather, a little like flight in the sky, or evocative of the cold of space. But this kept me awake, in good spirits. Here, in the night, is where she said one thing that made me realize, in the little reality of our car all these miles, we were moving from one dream over to the one new place promising us the most. Everywhere we go from here is Forward.

By that point, I realized we'd have to see which Top Ten things we'd entertained ourselves, saying, on the trip, and that one was my Number One. We did the joke about the Quilt Museum, and anything advertising Quilts afterwards, because we made it a hard-core obsession for a rando character, professing surprise as a surprising source for a love of quilts. But this is the fuckin' Quilt Museum, man! Are you kidding me? We had all the fun with billboards we could manage. Lots of places offering you a pretty nice place to stay and take in the Kansas wilderness. But a lot of that is for Thursday, I just imagine it started Wednesday with the original reference. Around Kentucky, maybe? We kept warm enough, but we used the adversity of the elements strategically, to keep me alert for the exit to Salina's Super 8. We were projected to get to both hotels I originally reserved about an hour and a half after dark, but both nights were more night hawk. I know it was about 11:20 when we got in. I'd turned around while listening to John Lennon's 'Why?' I felt so downtrodden, driving the six miles or so between us and the right exit to our hotel. WE'd stopped one early, for gas, and hadn't found the way back out West. Something in John's lyrics was very funny to me, because it described exactly how I was. No, it's "How." How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing How can I go forward when I don't know which way to turn How can I go forward into something I'm not sure of Oh no, oh no

Meanwhile, in Metropolis

The night we stopped at Super 8 welcoming us to Metropolis, I wanted to have a little fun, after I entered the lobby with Angela remaining warm enough outside. I thought, I’ll tell the clerk, Hello, I have a reservation. I’m Here to Destroy Superman. After all, there was a classic 40s Superman image on a lobby wall, which I caught in a selfie for Johann, who I’d not yet told we were going to see Superman’s Statue. There’s a more recent Superman comic hanging along the back of the front office area, too.

But I judged I would try to save my joke for him after we’d cleared up the matter of our reservation. Soon, there’d be a magic trick, as one of our luggage cases came in on the dolly, which I pushed from the lobby to the stairwell with her, and two more cats than the one I’d listed, Captain. Already, settling my own response to the rules.

Twist in plans, too. I ask for assurance of a place she could conduct her wi-fi classes. I’m sure I had the wrong one now, and this is why being tired can make you more wrong. I would figure out our room, 202, same as our eventual apartment number in SoBo, was accessible if I pulled around back, but of course, back there’s always the chance of a petty thief. Kane remarked the place seemed like it’d lately been more of an SRO, with regular residents. We had changed to this hotel booking, I thought, from another, because the clerk said there was something like a ‘business center’ or private-enough wi fi-supported cubicle. I remembered we'd switched from Motel 6 to this Super 8, because the promise of a place Teacher Angela BBA could conduct VIPKid classes.

For now, as we settled in, we assumed I’d have to sleep while she taught in the bathroom. I accidentally shut Lucky into the hotel door, while hanging out a stupid unnecessary Do Not Disturb sign, just to get rid of it. Poor, smuggled cat! I caught him about the shoulders and neck, where he wrenched free, hurt and angry, as I cease catching him from going out in the hallway.

I tried turning on CBS, but while I remember who James Corden interviewed, I was poopedas. I privately wished how we’d made it four hours earlier, so we could enjoy whoopie. Six minutes into one class with her in the bathroom was enough to get me awake to appeal to the dude at front desk, who obliged by saying she could come down to some particular first floor area. I got one Hulk comic read, and it might’ve been that night. She was downstairs teaching by 2:30 AM, and I would at least sleep ‘til 6:45 am, when I could not resist messaging with Dixie on and off for over an hour. Or was that the next morning?

Even relaxed, I was not deeply asleep, as the experience had required one quick, deep nap, some rest up through Angela’s first bathroom class (ever), and some nice sleep after my own 6:30 class passed. I stayed up, I think, making a FB post in our cozy little room and talking with her when she came back upstairs. She’d had quite an adventure- I remember she had to come back up for our Hot Spot because of a poor initial connection, based on the location she had down there. She taught, I think, five remaining classes off that hot spot, including the one she was losing. I was proud of her, just conscious of how it might be best to rest up til 10 AM so we could ready ourselves for the road, and still have time to see Superman

"Everybody's Flying, but no one leaves the ground."- John Lennon. I analyzed the situation and, by 9AM, scheduled us a stop in Abilene, then, revised that plan into a reservation in Salina, KS. That decision making wisely intuited Hayes would seem too far for genuine, responsible safe driving, so, she joined me in a well-earned nap that wrapped up our Super 8 rest, after affirming our passage of the point of no return.

