Note: Ok I am gonna try my hand at this and I already know it will be a little too literal but I am just starting. I am wired to be more literal, that is why I am trying to do this. So here we go.
"When that morning sun comes beating down, you're gonna wake up in your home town. But we'll be scheduled to appear 1,000 miles away from here." The Load Out - Jackson Browne
I haven't traveled much in my life, granted I am still young but it seems like I am behind the curve. I have only flown twice, once for work and once for a mini vacation with my wife. We flew to Atlanta for a weekend seeing the sights and ending with a Cubs game. Flying is a very odd sensation, in less than 2 hours I am long way from home. What happened? How did I get here? When you drive somewhere at least you see the landscape. My brain can comprehend the gradual changes in landscape as we cross the US. Instead, I walk up a ramp and boom everything is different.
The sun is hot in Atlanta, I have never felt air so thick that I was afraid I couldn't breathe. Nothing but high rises all through downtown. Feeling so small standing there since up was the only direction you could see. At least I knew which way was up if I didn't know East from West, North from South. Take away the ability for someone to have their natural survival instincts and you will see panic. Not that I was panicking, more of an unnerving sensation. Still we were young and foolish walking through downtime past all the homeless people and guys begging me for a dollar to get a Big Mac.
We made it everywhere we were trying to go, somehow we just did it. There was a light rain for most of the Cubs game. It felt good and kept the sun from beating on us for awhile. I think they lost I don't remember other than watching Zambrano warm up in the bullpen. Really it was harder to navigate our way to our seats than the streets and rail system of Atlanta.
The whole trip is a blur, there and gone in a flash. Hour and a half and we were back home. The next morning I woke up and went to work as if I was never really gone. Back safe within my bubble of this world.
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3 comments:
It's funny I read the first few words of your lyric and I started thinking of a different Jackson Browne song that goes "When the morning light comes streaming in, I get up and do it again. Amen."
I couldn't get the damn thing out of my head the first time I read through your post.
Now to slip on my Freud hat. I thought for sure with that lyric you might end up talking about growing up wanting to be a rock star. Instead you came up with something a lot more interesting (although not completely isolated from such dreams). I like the interplay with literal and figurative direction and movement. Your literal movement on the planet and the figurative direction of your life.
All I remember about being in Atlanta is that freeways seemed super wide. I think when I was down there, it was before Chicago really started widening their freeways. I'd never been on a road with five or six lanes on each side before. You have me beat in plane trips 2-0.
I hit a wall in the paragraph about the Cubs game. Felt like I got lost and then it just came back together. It was very fun and enlightening.
That is the funny part we flew there and took public transportation and i dont think we ever on the freeways.
Another thing I like about these is that after a couple years, you can go back and react completely different. You can see where you may have been meaning to write about one thing, something else is very evident.
Yeah, the Cubs game stuff did stick out a bit. I think you could have spent more time talking about trying to get to your seat. Or why it was hard to find them. Something like that. Maybe just relief of finding them is why you don't remember the outcome. I don't know, I am just spinning things in my head.
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