Friday

I got out of class a half an hour early today, stopped by Target just to look, ended up buying only 10 bucks worth of stuff (amazing, I know), then took a different way home because there was traffic on the highway.

The sun is shining, the snow is finally melting, except for the plow-made mountains (finally, mountains in PA!)

And I thought to myself: Why don't you drive anymore?

You see, when I was a 21 year old, living by myself in North Seattle, I would pick up and drive.  I'd leave my studio apartment, pack up a water bottle, sunglasses, and a bunch of country CD's, fill up the gas tank, and then head for the hills. Literally.  Nothing felt better than driving through the mountains, so every couple of months, that's what I did.

Highway 2 was my favorite drive.  I'd take the on-ramp out of Everett and drive 5 hours round-trip, ending my drive entering the Lake Washington tunnel on I-90, which reads, "Welcome to Seattle."

It is so beautiful. 

5 hours. Yes, I know. That seems like too much.  But it was just perfect enough.  I'd take those 5 hours and escape--and daydream.  No one knew where I was for those 5 hours and it was just me and my mountains.  Armed with an arsenal of great country music, because really, if you're on a roadtrip, that's the only kind of music that speaks to you.  I'd soak in the surroundings--rolling asphalt surrounded by rich, dense evergreens, each summit revealing a valley of bluish-green rivers, letting you know how cold and furious they are.  I'd open the windows, and the sun-roof, blare the music and sing, embracing my surroundings.

My last drives on Highway 2 were for research.  Trying to decide which direction was the best for my new boyfriend to witness.  I'd drive, and dream about a future trip with him, taking notes of what to point out, which music to play, all in the hopes that he'd have as much as he could to work with, in order to fall deeper in love with this place. He really didn't need to though. He was hooked for other reasons.

The smell of the mountains gets me everytime.  It's intoxicating and addicting.  And so there I would drive, hair in my eyes, sun on my shoulders, mountain in my lungs.

Which is why I asked myself why I don't do that anymore.  The simpliest answer is, "because there are no mountains."  Highway 2 is not here, I can't turn right at Leavenworth, get on highway 97, pick-up apples in Wenatchee, then race to Seattle and try to capture the city in the sunset. 

So, I drove anyways today.  I got in the car, turned on Miranda Lambert, who is the most underappreciated country singer ever, and picked a direction.  Because, even though I don't have my mountains, I can look for a replacement.  Today I drove, it doesn't matter where, but I did it.  And I felt that feeling again. I didn't smell mountains, but I felt that difference in my lungs.  I didn't see dense trees, only bare trees waiting for their flower buds, and what surrounded me where snow-covered fields. 

None of that matters.  I still loved it. 

Instead, I drove for an hour and a half, still sang, and rolled the window down for a bit to throw my gum out (don't judge).  I saw a white horse, munching on the small patch of grass that's pushing through the snow.  I saw a field of snowmen, gathering their little snow-bodies together in a elementary school recess field.  I saw spring on the horizon.  I saw fields that never looked so long before. 

Tonight, I'm making rub-with-love salmon, and going to the gym.  It's a very quintessential Catherine kind of day.  Hello you, welcome back.