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Twelve-hour drive to be here, and now I don't know why I bothered. I feel like some nine-year-old brat who's too insecure to know what he wants or why he's throwing a tantrum. I'm tired and self-conscious. It's like I'm too middle-aged to fit in among all these smug young couples and loud families lining the road in their SUVs and Volvos. They all look like they're on their way to Disneyland; half of them have got their maps out, and they're all looking at the traffic or squabbling with each other inside their steel-plated bubbles instead of seeing the oak trees and waterfalls and red-tailed hawks. But I'm doing more people-watching than nature-watching myself, so what right do I have to be cynical? |
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One old woman I saw back at Elk Flats must have been one hundred and ninety. At least she looked like she wanted to be here. She wore the same expression that I want to have forty years from now: befuddled, but still getting a huge kick in the ass out of life. |
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All these kids running around. Parents out of sight. I could be any random child molester, grab a kid and stuff him into my van and the parents wouldn't know until sunset. Don't they notice those "Missing" posters that are up everywhere? There was one girl, Cynthia somebody-or-other, I saw on the milk carton this morning. She couldn't have been more than six; pretty enough to tear your heart. If I'd had kids, I'd be more careful. Hold on to them; keep 'em safe. |
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It's six hours later; I'm driving over to the Elk flats again. The traffic on the access roads here is driving me insane. Can't all these other people get rid of their cars or something? We're lined up like 747s over O'Hare on Thanksgiving, circling for hours, just waiting for the peanuts to run out. |
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I can still see straight into the other cars, watching all of these nuclear families yell at each other. Kids crying, adults screaming. Can't people love each other any more? I wish love were some commodity, like beeswax or salt pills. I'd hand it out for Halloween, keep some stored away in a corner cabinet. I'd sell my lab love cheap. In candy-green bottles. |
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I'm leaving Yosemite. Even though I just got here. I need to shut myself in, somewhere dark; the darker the better. I need to take some more pills and... I don't know. Too many damn trees here. I'm too damn middle-aged. |