I drove to Athens, Georgia this weekend to see my best friend before she headed back to Katy, Texas indefinitely and to see her walk across the stage as a law school graduate. There's so much mushy stuff I could write about the experience of being there and connecting with my best friend of best friends, but the thought of it makes me think of Drop Dead Fred saying "Ew, Gross!" and spewing corn flakes, so I won't. I'll just leave it at wonderful to spend even a few hours with one of the true soul mates of my life.
The trip, which I nearly didn't make because the five+ hour drive there and back "wouldn't be worth the time I would be there," was well worth the drive. Not only did I see Sarah and her graduation, I also stopped in Atlanta to see one of my best friends from high school, Katie. And even the drive itself was worth it.
John Mayer may mean any number of things by the line "Don't be scared to walk alone. Don't be scared to like it." in his new song "The Age of Worry." I read multiple meanings in it, and its meaning will no doubt evolve and deepen with further listens. (That's probably the number one reason I'm obsessed with JM-- his lyrics grow with me.) One of the meanings I take from it that I love right now is this: It's important to be able to spend time alone and to be able to like solitude and being in your own mind.
I loved the drive to Athens, not only because of where I was I headed, and not only because I listened to all five full-length, studio, solo albums of John Mayer on the trip (which was amazing), but because I spent time with myself and let my head swirl things around and settle a bit.
I didn't do very much of what you would conventionally call praying, and JM music isn't exactly worship music, but I'd also call this time I had in the car time with God-- time for reflection and time for dreaming, time for examination and re-examination, time to imagine a brighter future and a path forward. Time just to chill and to be. Quiet and full of thoughts. Singing and being shaped by what my thoughts do to the lyrics. Wrestling, celebrating, planning for better days.
On that drive I was full of thoughts, questions, answers, resolutions, ideas... many of which I can't recall right now. If only I could blog as I drive and let the ideas pour out as they come and preserve them!
It reminds me of another JM masterpiece "Clarity":
"By the time I recognize this moment, this moment will be gone. But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on, but all I got's Oooo oooo oooo oooo." That's how the clarity of this drive was. Beautiful, brilliant, complete for a moment, and now all that's left is something inutterable, indecipherable, just an echo of the original thoughts.
I'm trying to rephrase in them conversation, scribble them in my journal, give them shape here. But it will only be a glimmer of bent light.
That's okay. I don't mind.
I still like it. And I still cherish those drives, those walks down London streets alone, those times at night when everyone else is asleep, those quiet lazy mornings, those afternoons when I'm at home alone in the sunshine with my books and my music... Clarity.
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