This afternoon, I was driving on "Main Street" which runs exactly north and south like an airstrip, directing traffic into the desert like a double ended line segment with arrows pointing north to Canada and south to Mexico like a math problem. The sunroof open on my "northern car," a 1989 Mazda which has a spot of rust above the driver's side wheel well, my bleached hair pulled back by white sunglasses, it occured to me how lonely it really can be to be so removed from your familiar, greener and startlingly real past. Listening to Madonna tell me "Nothing Really Matters", which has become my mantra against falling into delusion longing for possible connection with one-night stands and missed chances, I felt a sense of control. Something along the lines of not knowing where I am going, but sure that I am not intentionally driving people away from myself, but rather selectively forcing them out with the unintentional and unarguable reality of physical distance. When money and time, the factors needed for travel become readily available and the desire to be somebody's fantasy dominates my imagination, what stops me from getting on that plane. To be that blond guy with a 2 day beard slowly walking out of the crowd at an airport with a white duffel slung over his shoulder and a half-cocked grin staring right at you, coming towards you like a chinook wind smelling of ginger and leather.
The honest truth of being somebody's fantasy and defining yourself by that vision that somebody else might have (and probably won't) doesn't make the rest of your life on a daily basis make any more sense, or give you anything to go by when you alone.