Now, we're getting past that First Act, as the next morning, Here was the sort of place my imagination can still go back and play, and I'm sure some very good story could be written with this inspiration. Yet, what happened when we spent about fifteen, twenty minutes on what I think of as Superman Square- in a city of about 6,353 people, helpfully already named "Metropolis" in Illinois. The certainty of snow, freezing temperatures- I could not have asked for a more willing partner in going to dork around the inspiring five meter Superman statue, nor the energy built up by visitors since 1993, a year I think here, Superman got his deserved death mural, that turns out to be his so-far enduring shrine. You can buy bricks to fortify it, however, with your name engraved if you like. The Man of Steel requires a new coat of paint, eventually.

What made it for us was seeing the three other people stop and get out, first. We let them take their time getting photos around the statue and its walkways. I can't say if the man or two women were truly more thrilled to be there! I had not idea what a great time Marc Kane and I would have, impersonating America's original god-like hero with Superman figures, life-sized, flying along the side of the building that usually but not today houses the Superman Statue Museum.

Now doesn't that all feel like a place you could imagine in a good DC Comics characters story? When you imagine how fun it is for so many people, you thank the Goddess it's an OK place to have fun a few minutes without Covid.

I am hardly slowing down enough to explain it, when I could wring each step up to pose in some perspective with the giant figure for the words of the seconds, but I know one thing: we laughed how COLD it was! The wind was exactly the sort that brings winter snow. I could take a moment to describe the man to whom I handed five dollars. There was no time to even try to stop at the museum's temporary present location. We were checked out at 11:06 am, driving back out to the highway into town. We hadn't worried about time, having fun, with the joy of little kids, for at least fifteen minutes. I let that man walk over with me towards our car. I messed with my cash from my wallet over by my open passenger door. I came out with just the five, and no sir, I wasn't part of St. Andrews Church, though now I wonder if the brown coat I wear evoked that question? I don't know if he and his wife needed $22 for a room or not. Yet, when you think about it being true, it probably was. No, there's not a lot of tourists this time of year in downtown Metropolis, and it is cold enough for snow. Our own room might have been the sort he needed. I now wish I could've just stopped to send through a payment to the hotel of his choice when he asked me about the $22. There were a couple of good reasons not to stay and think longer about helping him solve his problems, when really, I just didn't want to give up my $50. We had plans when we got to Boulder.

I know we enjoyed some yummy, if slightly incorrect order, Hardee's. I couldn't help flirting quickly with the drive-through operator before hand. We didn't mind pulling over to the side, but yeah, too bad the next worker with purple hair didn't have it quite right. Didn't we get straight on the road, though?

Meanwhile, the road and getting that little bit of what I want made a satisfying combination. Now, if I wanted to create a fun comics or cartoon story, I'd have the ones stopping, on their way out to Kansas to commit some more interesting sort of act. Might be fun to have someone out there doing something with those gigantic windmills, like animating them. That's fun, putting a super criminal in a hotel alongside people like Dawn and I, with less security in what will come their way. They are hoping they can keep honest but with some interesting idea outside the law awaiting them.

Other than a note maybe about us having fast food as drivers getting away after a big heist- ah, now that might be more interesting yet. But. In the moment, my reality went like so: The next forty-five minutes would bring my challenge for Wednesday. I was living every moment on the razor's edge of the danger of the highway. You rely on yourself to not fail. You make time, you get there safely.

The first snow we'd seen together in over two years came as we pulled over for gas. Now we could at least use the pheromone spray to give T'Challa a calming towel, hanging over his flexible cat carrier, one of two across the down-turned back seats.

Just when you think it'll be interesting, it turns out to be fun driving the Illinois highways. We were on them longer than I knew it'd feel like.

She made some wonderful photos, though, and I made good time. I felt safe and focused. I felt I could fly our lives over these roads and be our Superman, even if it seemed too dangerous, brave or impossible to those concerned, looking on distantly.

Then she had to shed her pants.

West Out My Window

“My West Windows”

Filling our car windshield with a west-moving view of the United States? That dream! When Americans gained the ability to drive- and to build their own answer to the automobile, the self-made car men of old, building muscle cars to righteous freedom-now, the promises of a casteless system called. Now with wheels, you could make another part of the continental U.S. your next.

Home, this point in our story, is wagon-like. We begin our journey, passing my family’s house, remarking on a friend who lives behind a mud moat-hidden driveway off a country road. He believed in what we did as musicians; it made Steve and Claudia very happy, anyone wanted to make their own songs, and he latched onto a good one, “Dear Future,” and asked especially to record that. I’m glad we got at least the one try.

