It’s Out There in Kansas…
This is us, on the drive from Cortez to Dodge City. It’s early October, and the Great Honeymoon Road Trip is drawing its own conclusion. I’m behind the wheel and you are asleep, wrapped in the shades of gray blanket we picked up in Ciudad Acuna, fifty percent off, just for us. The wanderings have left us too far afield, so we have to make up ground, and this is how: Blasting east into the night, past the unremarkable fencelines, where invisible dogs doppler through the darkness.
This marriage thing is new, and I have not yet learned this is how you travel; unconscious, trusting. Your mouth is open the tiniest bit, your sleep a series of sighs. I hold back the radio to let you rest.
The road is two point perspective 101. The solid white lines extend from the front fenders of the car, and I can aim the hood point at where the highway meets the horizon. It’s traveling without obvious progress, the only evidence the bluewhite numerals on the dash claiming time has passed.
Philosophy typically raises its hand to tap on the window about now, but I’m too tired, too hypnotized by this endless highway. Instead of reflecting on the vagaries of my existence or the obvious, and too easy, analogy of marriage and road, I only drive. Every hour or so, I look for a place to pull off the side for a smoke and a stretch.
At mile marker infinity, I note light edging up over the horizon, and watch as the moon climbs out of the ground. It takes over the sky, its craters defined by serrated shadows. Its a poster of the moon hung on the windshield, orange and bright, close enough that I slow the car.
You sigh again, shifting in your seat, and for a moment I think I should wake you. But it’s late and you’re content in your dreams, and really, it’s only the moon. Still, I share it with you, because it’s also only us, and we are full and sharp in relief, even if you don’t yet know it.
So later, when we stop for gas, and your eyes flicker open and you reach out to make certain I’m there, and you ask am I okay, has anything happened? I speak softly so I don’t bring you all the way back.
Not much. Just miles to go. But I did see where the moon lives.
on November 15, 2006 at 1:45 pm
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I’m not getting this. So you and yer chick wuz drivin’ around at night? Is that what all this wuz all about?
Seriously, Cog, that was quite beautiful…
on November 15, 2006 at 10:06 pm
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thanks, Knarf.