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Freedom's the Thing before/after Today, as the sun beamed down, I rolled about in my black 96 chevy monte carlo with the windows down and the moonroof open, blaring music, thinking that it somehow made me feel free, but I wasn't quite sure how. There's the freedom of thundering down the road, the world spread out infront of you like a blanket, but really you can founder about america forever and not run into anything that was really worth driving a thousand miles. Coupled with that is the hundreds of millions of priceless stories between here and there, behind each closed door. Every day, these stories happen and take place around us. Only some of us notice. I found myself thinking of a particular trip I took, acid trip, by myself, as I was wont to do at the time, driving along the coast, headed to the beach, a particular sanctuary and nook to find. I remember the acid grooving down real hard-like, feeling my jaw clench and the thoughts race, the last slow thought being something like, "Woah, gotta' slow down, smoke some pot, take the edge off of it...it...the acid...acid?...of course the acid, but WHY did I SAY it? Who the fuck am I talking to inside here...anyway? Anyway?" Tangenital thoughts bursting off that statement like sparks from a childs sparkler, wondering why I said SAY instead of THINK, wondering who I was talking to, and why did I say talking instead of thinking? Echoes of old dumb thoughts ringing back and forth inside my head, and why did I even mention acid in the first place. Getting even more high by myself, completely comfortable rolling down the road, soaking in the sights, better driver than most sober.
Trying to find some solace on the beach, the wind too cold to really tan, but I tried anyway, because I just wasn't feeling much. Moving away from the crowd to find my own space, being bothered by flies, thoughts starting to congeal, but I couldn't really write, words coming out all strangled making strange lines on the paper. Trying to draw, coming up with pictures of little sense and fierce intensity. Not finding any refuge, heading back to the car, I drove an 89 lx mustang at the time, realizing I had the forethought to pack my guitar for my trip. Pulling that out and playing in the parking lot, some of the sweetest sounds to float through the air, some of the ticklings of my souls so pure it gave me the shivers. Just as I finished a family walked down the boardwalk from the beach, up from the beach up the bank and past the row of trees that sheltered the beach from the parking lot and vice versa. They heard my notes, my sound, my music of the soul, as ever music and purity witches up company of some kind, no matter where I am. They looked at me, half naked, fine brown hair with flecks of gold from the summer sun grown long from neglect, blue hippie shades, blue madras plaid shirt entirely open showing my sunsoaked golden body, rippling with youth and fervor, jean shorts and sandals, and I looked at them in all of their midwestern glory, and we both went our separate ways. And I realized that sometimes you don't have to go anywhere to feel real freedom. Its something untapped, unpurchasable and mostly unused in this foul time of ambiguousness and paranoia. And then I drove home, and mixed with the rest of my clique.
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