Active pathways to career progression, as it were, different ways of living, these were all offered as illusions in these years. Creativity found its way through us, one way or the other, and whenever free of worry, through the salvation of our own jobs out of our own homes on our own schedule, and all the times before that boon, many cool ideas were explored. Difficulty in developing: this was the very challenge facing the friends I knew who were parents, and the emergent identity of our communities, and developing creative projects to take out into the wilderness, like music tours, national comic books, a cartoon, a computer game driven by stories written as many choices to follow all around a haunted manor, even a documentary about continuing these pursuits over times of little glory; all in all, I still had to try the rest of my patience, four years after another illusion provided by promised long term unemployment benefits, cut down in winter by the new Congress, had placed me in a Waffle House uniform. That Waffle House is on the same highway we took out of town. There was no more visiting. We wanted to make Metropolis at night fall.



Home, now, is whatever is packed into the four -by-eight Uhaul trailer, and the 2004 Saturn Vue. Not so much a rocket ship, again, as a covered wagon. We drove about half our average speed, tops, along the curves leading up from downtown Summerville into 117. We drive past the place where we went out to cover and write the Tiny Homes story for V3 Magazine. We recognized the adventure scale of the mountain pass. Not relaxing, so much, but temptingly beautiful. I imagined my Grand Dad and his brothers and sisters, coming over here to the highway side to see the world from these Appalachian Trail foothills. I always found more mystery and romance in the Georgia land north of Rome, but never lived there myself. We drove steadily in the four o’clock hour across the Alabama Line. I thought of the creek where people in the Tiny Homes community might paddle and drift, crossing this line. Right now, this is our Tiny Home. We’ve homestead in Boulder.

We pondered: what makes one town, population 556- not ‘blow up’ as big as, say, Rome, 35,600? What makes you leave one town, be it five hundred, like the one Paw Paw left, or five hundred thousand, like St. Louis and Kansas City and Denver along our way? What makes the number of people stay small, some places, and what makes people, anywhere, decide they feel a ‘home’ call for them in some other city? Desperation? Something to do?

There probably were not five hundred people there when Grandpa, his four siblings, was it, and mother and father lived there. Still along those roads between Menlo and Lyrely you can find scenes untouched by five decades of human progression, buildings first hammered together over a century before. We ate some delicious fried green tomatoes served by a cute waitress, greens for me, too, and a cheeseburger for Marc, as I wondered what it’d be like to pursue romance from a location like this. But that was during the assignment- I remember how different Armuchee felt as we drove back into it after a day away in the mountains. I would’ve loved to go on writing assignments every week. I was glad to need a Moe’s Monday off for it. No contest.

He composed the driest and clearest prose possible. Grandpa’s hobby his last years was dedicated to study of the past, the lineage and the people they knew. The people more often than not could be found as names with a little, if any, dry detail, but I can’t deny he clearly found escape from grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, that long two decades of sliding out of ability to care for herself, imagining old times. Her living absence haunted our country home always. Your life is a lot different with your Grandmother involved, you know? I remember Christmas visits to Uncle Harold Gene and Aunt Vivian’s house. First I recall, Mom’s Grandma was alive, in a trailer in their back yard, before what became soy fields. She liked how my Dad would come watch Rasslin’ with her, on visits to the farm with Mom. I am happy we got together for those holidays, when the brothers and sisters were living. I could indulge two hours of writing of those visits. So, I’d come along these roads, or along some divergent, parallel choice outside Lyrely, where you pick up the highway further north, but we almost certainly were driven by Dad on 117. But really, I liked how well the family generally got along on road trips. Our family today, no exception.

I can’t help feeling close to my Dad’s spirit, on these drives. I am glad I became a good driver for him, and for me, and for the lady co-piloting with phone directions to check off the miles between the four highway turns between us and I-24 up to Nashville.

I remember hearing about ‘Adairsville’ in the early direction discussions, where Mom and Dad tried the routes suggested by Paw Paw. All I really got was a picture of another country town, always pine trees, in reality, the one hosting Alpine School in the days my Grandfather White was a school boy. And a word association that evoked the corner box illustration on each month’s Daredevil comic book. I had maybe ever seen even one in real life. Back then, every single comic book delivered such an impact of information collection, I’ve successfully recovered my childhood from around these and other natural pleasures, too.

Then, we pass the metal knight- we had not planned to stop, we’d planned to spend about six hours driving- but he was on the left facing west. Then, individually-colored store fronts stand out on either side of the highway, as you go through the tourist heart of Mentone, Alabama, west of the fields where Roy William White grew up. The 1960s Flower Power aesthetic, charmingly alive on the Alabama line; how could I not think of Janet and Gill visiting there, and memories their happy journey evoked for me? This was one place cool to take a date. This was a way sign for us, what belonged in our new way. Yes, there had been Trump signs in and around town, privately, and that would be a thread all the way to the upside-down distress-style flight of the American flag on the corner by the Deer’s Trail gas station. But that just goes to show, how normal it is to be part of that craziness, in the region given to us both to begin life.

