i send my SOS to the world- this is my message in a bottle. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Pull of Gravity I've been driving for three days. The road beneath my feet, first I went to San Jose. I've taken the Bay Area in all forms now; North, South, East and as West as I can go, hugging the coastline on Highway 1. I've been filling time in a desperate way lately- fitting in miles and minutes with a deceptively languid pace, counting the seconds and weeks until this hazy, city scented dream fades. I've been less afraid lately though- scribbling reminders to myself that each ending signals another beginning. Yesterday, I planned to go to Walnut Creek but missed the 24, which resulted in my nearly getting to Sacramento before I realized I had gone too far. I backtracked, through wide fields of cows and grasses, backdropped against the wide delta and dotted with industrial factories. Smokestacks rose to the sky, white smoke reaching up like fingers clawing the swaths of wide blue. I drove and drove, ignoring practical heeds to save money on gas. What good is being away from your ordinary reality if you don't make the effort to consume the fantasy? I turned the music to an all encompassing decibel, I rolled the passenger window low to let the air pass through the car and sang at a volume that I haven't sang in a long time. I stopped through Walnut Creek, walked around the cute shops and marveled at how...clean it was. It looked like La Jolla. Almost as if my suburban eyes are now unaccustomed to it, and part of me miss the character and charm of rough edges in the city. I eventually found my way to Mt. Diablo and began the slow, 30 MPH ascent. The road wound through the mountain, but at 3,500 feet despite it's height the grasses gave it the deceptive look of being an overgrown hill. Soulive provided the soundtrack and I squealed out loud in delight several times at the sheer scope of everything. Green stretched for what felt like forever, varying degrees in the form of bright green grass and deep dark forest ribbons. The sky was a hazy blue and as the sun dipped lower it gave the quality of a external reflection of how I felt. There was a lightness to the moment, as if I was the only person to drive her little white car through twisting streets alone, the solitude the perfect companion to the scene. I made it to the top and I felt like I was standing on the top of the world, the Bay Area seeping out from beneath my feet in all directions. Across the Bay, San Francisco sparkled, the reflection on the water so bright that it seemed like a small sun, a little center of my universe as a spot on the horizon. I could see the Golden Gate, Coit Tower and the Transamerica building peep over the Berkeley Hills and both the freeways and the delta snaking through the land like so many serpents. I stood at the top of a lookout point and closed my eyes, the wind whipping my hair and caressing my face. I then tore my eyes from the ground and stared into the cloudless sky. The moon was directly above me, a small white thumbnail on a hand that seemed closer than it had ever seemed during the day. The most acute feeling though was what felt like the subtle curve of the earth directly above me and on all sides. Almost as if I could feel above me the gentle doming, like living within a snowglobe. It humbled me in a way that contradicted the action- standing on top of the world and surveying my domain and similtaneously reveling in how small I really am. I drove down the mountain knowing I would return- I can't not share this with my friends. I made my way to Emeryville and had dinner with Stacey in Oakland, and then her, Chris and myself stayed up until 3:30 in the morning discussing faith, friendship, religion and personal goals. I'm lucky in the sense that I am learning more and more here my independence and savoring my own companionship and also how much I need the people who have impacted my life here. I stayed the night and then went to Borders this morning, sitting in a large chair and reading "The God of Small Things". I then went to Berkeley and had lunch at Gypsy's. The night before Chris gave me a map of the Berkeley hills that he had printed out, the portion that had been cut off marked: Onward. I went Onward, unsure of my direction but liberated in the action. Everytime the road forked I took what appeared to be the less traveled one, the more obscure one, much to my poetic, cliched amusement. I spent three hours driving around, surprised at the secrets that lurked behind the hill. On my right the city sat on the bay and on my left a clearing revealed a wide valley in between larger mountain. The steep drop on the right amplified by the inviting soft curve of the greenery on the left. First, homes with wide windows open to the view like mothers with outstretched arms clung to the sheer cliffs, then following the innards of the hills, I reached the bottom where tall redwoods shielded the sun. I turned off the road several times simply to take in the view. I pulled into a parking lot at one point, finding a hiking trail and proceeded to hike, in my brown blazer and Diesel shoes, clutching my digital camera. I walked into the woods cautiously and stood in the darkness for a long time, my eyes tracing the slight pinpricks of blue and the sound of an almost loud solitude. Back in my car I saw a wild turkey by the side of the road and laughed aloud with an enthusiasm that surprised even me. I've never seen a wild turkey..in the wild, and it stood fearless by the side of the road, paying no interest to my gaze. I continued down the mountain and ended up in Moraga, almost suddenly in the middle of nowhere and coming out on the side of a school near a middle class suburban community where identical track housing lined the streets and a crossing guard stopped my progress. The whole thing was a reprieve from my citified adventures and a vacation unto myself, hours stretching while I enjoyed two people that I needed to see more often: Myself, and God. Soundtrack for the journey: India Arie- God is Real 1:55 a.m. - Saturday, Apr. 16, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||