"The Road is Life:" at least, someone said that once.

WEST SACRAMENTO—The great American road trip is probably never going to happen.

I’m staring at 30 and I’m at the point where I can’t do something like that unless something drastic in life changes. It might be another couple of decades before I get to traverse the country in search of some mythic America that exists only in booze-inspired novels, film and music. Plus, the pages of history have already passed. With the super highways that cross the continent, would it really be the same to travel the country by road? Who even does that anymore, other than those looking for or forced into a new life?

If interstate-5 in California—or the California Route 99 that I traversed today—are any indication, the quaint little road-side stands, the eccentric road-side stands (how can a farm be a vintage cheese shop and sell fruit at the same time?) and hidden towns are all becoming an afterthought as freeways and highways are being rebuilt to go past these places. Never mind the fly over states—in California there are now drive-thru towns. Places like Delano, Pixler and Madera. I’m sure that the population signs don’t lie, but I cannot imagine people actually living in these places. Unless you have been granted the privilege of water in the Central Valley, everything around you is brown, lifeless and void of civilization. In Fresno, as I made a stop for a bite to eat, you can see houses boarded up, storefronts vacated and transients begging for food. On the surface, this is where the California dream does not exist. But dig deeper in San Francisco and LA and you will see the same things—the empty storefronts, the run-down houses, the countless number of people looking for a place to sleep.

You come to a point in your life when you realize that you can’t do all the things you wanted to do. Life gets in the way. You find yourself in a groove at a job you hopefully like. You might get married. You might have (please don’t) have kids. Eventually, the chains are placed upon you, whether you want them to or not. And then we do things to try to cast off those chains.

To travel American with its ghost in my passenger seat was always—not a dream—but a hope of mine. I’ve wanted to drive from the Pacific to Atlantic, wanted to see the Great Plains, traverse the South, cut through the Rockies. That may never happen. But at least I can do this trip. Something that is probably less than one-tenth of what I could have done. I can travel up-and-down the Left Coast of America and see the wonders that it holds—and think, “If I had done this on the other side of America, I could have seen at least 10 different states.”

Flag Day (and the Funeral)

The sun never comes out on days like this.

The clouds linger, leaving a dull, overcast grey that masks what is usually a postcard-perfect day. There were no colors, even in a place where summer never ends. The windswept burial site stood atop of the highest point of the cemetery. This little hillside probably has the best view of the county. It faces north, overlooking where the city sits. Skyscrapers dot the horizon. The San Diego Bay churns in activity while the Pacific serenely goes on forever. On this day, however, those high-rises did not glisten. The bay was an indifferent grey. The Pacific melted into the coastline. Even the hillside was not a lush green. The drought turned the ground into dirt—lifeless, brown and coarse. It made the green turf that covered the grave site seem out of place.

Hundreds—clad in white at the family’s request—came. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The chapel for the funeral service couldn’t hold the over 350 people that came. People stood on the sides next to the pews. People huddled in the back. They spilled into the hallways and into the little lobby in the front. Everyone else stood outside, hoping to catch a little bit of the service from the speakers that were turned to 11.

The funeral director told me it was the largest crowd he had seen in a long time. I overheard the pastor speaking to someone 45 minutes before the ceremony: “It’s already starting to fill up…it’s because he was so young.”

I heard and saw the same thing two weeks earlier at the hospital. We took every seat in the waiting room. We stood in hallways until the hospital staff told us we couldn’t. And then we returned when they weren’t looking. The family was given their own private room and that too was filled at every hour of everyday we were at the hospital. A nurse told me she had never seen so many people come visit one person. “It’s truly uplifting, encouraging and inspiring,” she said to me in a hallway, “that so many people came. He must have been such a special person.”

The weekend’s services and Sunday’s funeral reinforced that. Stories were told. Memories were relived. Laughter was the cure for our grief the last three days.

Sunday was probably the easiest day of the last fortnight. Yes, every moment of silence was broken by a sniffle or a sigh. The loudest cries came on this day and came when his cousin fought through tears to recite a poem and when the final roses were placed on the casket. But this was not the hardest day.

