neighborhood #29 (wednesday drive) I was born into a car culture. Growing up and living in the suburbs of Texas (well anywhere in Texas, really) I couldn't wait until I was 16 and would be able to drive around. Because it was difficult to get anywhere without a car, so we think. I grew up my entire life living blocks from grocery stores, and I could count the times I have walked to them on my fingers. We need to drive those two blocks...we need to drive to the fast food restaurant...we need to drive to the park to exercise...we need to drivewehavetodrivewealwaysdriveeverywhere. Of course the reason we think this is because we have space to grow; always around me new streets are being paved, new houses and stores built, and new neighborhoods created. It's crazy how much concrete surounds me. Concrete and landscaped grass. The cities I call home here in the Metroplex are always expanding, always changing face. Sometimes I think about it and it's pretty cool, sort of a manifest destiny of idealism and growth. Other times I think about it and it grosses me out...I mean it can be truly sickening.
But I digress. The point here is that I drive everywhere. Everyone I know drives everywhere. We are reliant on driving. Everywhere. Everyday. I can't count the hours spent in my car; it's unfathomable. So it would make some sense that sometimes when I need to think I hit the road. I might never leave the city limits, but I head out for a while. I like the process, I like staring at people, I like mentally photographing what I see everywhere around me.

This afternoon I took a drive through the city. I don't know if it was the autumn colors, the crisp air coming through my window, the jazz coming from KTCU, divine intervention, traffic, or something else entirely, but it kind of worked. My mind this week has been everywhere but where it needed to be. My eyes have constantly been flashing in between screens, my mind missing what was important (what needed to be thought about). I just needed to not think about anything...no lack of job, no apartment yet in Providence, no money worries or gift issues, no current events or tragedies or joys. Just clear the air, soak in the changing neighborhoods, the kids leaving schools, the patients outside hospitals, the window painters downtown, the college students doing the same thing I was a few months earlier. In these days of transition and uncertainty, as the fears of the real world plague my thoughts, I took a drive to try and forget it all, re-focus, and come back at it all from another direction. And it kind of worked...until I came home and went back to the computer. And the TV. Shit.  ¶ 11/30/2005 05:50:00 PM