I surprise us both, adjusting to the open highway back over the corner of the state back across Georgia and quickly then, Tennessee. We were on our third state, less than two hours after we finally dropped off our key with Candace. From here the journey resumed its westward characterization. I pause now to watch the gentle snow joining the first coating to stick since our arrival, lying on the banks and parking lots here east of the Flatirons. I have to lean up to see the mountains at 9 AM, because there’s a fog-like snow cloud shroud that makes the entire skyline, gray. The striking image, then, is the snow along the pine needles. A sight like this, where we left on day one, would be a wonder. The needles have all the snow cover they could hold- frozen now, as it’s still probably twelve F at most, which is nearly negative that, Celsius!

My west window, now, has the first of five mountains where I think we will find a lot of adventure, and we will become very healthy here in the city by their side. The mountain passes, there in Tennessee, seem cleaved by dynamite and careful chiseling, though these highways likely did begin where water ran downward. Even our lives, another humble passage of water to another place of less resistance. Lazy water. I asked how the phone charge looked, as I digested the first road snacks- all pastry, Goldfish, things you needn’t refrigerate- I’d shared with my love. Then, could she put on “Steel Wheels”? I hadn’t listened, I realized, since I was still a high schooler! One play through the album took me to the heart of Tennessee, across some bridges of notable size across a river landscape. I thought of our nephews and niece who had lived up this way, the visit to see DJ, the one camping trip where he sadly couldn’t join us, but, we were all together, the biggest group of the family for the last time, really, including cousin Heather and Eric/ Sara. I drew the creek there at the campsite, where Row and her sisters played. I see Colorado whiteness now, and wonder when I will first draw its wild places? Jeremy Justice had asked what were the ten haulin’ ass Rolling Stones tracks for driving, and along with the classic rock staples, I volunteered two numbers off ‘Steel Wheels.’ It was nice to make contact with those memories, as I effortlessly remember so many of the lyrics I’d once read inside my cassette. That was me and my friends, marching band that year, ’89, jamming out on the bus. .I enjoyed the quiet times, too, which set up the circumstances making a visit to a Love’s truckstop like a trip to the Varsity. She helped me realize we’d left our vitamins behind.

All my ill-temperedness was over, no longer would I sweat the small stuff, as so much of my subconscious energy had gone to converting me from a Roman to roaming. “Roman to Roaming.” We hoped we could find vitamins in a mart that size. I looked at the map on the way to our first bathroom, and realized how far I’d driven away now from my Mom.

I soon joined her, picking out hot dogs at a social distance. Man, they were good! The promise they might be delicious, the thought of the different kinds, was in a way more satisfying than my chili dogs were, but hers were exactly what she wanted. We enjoyed them out in the parking lot.

She watched at least two occasions where someone took money and then worked out, surely, a drug deal.

All business as usual, with a Mom and little girl going inside, too. That place was about 70% masked, maybe two dozen people in our time there. I’d written on Facebook about some neighbor walking his dog in the Redmond Chase parking lot, wondering for a moment if he might’ve become a friend. On the road, you don’t have that illusion at all, which is kind of better, as it is true, you will not see the vast majority of the people you are meeting, again. Whether they worked in the store, frequented it, or lived in the far-away, rich-looking hermitages of people in south Tennessee, you'd remain forever after, barring viral transmission, far apart, more likely a memory of the traveler.

I left the South happy, playing "Get Out the Mad House"- "Hold On To Your Hat"- my way of living it this one day. We'd talked about the social madhouse so much, and now, we were feeling a growing sense of ease. We're leaving behind expectations of who we're supposed to be, says the Marc Kane. Covid probably eliminated beforehand any thought of a four or five day trip, enjoying these cities. How nice, to have looked in on Nashville, but we had no plan to unpack and unhitch.

If you were simply on vacation driving, you could rest day one near Nashville, and day two, near St. Louis; but navigating the innards of those cities is a challenge its own, which we intended to generally bypass. The longest parts of the trip, for me, were usually whenever we were in some kind of city limits. You could go to Kansas City for day three, and I can’t-say-where on the line between Kansas and Colorado, but further west, for sure, than Hayes, you go somewhere out-of-the-way and chill, before the excitement of the drive into Boulder! Yes, it would’ve been lovely to arrive there by 4 PM, on any day. Even topping eighty across western Kansas, however, couldn’t put us in shot before that last challenging wave of fatigue hits during a rush hour, on the elevated highways outside Denver! Now there, even, might have been a great Day Four stop, to come to Boulder on Day Five, totally relaxed, safe, sound, and able to unload and return the Uhaul by 6!



