Crossing the mountain
I live in the dirt; I grew up in it.
Every so often, however, when I was able to break free and sneak off, I would steal a car (I call it borrow) and drive up the mountain.
Slowly the filth gave way to greenery. I traveled up the back of the serpent that cut through the countryside. As we weaved up the hill the car would work to various degrees of distress. Sometimes we would stop for drinks; maybe a smoke.
Depending on the company, a chat. Mostly I was with Myself and Me, other times, when he was still around, with a small green lizard who was my best friend. He was a native but was born in the dirt, like I often think myself to have been.
The road holds a place in my heart, it goes from crappy, potholed pockmarked two-lane to beautifully paved three or four-laned road; all seemingly randomly alternating. I/We would sometimes get caught behind a rig and depending on the vehicle we were in we would either be able to pass them on the two-lane provided we had a gap in oncoming traffic, or just stay behind them until the road widened. There was this one time we were in a slow car and couldnt pass this truck so we stopped in this parking lot across the road from what people always knew as the "haunted house". We decided to explore the house but the adventure was short lived since what we saw from the road was just a façade as the rest of the house was just rotted away. All those years I imagined it to be a complex structure filled with doorways and halls hiding something creepy around each corner.
it finally started to get colder, as cold as it got below 2,000 ft. in the tropics around summer solstice.
The clouds get closer the closer the destination becomes. Buildings start to have hints of green moss growing on them; depending on their upkeep.
Did I mention I usually did this at night?
I would always roll the windows down on these trips. Even in the cities where the air is thick with pollution. I enjoyed slowly being able to breathe more and more freely.
I would think of my friends in other countries, often times stuck within cites by a number of restraints; jobs, relationships, children, school. I will often wish I could bring a friend to a place I go, or meet someone I Know. "I have this friend I think you would love and really get along with. What an awesome day it would be if we were to borrow X's car and drive to the beach for the day, you me and them."
This road is not the fast way to the beach, but it sure as hell is the most scenic.
I'll often let my mind wander, sometimes I'll even remember to come back to the present and be present, brushing off the load of "what if's" and "if only's" that are nice to think of, but unpleasant to realize they are not to be.
Every so often, however, when I was able to break free and sneak off, I would steal a car (I call it borrow) and drive up the mountain.
Slowly the filth gave way to greenery. I traveled up the back of the serpent that cut through the countryside. As we weaved up the hill the car would work to various degrees of distress. Sometimes we would stop for drinks; maybe a smoke.
Depending on the company, a chat. Mostly I was with Myself and Me, other times, when he was still around, with a small green lizard who was my best friend. He was a native but was born in the dirt, like I often think myself to have been.
The road holds a place in my heart, it goes from crappy, potholed pockmarked two-lane to beautifully paved three or four-laned road; all seemingly randomly alternating. I/We would sometimes get caught behind a rig and depending on the vehicle we were in we would either be able to pass them on the two-lane provided we had a gap in oncoming traffic, or just stay behind them until the road widened. There was this one time we were in a slow car and couldnt pass this truck so we stopped in this parking lot across the road from what people always knew as the "haunted house". We decided to explore the house but the adventure was short lived since what we saw from the road was just a façade as the rest of the house was just rotted away. All those years I imagined it to be a complex structure filled with doorways and halls hiding something creepy around each corner.
it finally started to get colder, as cold as it got below 2,000 ft. in the tropics around summer solstice.
The clouds get closer the closer the destination becomes. Buildings start to have hints of green moss growing on them; depending on their upkeep.
Did I mention I usually did this at night?
I would always roll the windows down on these trips. Even in the cities where the air is thick with pollution. I enjoyed slowly being able to breathe more and more freely.
I would think of my friends in other countries, often times stuck within cites by a number of restraints; jobs, relationships, children, school. I will often wish I could bring a friend to a place I go, or meet someone I Know. "I have this friend I think you would love and really get along with. What an awesome day it would be if we were to borrow X's car and drive to the beach for the day, you me and them."
This road is not the fast way to the beach, but it sure as hell is the most scenic.
I'll often let my mind wander, sometimes I'll even remember to come back to the present and be present, brushing off the load of "what if's" and "if only's" that are nice to think of, but unpleasant to realize they are not to be.