The Road Trip

Music holds a certain power over me when played at breakneck volume on the stereo of a car rolling at breakneck speeds down a highway. It started with Owl City's "Fireflies" so many years ago, on the way to north Carolina through the sunset-lit mountains, and that drive made me fall in love with the song. It's happened again, with B.o.B's "Both of Us" featuring Taylor Swift. The refrain is, "I wish I was strong enough to lift not one but both of us." Something in Taylor's mournful, dulcet voice struck me, and I began to cry right there in the backseat, old memories spilling out onto my shirt in the form of tears. So many dark forces have tried to invade my life that I've made myself forget most of them, but the music brought them bubbling to the top of me, fizzing back down, and rising, wobbling again and again. There are images and places I've tried to shove down into "oh, you know" and "some stuff happened." My deepest. I find exhilaration to be the perfect cure for humdrum, in either direction on the happy/sad spectrum. Breakneck volume, breakneck speed, and breakneck weight fell upon me, like low C chords sounding from a distant piano.