I thought the final long drives where I rented a hotel room and stayed away in Gracie were the trips that closed out the ‘very good year’ of 2025. I thought I had made enough of an effort to reconcile and say goodbye to Mendocino, Humboldt and Lake Counties as the march of time brought us to calendar year 2026.
And then it happened, oh did it happen.
“Hey life, lookit me….”
If find myself wondering how many more times it’ll be necessary to hit the road. I wonder how many directions of practice and finalization await as the road seemingly opens ahead of me. I’m oddly sitting in the nicest financial position I’ve ever sat in my life because of a string of insecurities that have bombarded my life from others. 3 years of anguish wrapped up in less than 3 weeks.
I stand alone, wondering does anything but the lessons of the period carry thru. Anxiety says it’s time to purge and see what performs under the pressure of getting on with this trip called life. I get to take a break from laboring for capitalism ‘not-for-profit’ for a little bit. The timing aides a certain level of flexibility in my life. Not being expected to labor in the chaos further left the door wide open to poke at George’s suggestion from a few weeks back.
George suggestion of romance still sweetens potentiality while it stings with a certain unclaimed reality. I have had to sit with my definition of romance. Perhaps childishly I’ve thought of it mostly as well, you know, make eyes at someone? You maybe wink your eyes in hopes that they draw closer? Mayhaps that leads to a hug, followed by a kiss? The ultimate romantic ending will happen with the shedding of layers of clothes, ideally with lighting that highlights the physical form in front of you. There’s bonuses that there’s a decent climate that heightens the sensation excited sweat moistening the proceedings.
Frankly, my definition of romance was and maybe still is too limited into the pursuit of having sex with someone unique and special and nothing else. Given how great the romantic build up into sex actually feels tho, would you judge me for holding such a simple internal definition for so long? As much as I’ve been given a read of my character by society as being highly intellectual, I truly relish indulging my feelings. I’ve had to play with my concepts of romance and poetics a lot lately. I think there’s been a call to expand it, to nuance it. My tendencies to center an absolute goal makes me sort of a peacock. It’s okay to embrace being that arrogant sometimes.
I’ve had to recognize that a lot of how I carry myself even outside the act of courtship and intimacy could be considered romantic or poetic. I throw challenges in front of myself and relish the sense of accomplishment if I find success with whatever climax I’m chasing. It has been an interesting bucket of water to carry. I’ve had to consider the observations of a peer I’ve known for 30 years that cared enough after all this time to dare me to make things a bit more romantic. There’s more ways to be orgasmic than I’ve limited myself to. I’m prone to ignore in my daily routines the possibilities of doing so.
Moving across the country to Philadelphia is also nowhere in a daily routine. The act itself is a romantic choice. I’ve worried if it has tipped over into a melodramatic choice at times. Heartbroken, time and time again, within that age range of ‘mid-life crisis,’ relocating to a metropolitan area across the country would fulfill a laundry list of stereotypes. Given the level of dread around me it seems borderline selfish; another hallmark of ‘mid-life crisis.’ If poetics and romance are more broadly defined as caving into the full range of feelings beyond the possibility of fucking, this choice is purely centered in some of my deepest desires. I want to live as close as possible to who I consider my best friends.
I say that in the consequence of leaving behind what may be some of the best friends I have where I live now. There’s an inherent cruelty to not give as much care or credit to those that have been around me to the best of their ability in the Bay Area. There’s a bittersweet tone that permeates text messages. There’s excitement and cheer trying to trampoline away from a melancholy undertone of longing that this was not my choice. I think of all the opportunities missed.
Were there possibilities of pursuing my very narrow definition of romance in a few of these bonds? I also think how often we’re denied exploring the possibility of these bonds. We’re exhausted trying to keep up with the absurd tempo dictated to us. Meanwhile the environment feels like a pressure cooker. It’s been an unseasonably warm late winter. Equinox hasn’t broken yet, but it’s 90 degrees.