> Yes. That would’ve been nice.

Three days? Nasty.



But this reduced the coronavirus risk, and despite the hitch hick-up, we’d had the trailer by sunset on Monday, and Mama followed my nervous drive back to make her single ever visit to our Redmond Chase Apartment. It was just as well, because there wouldn’t be any more memories made there. The resolve matched the brutality of the task, but it was all made of free will in the face of adversity. The sights of Nature seen in a single day would’ve taken aback a traveler, a century past. But after we took a chance finding an exit with gas by passing along the edge of town, we figured our way back in the I-24 direction. I was still nervous, but she had more distance inside the gas station than I had, she said, by the pumps, so, good. Word of advice: alert your bank, espcially if you're on a long-term trip or permanent move, so your zip code will match your billing address.

Now, every time we re-assured ourselves of the right direction, there was a renewal of forward intent. Every time you’re sure you’ve taken the right exit ramp is a small, personal human victory, in a day and age where a trip like this is largely taken for granted as possible. Utterly sober the whole way, I remember being in a good mood again as we pressed on through state four, Kentucky, but I really wanted Kentucky to simply end. Dark miles of pastures and woods, I felt the wear of each passing vehicle now, and of passing each vehicle, which at least offered an adrenaline shot. Fight-or-flight, reawakens, as you try and roar down an highway, safely, re-assuring yourself with estimates then, finding Paducah is still indeed some ways south of Metropolis. It’s getting late, for a day that began with a couple or so hours’ teaching, a forty-five minute phone call, my last lapsing upon our foam mattress we’d leave, lots of packing into the trailer (begun by a third the night before). I only wish we’d gotten somewhere early enough for me to seriously go get the big container of her MK Jades out of the Uhaul, that night and the next. Hard to say what besides bringing that big guy up into the Saturn with the cats would’ve saved it, though. I didn’t mean to live our lives so recklessly as to cost her plants their lives. They were sacrificed to last-minute expediency, so the guitars stayed in the Saturn and came in with us at night. At least once, though, I brought the one box of plants. That box, which stayed in the back of the car the whole time? Still living.

I’m sorry I don’t have the most interesting parts of the conversation then, but we didn’t find our Super 8 until a quarter to eleven, I believe, Central Time, but even if it was quarter to ten, eight hours mostly spent driving, now. This was a preview how B.S. the average rate is represented in Google Direction time estimates! I think an hour came from roads I didn’t intend, usually related to stops and starts, definitely including those, but clearly this first quarter of our journey kept us out later and in more frigid temps than I’d planned. My grouchiest couple of moments the whole trip were probably muddled away somewhere entering a Super 8, though I was otherwise just glad to be in off the road. Next: I'm Here To Destroy Superman!

Where I Live: Should I Just Start Over?

Birthplace to re-birthplace: heading west, 2021

If our relationship in this life was born in a mid-January, it’s poetic justice, I guess, we should find a nice place, in this one, 2021, in the city where I wanted to go before we first met. A cross-country trip. We only need launch it from the darkest month of a global pandemic.

There’s speculation we may never reach herd immunity, but it’s not unreasonable to hope for a shot at normal society- such as it is-by summer. I thought, maybe late spring, as the Maine snows thawed, when the muddy season ended, we’d make our way across the great outdoors and begin some new friendships in earnest. I’d taken the advice of a friend in Eugene, an ER nurse who attempted the single Zoom dance party. Ha! I remember streaming Live to Facebook, when we were all still nearly locked-down, as though we could start an un-self-conscious thing, a party ritual weekly keeping up spirits while we waited to see: should we even go outside? I was a four on a scale of five, caution-wise, your quiz might say, so our move-in couldn’t be marked with party invitations. And who knows just how that’d have gone, but if any number of our Rome friends came- and it seemed a cinch, another half dozen people only needed be discovered before they, too, were invited to drop by, and get-togethers? We took the two bedroom apartment, anticipating the most get-togethers in our life, in our proudly humble digs.
So, we got together to play one game of Cards Against Humanity- the one genuine party- with sisters Dixie, Charlie and niece Ciara, nee Victor Clark, last we spoke. She wants to embrace being far-out in any way that might offer freedom.