The hardest day will come in the infinite tomorrows ahead. We’ll want to shoot him a text or check his latest Instagram post. And when he doesn’t respond, we’ll pretend that we don’t remember. We’ll think to ourselves that he hasn’t responded or called or posted because he was busy doing what he does—creating, loving, traveling, vibing and repeating that whole process. He’ll get back to me one day, we’ll think, when he finds the time or if he’s passing through. No, the hardest day will come from some distant tomorrow. The hardest day will come when the ink on our skin becomes an afterthought, when the memories fade and the photos are put away.

The hardest day will be when we realize that our lives beat on, as if he was always there.

This is why we live here

The sun beamed in the horizon. Its rays turning everything it touched into gold. The road glowed. The sidewalks glittered. The blue sky seemed to be brighter. There’s a certain angle that the setting sun passes through on a warm September day that seems to do this. Even the sky around the sun becomes a glimmering yellow. If you face west at this time, everything in front of you becomes a silhouette. It’s like those buildings and palm trees are just a shadow of a memory; the specter of a dream. It is evenings like this that serves as a reminder of why we live here—to drive on golden roads, to bask in the haze of a dreamy afternoon and to become a memory lost in the sun’s rays.

That night

It is a shadow of a memory.

It is a scribble in the margins.

It is a whisper as people look upon old photos.

It will be lost to posterity.

It will not be in stone for all to see.

It will be erased from history.

For posterity...

Elaine enjoyed the juice a little too much.

June evenings

A thousand voices filled the courtyard as the auditorium emptied. Tears flowed. Laughter was shared. Hugs were given. Parents spoke in awe while some students complained about mistakes and while some others recalled their best moment. It was graduation, prom and the state championship all rolled into one. For some it was the culmination of a year’s work. For others it was the validation they sought after seven years of harder work.

The moon hung in the west in a crescent, the twilight ending and the stars beginning to take full effect. The sky was a luminescent blue. Bands of light came from the auditorium, illuminating the tiny spaces in the dark courtyard. This was the perfect June evening. And this was a reminder of why I do what I do, he thought. A photo, a recording must been taken of the scene that night. But it’s one that’s repeated over and over on nights light this, on courtyards like this, with friends and families like this, in other cities like this.

There was no other care in the world on that courtyard that night except for what just happened in the auditorium moments earlier. Because at that age, nothing matters but now. This is a moment—a feeling—that should be preserved and added on the endangered species list. Little do they know that it’s seldom that they—the kids—will feel like this again. It’s because the kids don’t know any better. Their spirit hasn’t been hardened. Their naïveté is confused for courage. Their ignorance is their strength. Because life hasn’t happened to them yet. They believe a moment like this is a regular occurrence. And they do not know that life is the biggest obstacle to this feeling.

There has to be a way to shield our youth from life—before experience leads to heartbreak and knowledge becomes cynicism and courage is replace by the false promise of comfort.

This is why I do what I do. To remember what it was like before life. To experience a perfect summer night and to wonder what life would be like if that June evening had been endless.

The Night

My favorite thing right now is a night-time run; not super late, but around 8 or 9 or 10 p.m. It’s just about the hour when restaurants are beginning to empty, the cars are beginning to whisk away and those who are brave enough to continue walk into the fine watering holes for a nightcap or some revelry. The streets begin to sigh, finally able to relax after a hard day’s work, expanding and contracting underneath the mighty weight of human trouble. The buildings slumber, no longer annoyed at man-made stress. The lights hum to no one in particular. And my only companion is my shadow, racing ahead me, following my light footsteps or keeping pace. The only sounds are my breathing, the occasional car engine and the feint din whenever I approach a bar. The sidewalks are empty like a wide open field for me to run though; open spaces in a crowded city. I duck in and out of darkness and artificial light. And every now and then I can see the moon or feel its touch peak through the forest of skyscrapers.

There’s no need for sun, what withers life away.

There’s no need for rest, when men put their worries off for the next sunrise.

There’s no need for bright, where truth hides in plain sight.

I prefer what lurks in shadows.

These are my runs. These are my nights.