This is where I have to also understand a bit of confusion. I have to recognize a lot of people around me have kept me locked into specious ideas of poetics. I’ve had to recognize that I’ve been sabotaged by their own fears of how strongly I lean into my passions, especially if it is inclusive of them. I feel such a tug to pull some of the hearts I still desire most with me. There’s some where I dread asking them to give up the beauty they’ve created. I’m definitely giving preference to the ones that are displaying that their reality is dark, dim and colorless. I’m not gonna cut chords to the links in my chain. It won’t be just my life I’ll be changing with ‘romance.’ Romance has some pretty strong consequences.
I have to take in the romantic implications of the various groups of friends too. The friends that inhabit the City of Brotherly Love, tellingly, are excited and can’t wait for me to be embodied in front of them to care about me and receive my care in return. The ones local to the bay area have avoided the reality that I’m leaving by walking around the subject, if they respond at all.
Some fully stone wall me out of their lives as if my move is the most ultimate betrayal of the bond. It is a very visceral cutting sensation to feel their misunderstanding. The distance is meant to improve possibilities. I wish they had faith more in themselves to move on for themselves. If I can find it, in all that’s happening, and all that’s happened to me? What in the actual fuck!? You can do it too! Join me for low low cost of abandoning the fake identity you’ve worn as a costume your whole adult life!
My inner voice is hoarse from screaming.
Mike had said months ago that he was excited to see me write about Philadelphia. I confessed in a few thousand words that it was one love story, one of many that was happening concurrently in my life. It just had the bonus of being the happiest one, the other ones are heavily laced in melancholy. I’m just choosing where I see continued growth. It’s perhaps the one love story laced with the least pain in my life. It’s an honoring of two people that have been devoted to the cause of keeping me alive, keeping me alive and cared for.
If its the greatest love story in my life, I’m luckier than Mary Wells was to have “Two Lovers.” Like her, I ain’t ashamed. There’s been dialogue that I always wanted my life to look like an episode of 227. I’ve been humbled that the feeling is the same; there’s hope that I’d be the next door neighbor instead of just a friend across town. Nobody has ever said that to me. It’s been made explicit to me that a concept of ‘home’ means having me just an open door away, not on the other side of the country. I’ve been crying tears of joy for a solid week with the verification that my feelings were right all along.
There’s still a bit of this game of romance I am unsure of, even after I’ve put it to the test. I really put George’s suggestion that I drive Gracie cross country to a real test. I can’t shake how dangerous that feels given the level of fascism that permeates the United States now. Realistically, even if it is a shock to white eyes still, our corporate nation state has always been the best refinement of fascism. In the meantime, I look around at the escalating price of gasoline.
I note I’m getting less information about ICE raids nationally as there’s clearly more media silence on the fascist state we live in. I haven’t secured a co-pilot as a second set of hands, ears or eyes yet. If I’m truly doing this trip this way, I need a watchdog. So far, One suggestion of what many have thought was a German Shepard is still in training. At best in its current state, it’s a neurotic, bossy Pomeranian. I realistically think over the regal Collie that, well, got a bit too protest-y when I tried to pull the leash in one direction. I’ve gotta show the Collie the payoff. I’ve got more than a pocketful of treats to convince them.
I’m wasting word count reminding you that this nation-state was the ideal model for Nazi Germany. You should know that by now. World War II was an economic boon for Henry Ford and a host of other corporate overlords. I peel a grape knowing my resume was boosted by a job held a decade ago that was initially funded by the Ford foundation. I smugly lie to myself that at least the Chevrolet brand wasn’t smeared directly across the war machine. I hope that makes it less cringe when I hum “See the USA in your Chevrolet” as if I’m a reincarnated Dinah Shore. I cringe at the fact that my car takes its basic concept of the Nazi ploy to put Germany on wheels in the form of the VW Beetle. I sit in awareness that the only possibility of escape is acknowledging the foundations and limits the established order puts on us.
If it was to be, I had to see if certain things were true. The original Volkswagen was designed to transport a ‘nuclear’ family of 4 in relative ease and comfort at approximately 60 miles an hour, with relative no strain on flat roads. It was to be strong and sturdy enough to climb mountains that might be in the way of visiting the village on the other side of the hill. Granted the hills were the Bavarian Alps. This meant having to ascend roads carved into landscapes in up to 8,200 feet. Somehow, between aerodynamics, air cooling and light build, The ‘Type 1’ was able to handle that with a mere 34 horsepower initially. Eventually that would be improved through displacement expansions and even fuel injection to get 50.
