When I was younger, maybe 11 or 12, I began to dream of the open road. And not as much the destinations the road would lead me too, but rather the road itself. It was a constant never ending place I found to be real the more I closed my eyes and became a part of it. It even got to the point where I didn’t even have to be asleep to see it anymore. Id usually just lay there in my bed, the top bunk, always the top bunk, as my brother, the cool one, snored just like all Gallegos men do, and I’d just space out laying there for hours that felt like minutes.
Always white noise first. No sounds. No birds. No prairie dogs. No trees. No cars. No weird gas stations by the side of the road. Nothing. Just dead empty air, but with a subtle little after taste. Like a root bear float. I should probably get one of those after this.
Anyways, after the dead white empty noise, it’s just a road. For miles and miles and miles. Sort of like a siren, but with the sirens you’d get there and they’d eat you. This didn’t have that feel of enchantment. It felt real. Almost like a portal to that moment in time I wasn’t at yet. A connection between me then and me now. I truly believed that then, and I know it to be true now, as crazy as that sounds.There are even times when we’re somewhere on the road now, and I am not the one driving cause sometimes I like to give that power up, but not very often, and the music will be slow, or maybe we’ll just have no sound at all. And I’ll look out the window and I’ll see the sky, and for a second, there’s a flicker of light. A moment in time where I witnessed the atmosphere around me change. Sort of like a snapshot. Just pop. Pop pop.
“There’s something up there.” I’d think.
But really, I knew right away I couldn’t describe it. I just knew it happened, and I was the only one to see it. I suppose it could’ve all been in my head, and it could still be there, but I don’t think it works like that.
The more it happens the more I see clearly that it is a portal from my younger self to me now, and he’s seeing where I am, and the beautiful woman I’m with, and he’s seeing that I’m okay. That, for the most part, I got to where I needed to. And although it only happens when I’m on the road and not here, at home, I can feel that moment from my past when the connection was made. I can feel when it was real. But only on the road. And I don’t think it’s ever going to change.
But as each time happens, and I have trouble finding a way to explain this occurrence to my love, who is always the one driving when this happens, I realize one day I won’t be the old man on the road anymore. And when that happens what will my younger self see? Will he see anything at all. I suppose I remember a moment where that dream stopped happening, although, I always assumed it was because I started out on the road. So it wasn’t a dream anymore.
But now I look back and I realize that maybe I wasn’t the only one looking for a sign. And maybe I’m not the only one sending them. Maybe I wasn’t seeing flickers in the sky from myself, but rather from those old ones who came before me. The ones who knew the road before I ever could. The fools of the highway. For all this time I’ve been thinking it was only me, I forgot that there’s an entire world out there of people who see the road when they close their eyes too.
So, because of that, I’ve learned that my job isn’t to send the signals to myself anymore, clearly he got the message, but rather now, it’s to send it out to others, so one day they can say they saw the signs too. And if they’re smart, they’ll hear my words, and believe them to be true.
When you’re the old man, tired from the road, more tired than you look, you’re gonna wanna send a word, or an image, or even a melody, depending on your choice. and when you do, make sure its the right one. the one that says its okay to be kind, or generous, or honest, or even grateful. in fact, be grateful a lot. share that idea with others. and trust it because one day somebody shared it with you. ill see you out there some time, but maybe as just a flicker in the sky.
You see what I mean?
❤️❤️❤️❤️
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