December 22nd, 2020

The fog rolled across the empty road. All I wanted was to get out and stand in front of the head lights of my parked car in the rain and tilt my face up and accept and praise the moment’s beauty. 

Beauty hadn’t appealed to me much except for these drives. The few I had taken. 

I drove past the abandoned airport at the edge of town, next to the diner, and across from the little houses where people i’d never met lived. 

My dad kept his plane there when I was a kid. A Piper Comanche. Stolen native names for things only white men could afford, could profit from. I remember trying to climb the wings by myself. I remember sitting in the pilot’s seat, grounded, with the headset on my head. Too big on my child’s head. 

This town haunts me with memories. Born to the age of 7, then 18 til 31. I don’t know everyone but I know enough. My best friend and I met when we were 6 and 7. He chased me through the halls of the college’s swimming pool. His sister and mine were swimming. 20 years later we re-met at a local bar that used to be a dive, and I preferred it that way. The meeting and the bar. 

This morning, I singed an inch of hair off with a candle I received for my birthday, a fitting start to 31 I think. I laid in bed awake from 7am til 10am, listening to music and reading. I thought about how many people have eaten up parts of my life. Served prettily on a silver dish to them. I think about the people that I invited into my home, and found raiding my cupboards and refrigerator. 

Kindness doesn't disappear with intimacy. Kindness shouldn’t disappear with intimacy. A learned truth that disappears with your first love and loss.