Free Love
Highway 101 through the peninsula rolls underneath the one and a half tons of Japanese steel as I carefully pilot my way back home from Sunnyvale and three pints of the Firehouse seasonal November Ale (which wasn't quite bad, actually). An hour of post-bar-conversation at the Reyes' family residence seems to have done the trick, quelling my slightly inebriated state, but I'm still eager to engage the cruise control...toggle the rocker switch on the instrument panel to "on", press the cold hard plastic lower "set" button on the leather wrapped steering wheel, and note the bright green "cruise" indicator in fancy Serif font light the reflection of my instrument panel in the windshield. Slide the temperature indicator 2 clicks to the right, keeping my naked fingers and brown Puma-Roma-shod-feet nice and toasty. As the hypnotic rhythm guitar and bass line from Modest Mouse's (rather excellent) Building Nothing Out Of Something rages out of the iRiver, my vision is distracted by the bright green billboard just across from the Liberate building: Free Love. Hrmph. Must be some sort of computer business ad. Is there any other kind in Silicon Valley?Free Love. Is there ever such a thing?
I think about how unbelievably impossible it is for two people in this world to find each other. There's a billion different personalities out there, yet for some reason, love just seems to "happen". There are couples I know -- some married, some not -- that just "work". I don't think they notice (or possibly care), but they just exude this amazing sense of love for one another that is so enjoyable and inspiring to see. From the way their voice changes, or that glimmer in their eye when they see their soulmate. It brings hope to the rest of us out there who are still thrashing about...lost -- searching for some thing that we think is what we want or some Norman Rockwellian image of life that we have painted for ourselves, holding the world to some unattainable standard. Maybe what we seek is right there beneath our noses... Maybe it's right in front of us, staring into our tragically blinded beady eyes, waiting for the moment when we make that final realization.
Or maybe it's just fate.
[This stretch of the highway points straight as an arrow for a mile or so (with the occasional bend), but undulates vertically with a frequency that -- if your shocks are really worn -- your tires will eventually lift off the surface when driven at just the right speed. So you push forth, letting the car work its way through. Not paying any mind to the magic that your suspension and tires are working as they cope with the wavy interstate]
I used to have a theory about fate -- that no matter how much you think you have control over your life, it's all part of some master plan. Each and every step you take, every decision you make, the people that you meet, no matter how seemingly autonomous or random, really was meant to have happened. I know it sounds crazy, but I always found comfort knowing that no matter what happened in my life, it was meant to be, and that there is a method to the madness. I just don't see it yet. And somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that and started to get bogged down in the grit...those tiny little pebbles that find their way into your shoe and manage to irritate and annoy you.
I am grateful for being able to really let go of it all -- and in the process enjoy every single minute of my life. Whether it be making a perfectly rev-matched fifth to third downshift under braking or talking about life, women and football over a decent beer with my good friend of twenty years. I'm grateful for it all. :)
posted by VirtualErn @ 12:33 AM
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