The Cards? Her idea, and like the last time she’d played with our other mutual friends, the Parsleys, this time, many great laughs. I think I could still remember some of our card phrases, especially if I dipped into the journal, but we had pizza, and we’d fortunately all been out of the flow, they from school (one cafeteria worker, one student, one concerned Mom), and we, limited to one trip to Publix that felt like the surreal acrobatics of The Matrix combined with the stress of seeing your fellow humanity as potential biohazards of possibly devastating if not fatal scale, and having given away a kitten to a friend in a new relationship with a man who wanted a black cat for Halloween run and ritual, we otherwise worked at home. Trips anywhere felt a bit like a scuba expedition during a dicey tide. Humanity’s cards might be against us, held secret in every hand.

There were only ever nine visits to that apartment, and then, add one worker in the front door frame, and the pest control lady a couple of times, and a fellow doing that before her. Our bubble, sustained by stoicism, floated by the others online, and a hand full of friends actually called and talked, as they occasionally each do, and so much as the whole thing sucked away my resources to do more than survive, there were at least as many genuinely happy days there brightened just by the sight of one another.

Now, it was time to plot the exodus of most all our belongings there, out the front door, repaired promptly to shut properly, just a week after Georgia elected two Democratic Senators and a few thousand people elected to see how far they could take vigilantism in the name of their President, the surprise flash mob to beat them all, the day Congress and the Vice-President traditionally certify state ballots. It had been amazing, soothing ourselves watching numbers, sort of hoping we could bet on them to mean our country was not, in fact, primarily insane, over the weeks watching the teenager from Maryland clip the electoral map to show poll results, never thinking how he listened to “W.A.P.” like the masses. Our BTS tickets were for a show on hold, but we took their music, and a generous playlist of 1960s music, on our excursions to attempt playing tennis. A key person flowed over into other business, so learning Korean has remained on hold not long after it’d begun, but it’s on my Deer Lingo. I opened it a few minutes the other day, thinking I might finally be ready to surprise myself, learning a new language.

But our holidays came and went so quietly, you’d think of it as a spirited reveler, coming to see a friend who’s quarantining or possibly quite ill. So, no lack of Love, no disrespect intended, but the reunion was so quiet, like a gift left on a porch after no one hears you knocking. Despite ideas tossed around, I followed her whisper-soft to sleep as a good song played on my laptop, and midnight of a new year came in like a weary traveler, off the road, collapsing on the couch before any change of clothes.

My birthday was the single holiday, in its stay-at-home format, that felt celebratory, and I owe that all to my openness, bringing the goodness of people I know and the savoring of each well-wish, the sheer pleasure of celebrating your life with the wishes of others. I'd bought and saved myself this 1969 Amazing Spider-Man, issue 71, too.

The silk scarf that came from China that day would wrap around my throat one snowy day to come in Russel, Kansas. I hardly knew then whether to hang it up on the wall or wear it, but its blue herons flew in patterns, as sure an heir to good luck as we less-avian.

I took out the ultra-cool camera Angela Dawn bought for our gift. I made the most beautiful captures of the sunset over Redmond Chase, from our westward living room window and downstairs doorstep. I’m glad I have the colors photographed, because I’d never watch one that beautiful from there again.

We pulled out the tiny bit of weed we’d rationed since November to pep us up to put on four Elton John songs and attempt a suddenly-introduced birthday set. I hoped we could see for once to chat and converse, and that went modestly well. A woman who’d once texted us her naked boob while we lived on the West Coast had a laugh and commentary well-wishes, and she’ll always remind me how much that’d pleased me. There’s a mystique, especially in those earliest home Internet years still, I guess, in living somewhere that’s partly, purely imaginary. We played again. This and the five songs by Lennon, McCartney and Young the week before had surprised me, how we might be presently without polish, but there was something in there that made me really like those songs coming out of us.

After observing John Lennon’s death December 8th, a couple of weeks before McCartney III arrived, I found myself, first inspired by a love of Sir Paul’s tunes that drove my online friend in New York, Carly Hall, to deliver “Live and Let Die” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” in memorable fashion. She generously tried our mostly-unrehearsed (blame ADHD?) arrangement of “Bennie and the Jets” after that- wow! I got to be part of a great performance, answering back on guitar and vocals as we listened to each other. Heck, listen! https://www.facebook.com/100015168963237/videos/1024230571425899/.

I knew to look up John’s work, sure: we covered “Watching The Wheels” just because it’s great and our spiritual sister in distant Cave Spring, Bean, loves that one, sold on the Chris Cornell cover newly out. I found myself wandering through Paul’s RAM again and from there, a journey across mostly his 1970s hit music. I was largely drawn to songs on Wings Over America, the live album, and the Rockshow concert film about it. Not everything, but there were usually my favorite versions of the hits, except maybe “Let ‘em In.” That one’s studio version especially resonated with me across the road-humming miles of nights in the Mid-West. As I realized how many brilliant Lennon songs go back to his first Plastic Ono Band record, I also found the contest-winner video for George Harrison’s very best solo hit song, a Top Ten 1971 single off All Things Must Past, called “What Is Life?” It went with me to Del Taco for her favorite bean and cheese burritos, and with me for curry and Paradise Garden from Jasmine Thai around the curve from us.

