My roommate and I often find those lazy moments, sitting on the couch watching Scrubs, to mention how this summer sucks. We lean back into the couch and drink another beer reminiscing in the “Awesome” summers of the past.
We talk about last summer when I took my Jeep into the bowels of Mosier on crazy adventures at 4 in the morning. We remember how awesome the tree house was out there, and how we laughed our asses off after almost flipping the Jeep. I remember clearly the smell of Mosier, and the cool breeze passing over our skin as we sat on the Jeep. I wonder if this is a model of a perfect summer.
I mention how if only he wasn’t playing with guns at basic last summer he could have been there for the epic three day party at Sarah’s. The party where me and Megan invented beer pool, a cleverly disguised excuse to get drunk as hell, and how I won. Or how Sam got in a drunk “fight” with Ali’s brother, which more or less consisted of Sam getting pushed and falling over a table. It was the same party where we all jumped in the pool at some wee hour of the night Garden State style. Maybe that was a perfect summer.
Maybe it was when I visited California when my mom was still living out there. I had a blast roaming the empty deserts and climbing mountains into the sky. I grew so much in those few months, I got so much closer to who I am while wading through rivers camera in hand. I will NEVER forget the adventures out into the Angeles Forest, picking up snow in my hand because we had ventured so high into the mountains. Maybe setting my spirit free on the open road with my family is what a summer is about.
Maybe joy is something, that if you aren’t careful, can only exist in the past tense. Maybe those moments the glow like a star in your mind’s eye, the ones as vivid and influential as a first kiss, happen all the time. One might even say that it is only after they have aged, like a fine wine, can we truly appreciate them.
Maybe, just maybe, life offers yet another challenge to us as we live our lives. How do we learn to love every moment to the fullest when it happens, and then hold on to it tight as it gets burned into our memories. I think the best conclusion to this rant would be to include the original journal entry I posted in Summer 2006.
When people ask me what I do at night i produce many different responses. I am either out taking pictures or maybe designing a website. Some nights i am just hanging out with friends. Most nights, i say i am out driving. This is where you find out if people understand you. People that have never experienced what i am about to explain simply find ways to tell you that you shouldn’t be out that late.
Something happens when you are out driving at night. Something that most people will never understand. We are the youth of this nation. We wander the dark streets in search of something that we have yet to find. We scour the freeways of distant cities in hopes to find ourselves.
The cold night biting at us as we pass through sparkling cities, like beacons reaching out with advice. Each city speaks of a life lesson that we will learn in it. The only compass we live by is the stars and the only clock is the gas gauge.
We drift like the embers of a once blazing fire as we roll through dead towns. Railroad tracks, like the scars on our hearts, wind in a eloquent dance around our paths. Rusted trains pierce the night with a shrill beam of light that scans the dark horizon. We drive with no destination, only a way point to the next stop.
In being lost under the stars a certain freedom is gained. A freedom as pure as the topless Jeep that we transverse the highways with. Our headlights patterning the path of our lives, scenery slowly coming into sight, and just as you recognize something it whips into the unknown dark.
We don’t look back. We must continue forward, after all I think we are only a few exits from finding ourselves. . .
