Conversation

I used to do a lot of big drives in my 20s and early 30s. A different world. Different headspace. Must have logged at least 100k miles on 5+ hour road trips. Only lower 48 state I’ve somehow missed driving through is New Mexico.
3
47
Identity doesn’t quite roll up memory perfectly even if you’re an introspective type who processes everything into writing. So when you are reminded of old adventures by current stimuli it’s like meeting a forgotten part of yourself. Not nostalgia per se, more like mourning.
2
27
Driving from LA to Vegas rn, a drive I last did in 2011. One of the bleakest drives in the world, yet also one of the most poignant.
4
7
Some day I might do a longer India visit and redo the long train rides that played a similar role for me before 1997 that big drives did 1997 to 2011
2
8
Last 6mo have been weird. Spent time in Ann Arbor after 17y (not counting a 2011 drive by), DC after 9y. Now Vegas after 8y. All triggered by father-in-law passing, Feel like time is in rewind. Like I’m retracing my life steps and finding bits and pieces I lost along the way.
1
19
There was also Austin after 20y in 2018 🤔 Haven’t been back to the town I grew up in since 1997 when I was 22. That’ll be trippy when I eventually make it back.
3
5
“Going down memory lane” is a thing. Especially when you realize that there are people who never left each landmark. You may have left little bits of yourself carelessly behind everywhere but others never moved. They’re all in, in one place, in one piece. Their lane is a point.
Squeezing life out of old memories is a bit like squeezing more juice out of an old sketchy looking partially squeezed half lemon you found wrapped in Saran Wrap in the fridge in the back
2
10
People who move tend to move “with the times” in a sense. Movers and stayers kinda bear witness to each other’s lost lives.
3
17
I can sense a sad-mode me to come via a future regeneration in about a decade that will be a powerful downer. You’ve been warned. Being is a continuous choice between melancholy of memory and sanguinary amnesia.
19