I rarely took any of my now-always solo jaunts from Redmond Chase without those songs, though I did put on some Tom T. Hall as I went through the car wash. Finally! After two years!
Now, it’s all dirtier than ever, from the ice and snow, but that doesn’t stick out in Boulder, Colorado.<

/br>

As we stopped playing tennis, and most of the time, instruments or singing, we both got through work, and I took to reading while she enjoyed a couple of lesbian couple vlogs after a stretch of Pregnancy Announcement videos- something to do, post-election. We’d stopped walking the nearby trail, too, as her allergies, and often mine, just seemed to disagree with the fact that fall ending should herald clear breath. I nudged the Oregon apartments, where we’d been on the wait list since summer. Corvallis did respond with two places coming available. We meanwhile pursued the most affordable place in Bangor, Maine, as we’d begun casing that area as a pandemic-light, very-different region with the promise of New England to explore, in September. We began our hoop jumps, and I announced we were, in fact, applying to a new place, on Facebook. I didn’t specify where, when talking to anyone but Mom, Charlie, Dixie and Elisa.
We mail back the application, and our response informs us we’re #61. So, the Sunday I spent calculating direction distances from The Terraces to Stephen King’s House to the clubs we might play downtown, the parks we might enjoy and the nearest tennis courts, even previewing UMaine campus and comparing orders at local McDonald’s in Rome and Bangor, was just another diversion. Hope is that way. You sometimes date a good bit before you find someone to move in with.

It was the morning of January 15th, and I couldn’t simply sleep, like the human indoor cat I now was. She’d visited my apartment by that date when she was friends with my roommates- my college buddy and my sister, both engaged, then not, but, my roommates, aware I worked out my notice with Red Lobster, the weekend before our first kiss. I hadn’t had the Internet back then- I suspected it might make in-person communication seem more awkward one day, that its facility might lead to people not so good at being-in-person with others, and besides, didn’t have the money- but I had begun preparing myself. I still had enough for Greyhound fair, if I didn’t pitch in for whatever apartment bills came due as I left. That seemed enough. We’re not talking about a guy with much, just a Beat sort of dream, who let go of his sense of self somewhat and grew satisfied to be nice without thought of reward or relationship, discover comforts in being a loner.

It was January 15th, 2021, and I was as close to being that guy again as would ever make sense. Now, having a job that would go with me, and some savings, and rent history and credit, I was ready to treat myself and the woman who became my wife so quickly to less elemental exposure. I always thought I’d find the next job, and I wondered if I didn’t belong working outdoors, but I can now tell you, Georgia didn’t prepare me for what landscaping might be like in February in Boulder. I wanted to toughen up and be independent, be less domesticated and live for insights, free of status. I don’t quite know how I thought it’d work out, but you sometimes know a place sounds right, decide you’re up to the challenge of exploring, and the drama of pursuing survival in that way lifts your steps into a realm where you notice the stories. The intention had been to see if western Oregon or coastal Maine (near Canada, cool!) might provide a place to save for a year. Why not stay around and know the place, at least that long? But further research over the years had always pointed again to Boulder as The Promised Land. Yes, California had seemed enough like a foreign country that didn’t require a travel visa, to call us before. Now, for so many reasons I found attractive, and in so many details I still can only imagine, the city ringing the foot of the Flatiron Mountains, if we could only meet the requirements, had more progress and romance than anywhere we’d never lived. So, instead of studying the past- even California had involved a search around Ventura Beach, as well as Encinitas-I thought I’d at least see what was open in Boulder.

I found a pair of very competitive listings. I called one, to be told that was surely wrong, but what range was I looking for? Park Mesa was a little different, and I wondered if the ad wasn’t a shady bait, and I damn sure didn’t expect to go from looking and emailing to calling by lunch time. I didn’t go to bed before noon as I’d ‘planned.’ I discovered a cashier’s check would be enough to take the listing off the market, most of which would be refunded me if our application fell through. I took the bait! (Pictured: Bernie Sanders, in Inaugural Mittens, in the North Parking Lot of 640 S. Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO) I was at Heritage Bank for the first time in ten months, setting it up, and following the instructions to the letter down at the Post Office, in front of the new Roman trail I’d not see again. My newest favorites from McCartney, Lennon and Harrison played- I remember “Don’t Make Me Wait Too Long” and “Meat City” as I marshaled the wakefulness to fulfill my mission by 1:45 pm or so, then pick up Jasmine Thai. Just as well it wasn’t spicy at all the last two times- weened me off the goodness of it, surely as packing made our home into simply the apartment we were departing.

