AUX Canada

introduction//wrong turn at albuquerque

I got started later than I’d wanted to, and on less sleep than one should have before setting out on a drive of any significant length. That, combined with a generalized anxiety over the trip were likely significant factors in contributing to the gigantic blunder I was about to commit. Confident in my ability to be able to drive “North,” I decided to spare my iPhone the strain of navigating for me and kept the GPS off for the first few hours of the trip.

All of the above factors resulted in me taking a wrong turn in the construction around Albany and not realizing it until I was only minutes outside of my home town of Syracuse, NY. The mental leaps that the geography of New York State took as I thought I was driving towards Montréal were really quite fantastic and could make for an entertaining short. Syracuse crept further and further north and to the east, as though pulled by my own foolish sense of personal gravity and self-assuredness. Expletives are the best description for how I felt upon discovering the enormity of waste resulting from my navigational hubris. Frustration, shame, and idiocy, as well, but mostly expletives. I hastily activated the Google Maps on my phone, rerouted myself, and sped on off towards my destination, away from the very personal shame I felt and as fast as my measured, fuel-efficient, and cruise controlled driving could take me. 72mph.

As I drove through the geography of my childhood I felt a very curious sensation pulling at me. It was as if the well of memory, the comfort of the familiar, and the proximity to so much of my youth had reached a critical mass and formed into this black hole of personal history that was now exerting a nearly inexorable force, and wrenching me towards some oblivion of generally compromised travel plans and life choices. There was need, and fear. I played my music louder and pushed the cruise control to go a little faster.