Across the Atlantic, due to the puritanical premeditated production of human beings determined by patriarchy and imperialism, the typical American nuclear family was bigger. Therefore, as more Americans gained access to cars, there was a need for bigger beasts. Those beasts became dragons by 1957. Also, I guess the rigors of conformity were wearing out with the conforming consumers.
They looked at some of the savings of that mere 34 horsepower. They heard driving simplicity could feel like a joy and not a mind numbing chore. There’s a certain thrill to getting a firm thrust in the rear. Weirdly, the leftover from the last crescendo of fascism was a simple device dedicated to the romance of dancing down the road with more connection than most were used to.
The biggest corporate behemoth in the world decided it couldn’t allow anyone to horn in on their market share. Theydies and Gentlethems, this is really why we got the Corvair. General Motors could not think of giving up having more than 50% of the market share on the U.S. market. Greed lead to the simplest, if seemingly complex answer to doing more with less. The initial Corvair was low to the ground, barely standing 4 feet tall. You sit in them like a chaise lounge you drive. There’s a surprising amount of room you relax into. If there’s more kids that 2, there’s room for them, too. Four 6 foot tall ‘adults’ will make do where it would be impossible in a Beetle.
There’s a bit more confidence with at least 80 horsepower pushing you along. If you choose, you can convince the car to doing the shifting for itself. You just tell it where to go and how fast it can go within the limits of all of the elements of design. The most pure to intention ones will give you 85 miles per hour. The ones most flagrantly trying to catch your eyes have at bare minimum 180 horsepower and enough thrust and perry to push you along in excess of 120 miles per hour.
The Sierra Nevadas have some of the highest peaks in North America. Mt. Whitney you know, like it’s 14,000 feet and some change. There’s passes in the Sierras that exceed the expectations of the Bavarian Alps. There’s also the Rocky Mountains that divide the spine of the continent in a clear half. The Appalachian mountains don’t ask for much but respect as you traverse them. Even in 1957, the tempo of American life couldn’t handle the full dawdle of a Beetle in the mountains. We, damn the resource drain, only gave ourselves so much time in the trap we built for ourselves. Only the most privileged of us were able to carve aside 2 week solid blocks of relaxation. Everyone else had to fight for a bit of peace.
34hp and going up a mountain pass at 25mph wasn’t gonna cut it. We gotta keep it at 50 unless the road bends. Hence the ‘big car’ features that establish a Corvair as ‘murican’ like the 6 cylinder engine and the automatic transmission. No American likes to fuss with details that much. It’s one of our fatal flaws that keeps tripping us up. We did need a bridge between our trained excesses and the divinity of simplicity. It was given a pretty lovable face, I mean, who can resist this:
I will always fall in love with an honest face. Every Corvair is honest about what it is. There’s no fake nostrils, because it breathes differently. There’s an eagerness to the ‘caveman’ cars that have the 1960 only concave nose. Lessons, winkles and scars help give the innocent face some admittedly sexy determination as the convex nose of the 1961-64 cars gave way to the stern prow of determination of the 1965 til the end second generation cars. The high school theater geek with braces graduated with a degree from Julliard, a decided smokeshow ready to take on the world stage.
We are a society that doesn’t honor or understand finesse. Look at some of the stinkers that have won best picture at the Academy Awards. There’s a reason we still have Ford Mustangs being the last signature of low slung phallic supplement for those not endowed with a sense of individuality for close to 62 years. It’s nearly the last one standing after everyone else got herded into a pick up truck or ‘crossover’ that carries more crap home we don’t need to facilitate the sense of life. We mindlessly maneuver in the crime of ‘nuclear family’ that has been pasted across suburban sprawl that for example goes on incessantly in the capital of the ‘golden state.’
