And I hear the sounds of silence. That which is not silent at all. The rustle of the trees, dry and crisp in true Summer. The birds and creatures making little noises. But no hum. No damnable city-like hum. Only the sound of the truth.
I’ve been driving for a little under five hours and it feels like I just left. All I can figure is that this is the sign of unwinding a very tightly coiled self. I listen to books, podcasts, and music as I go. And it really helps shake me back to who I really am. Or at least who I presume myself to be.
This time it feels like I could do with five more hours before arrival. Five more hours of podcasts and books. That’s how much coil is left within to be shaken. Either that or I’ve finally acclimated to traveling far distances, again. I had ceased distant travel many years ago and eventually became impatient with it.
It is hot, but delightfully so. I have missed this so much. This time it may take me four full days to fully explain. To rattle out the words onto the paper and into the typer.
I run into a lot of people here who have very strange conversations with me. They’re small town people and I think they can sense that I am just a little off. I’m not a tourist, but I don’t live here. They ask me if I’m from here. They ask if I live around here. I tell them every time, “No, do I look familiar?” And they say, “Nah.” Then I ask why they would ask in the first place and they add, “It’s nothin’.”
It is nothing. It’s the void that I have which most people don’t. It’s that I am so very much and I have depth, yet I’m hardly a functioning human. At least, I don’t function like most of the humans. I’m some strange observer from a distant land. It’s that extraterrestrial within me that shines to the people out here.
People stop me and have conversations about their slipped disks or their desire to be transgender. This is not with any previous introductions as to who I may be! They simply open up. I think they just know. I’m not like all the others and I’ll understand, “for some reason.”
The wind rustles through this bushy field. There are leafy trees, burnt trees, and those magical looking stocks with fuzzy things on the ends. They sway and they glisten in the sunshine like a slow motion dream. A bird with a super bright yellow belly is sitting on a twig staring at me. We may know each other from another time and place too.
I sit here like I am in a dream. My happy place. My landscape.
I was talking to my psychic this morning and she asked me what my landscape was. What geography do I connect with? I love the way that she put that. I connect with many geographies and this is one of them. The flat dry Wild West. The rolling red mountains sprouting up among all of these slow motion weeds. The empty horizon. The empty towns. The lack of people and the lack of that damned hum.
I also connect with the ocean. Raging and wet as it beats against the land, sanding it down slowly throughout forever after forever. I love the ocean. It’s safe out there. At least as safe as floating in space with no man or woman to burn horrors into your spirit.
I come here like I go there. I escape the humming city walls and go off to these places where I cannot, for some unknown reason to me, live permanently. The universe keeps me locked up in that damned city. But I come here or there or somewhere just like I drift off into another dream. In my mind I float to magical lands. In my meat suitcase I venture to them.
