We were driving... I was driving... Chad was in my room (the passenger seat) and Derek was sleeping in Chad's room (the first bench) and Virginia had never looked so pretty to me. My goodness, we've circled the country so many times that it's become one great state to us and still here's Virginia looking prettier than I've ever seen her. Spring just happened... a long winter in Michigan was behind us... spring just happened and the country changed on me, us, me... Chad was reading a punk book... Chad reads a bunch of rock books and I like asking him about what he's reading because there aren't many mediums that get into your bones like the book and there's not many mediums that get into your heart like the music and so I know he's inside those two worlds and I'm sort of in neither, just driving, and it's good to hear from somebody inside those two worlds no matter where or when we are. When Derek reads it's usually something real weird like the van manual or a motorcycle magazine and he's the only person I've ever heard of who gets into manuals more than he does, say, true crime or even non-fiction. Yes. Why doesn't Derek read more non-fiction? That's what the guy needs. Chad reads non-fiction but it's always the borderline sort... rock stories... who knows what's true... though I'm the kind of guy who believes anything he reads including fiction! I'm driving and Chad's reading and Derek's sleeping and we're driving through Virginia and we pass the Salt Lake City-esque autonomy of Virginia Tech and I get totally excited because we've been driving so many years it's truly something spectacular when we chance upon a new view. I tell Chad, Chad man you gotta' look at this, and he finishes a paragraph and looks up and says yeah this is cool and we sort of watched spring happen for a half-minute together and I know we both caught it then. We both caught it that the long Michigan winter was over and yeah yeah it wasn't an event so to say, no streamers or trumpets, but still, we're grown men and another Spring happened. I mean, if we live to a hundred then we'd only see 100 springs in our day and there aren't many things you only do a hundred times in your life. For love's sake, nothing beats pissing and you do that two three times a day three-hundred sixty-five days, thirty something years now and suddenly Spring sounds like maybe it does deserve a banner or cupcakes after all! There was a cluster of buildings there, campus I guess, and I imagined weird shit goes on there. I imagined if I went to this school I might have got into weird experiments... isolation chamber kind of stuff... and as Chad goes back to his book I was hit hard with this idea of having gone to school at Virginia Tech and how I would have loved the place. It looked like there was just nothing to do but love the place. Now, I don't know what it's like the winter but being from Michigan I get the idea I could handle it, but either way anyway I was interested. Then I thought about the teachers... say... a man who's been there for fifteen-twenty years and it made me smile the idea of a man who might call that place home. I might have said something to Chad about it, I think I did, and I thought about waking Derek up because sometimes we do that if we're passing something new, you know, but all I could think about was the teacher that worked there and how I bet he was healthy and good looking and really loved by his students and just so damn inside the school thing that it no longer mattered whether or not he was studying or doing because the two fused at some point and now he's happily studyign doing and doing a lot of studying. I wanted to be him. But then the road happened. Yes, ma'am. The road happened and that means we passed the place and the world beyond the windshield was maybe more familiar again. I think it rained. But whatever, it rains a lot out there, but I dothink it rained and the great vision was behind us and we were still driving because that's how the road happens. Great and terrible visions come and go and then you've seen them and then you get to where you maybe ought to be. For me it was a great trip through Virginia... really the best one we've had... and the trip back to Michigan was alright because Derek drove the whole way and I think we all knew Spring had happened. But, you know, sometimes this makes me sad. Because a lot of people pine for the winter to be over but I don't want to rush ANY time because I'm scared of all that running low and then running out. If I hope for the winter to pass fast how can I hope for the Spring to move slow? No no. Time is going to happen and I just want it all to move slow... I want it all to take too long... I want the road and the seasons and Derek and Chad and all of it to just be one thing that lasts forever all at once.
Until later... I remain...
JOSH MALERMAN