I like to think I’m a more nuanced person. I can’t deny that I’m a uniquely ‘American’ creation, either. I embody a reality of colonialism that predates quite a bit before the declaration of independence. I’m a manifestations of a lot of dark deeds done on this land all the way through the questionable narratives of my conception. I can be at times a reminder of how annihilation exists in anything deemed ‘nuclear.’ I feel an extreme pressure to banish the darkness I sometimes feel electrifying my bones. It’s countered by a certain fire that desires to make things a bit more beautiful but not necessarily brighter.
I’m a bit annoyed that I told on myself in a particular run of photos that seem to make me glow. Only one photographer catches it. I’m nervous about what that means. I’m only nervous because I already know what it means. I’m just plain upset that for now it doesn’t occur regularly. There’s a few others that understand it. I hope they don’t all envy the limited quantity of individuals that make it happen.
That’s where I’m trying to make two choices at once. I feel a concentrated need to make home as close to next to the set that saw it first. I know one of them is rooting for the one I’m afraid I’m leaving behind. I’m sure he noticed that familiar glow being replicated by the actions of another and perhaps glowed a little himself. He worries about the caretaking duties he can’t get to. I wonder how hard the disappointment registered when I tried to hide that it had fallen apart under a bit of pressure. What needs to be done to insure that this round doesn’t fail another ‘pressure test?’
Well. I’ve spent the last 18 months assembling the resources to put me and a + 3 at most over not one significant mountain range but two. Many people have said Corvairs are comfortable on long drives. My travels this winter have proven that to be true for me at least. I’m keeping tabs on how to keep it mechanically up to snuff. 3 months or 3,000 miles between oil changes is proving to be still true. It keeps you attuned to ritual to take care of your broom on a normative cycle just as you would a sentient being in your care. The ritual of routine gives the firm foundation to try all the possibilities.
The mountains high and the valleys so deep
Cant get across to the other si-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hide
Dont ya give up baby, dont you cry
Dont ya give up till I reach the other si-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hideI was lonely baby, I couldnt sleep
The night they took you from my si-hi-hi-hi-hi-hideI was a lonely soul
Until you became my goal
And then I saw the spark of love
And then the stars fell from (up above OH YEAH!)I know someday we will meet again
But I dont know exactly where or whe-he-he-he-he-he-he-hen
But baby, if fate has its way
Well meet again some other day-aaaaaaaaaayyyyThe mountains high and the valleys so deep
Cant get across to the other si-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hide
Dont ya give up baby, dont you cry
Dont ya give up till I reach the other si-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hi-hide
I didn’t cry when I reached Donner Summit last Monday. I made it to the other side of the mountain with beaming pride. I fired off digital photos as evidence of the accomplishment to two very supportive Aries individuals in my life right now.
“You made it, of course you did” was the first reply
It was mirrored in sequence by another virtually identical “You made it!” another text bubble away.
All I did was feather the gas pedal enough to pull around trailers laboring up the grade while not getting ran down by others more in a rush to whatever outcome they were trying to claim. On the high end it meant doing 70 miles per hour when the elevation gains were more gradual. It meant 55 to not flog and floor Gracie, but keep her gracefully ascending 6% grades and staying ahead of some, out of the way of others.
It’s teaching me A LOT about how to navigate a Saturn-Neptune in Aries transit opposing my Mars in Libra. I had to bring astrology into this somehow. When it gets to what I’ll have to say about actually staying put in Tahoe for a few days, we’re gonna be leaning into other divination practices quite hardcore. Tarot cards come up. The magic of sharing fine spirits comes up as does well. There’s gonna be details about the magic and mischief that particular magic wand can get into. I don’t know why there’s this weird vacillation between addressing it as the dual elephant trunk in the room. We’d both love to address and assess the possibilities of if we just looked at them. I’m ready.
It’ll be interesting if all the tickets will fill up for the open seats. I have such a lovely place for them to sit and take in the views. The photos here prove the possibility. There’s a beautiful world that opens up just as you finish your climb over the mountain. I’m surprised when I did pause, how much love lost then found I was graced with by putting all of my theories to the test. I’m annoyed that I proved my confidence right. It’s unfamiliar territory to live beyond your anxieties. To stay humble, I might need to be proven wrong about who I wish is sitting next to me. My pride, alas, makes me still wish for my preferred outcome. Here’s hoping you’re saying that not so little prayer with me.