It didn’t seem real! We laughed, amazed, “let’s wait and see, but sounds kinda like…” we surmised. That Monday, we had to get in touch: what else might they need before we can call it a deal? Pay stubs? Then another, bigger cashier’s check? It was all documented, and at this point, I think we were primed for risk. If it hadn’t been for that music, and Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck #14-27 (I skipped #16- I want to own it again- and left #28 until I can ask Mary Skrenes if she would sign one by mail) over Christmas, and practicing “What is Life” and “Nobody Told Me” and digging on “Junior’s Farm” before I even penetrated the lyrics- what a great 70s rock sound, live!- our good nature, Atypical on Netflix, some cat petting, and then my Comixology collection of The Defenders, right up to Gerber’s run- I’m not sure how we’d have passed for happy-enough. The news went from celebratory the day after a light-hearted birthday to rather grim and wild, but by Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, we had it all together to announce to our friends online: our next destination is Boulder.

I did read most of David Kampf’s They Laughed At Me, but the main character’s in such a dark personal place, flirting with his own barely-sublimated rage, I had to satisfy the author with a review quickly to promote his advertising efforts, after our podcast interview (his first!). I gave the book four stars of five, but I do intend to finish reading it, just as I intend to dig back into Jake Soboroff’s account of the separated families. There’s a lot of creative work suspended in its seed idea forms, but I couldn’t get back to any of it until we completely uprooted our lives!
So, this is more of a mental journey. I should’ve checked for an actual trailer hitch, earlier than I did, to save some stress and, looking back now, gaining one more vital day to drag out the trip, which the cats did not, in fact, make hellish. I didn’t realize T’Challa is the one prone to talk for the first thirty miles of any road trip, so I drove us first, after loading up January 26th, to the vet’s, uncertain of the Benadryl gambit they’d suggested. Our black cat benefited most from a pheromone spray, and for good measure, the three babies all got Calming Collars, too. I spent any moment of every day from Jan. 18th to Jan. 26th, loading, planning.

Maybe I could’ve turned our three day journey into a less-stressful four day one. For this travel diary, I will take us nearly 3000 words from the one setting, the town where we were both born, and close out one part, here, leaving three more.

By four in the afternoon, we drove towards Paw Paw's hometown, Menlo, Georgia- Population, 556. If you were one of the very few I saw: Mo, Bean, Dixie, Charlie, Victor, Stacy, Bryan, and Mom- and you’re probably not the two fellows from UHaul, where a comedy of errors ensued, along with a solid hitching- we had those moments! I think there’s a short story told in my notes, but for here? I want to tell you how you each crossed our minds, traveling nearly 1500 miles. Leaving you was sad, even after we arrived, since I fell sick and it was much like an energetic ‘homesickness’- but the road here, we were in the moment, in that ineffable way that drives people to travel, in some form. I’m just as far from the rest of you, basically, as I felt I was before, which is to say, you’re welcome to come along, every word I release, and in the songs, thank you, we share!
I only want to say, when I sat down on the back of the four-by-eight open trailer, and took the time to calmly dismantle my hunter’s/ office chair for storage, as I should’ve before, I felt the last residual of the burning fury I’d felt, at every disappointment that ever came with being again in Northwest Georgia. I enjoyed the sun, the task, her company. After a nap, on a foam mattress we gave up on trying to drag down and somehow stuff in the trailer, I found that peaceful reserve. I stayed with its stream, like an ambitious paper boat floating surprisingly far from the hands that fashioned it. When we stopped looking for things to pack- when we stopped remembering what I’d left in the kitchen- we set out around three p.m. Yes, why, asked my Chinese friend, in a forty-five minute conversation like none we’d ever had alone (usually her daughter’s with us), was I going out ‘during this special time,’ as she diplomatically put it? I had sane-sounding reasons to offer, and a reservation in Metropolis, Illinois. The estimates suggested we could take on about a quarter of the trip, then spend another day on half across flat Kansas, and then another quarter into Colorado.

With calm certainty, I took the extra time to visit the clinic in East Rome. We double-checked the first highway out of town, which clearly took us past Mom’s house, where we’d stayed before she finally found her a man to come stay with her, and maybe, didn’t quite need us the same. I didn’t have a clear picture, I admit, of the beginning, until I was on the road through the towns where my Grandfather White grew up. Curves were everywhere. Speeds were chosen cautiously. But a time of passive past tense receded as the inclinations grew, magnificent shoulders over wilderness, winding away from our place of birth to our new one.
1:57 PM 2/10/21 Be Chill, Cease ill