Christina Boyer's Blog Post Week 9

I drank my tepid coffee from a worn old cup and traced my finger over the map I had laid out in front of me. Soon I would cross the border into Oklahoma.

Arkansas was a quiet and lackluster state. I hadn’t seen anything it in that made me want to stay. The highways were dusty and cracked, and the air smelled like petrol whenever I pulled over at a diner or a gas station. It seemed like the type of place you’d wanna run from, so I was questioning why, on my journey away from home, I had found myself here.

I watched the hustle and bustle of the waitresses behind the counter, shrouded in clouds of smoke – cigarette smoke mixed with smoke from the grill mixed with sweat of the cooks. It must have smelled disgusting but I was a little jealous. It was the most life I’d seen in days: people could hear each other, feel each other in passing, taste the burnt coffee in the air, smell the food and the cigarettes and the coffee and the sweat. And among the chaos a waitress stood on the phone, shouting over the noise to be heard. She let everything brush her by as if the chaos around her was invisible, and she puffed instinctively on a cigarette.

She wasn’t particularly pretty, her eyes were tired and her face displayed the lines of someone who’d had to put on a smile their whole life, but she was attractive and appealing. She swiftly untied her apron in a single movement and stuffed it unconcernedly in the bag she swung over her should as she headed towards the door. I could see the intention in every step she took and was envious of her. She was going somewhere, and I was sure it wasn’t gonna be in Arkansas. 

Unexpected Versions of Ourselves

I bumped into her on the way to my hotel room. A striking, beautiful young woman, she seemed to practically levitate off of the ground with happiness, her tousled auburn curls bouncing wildly.

We walked together because we were both going to breakfast. “Where ya headed to?” she asked me, in a giddy, confident voice.

“I don’t know, at this point,” I said. “I’ve been traveling all over the country, mostly to get away, I think.”

“Get away from what?” she asked.

I thought about it for a moment, and found that I couldn’t quite answer. What was it that I was running from, necessarily? I wasn’t just running from my Alaska. Not just from my family.

Now that I think of it, I stayed on the road because I was scared to go back to my old self. Now that I had started traveling, I didn’t ever want to settle again. I shrugged.

“I understand,” she said. “It’s been so much more free out here.” She let out an excited giggle. “Sure, it’s been tough, and—“she lowered her voice, pouting “—I’ve been in a little bit of a pickle recently, “but I’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been without Daryl.”

“Daryl?”

“My husband,”  she said, in that sweet, syrupy Southern accent of hers. She let out a laugh. “I was that obedient housewife, can ya imagine? And look at me now. I just drove across the country with my best friend Louise and kissed the cutest young man that’s ever crossed my path.”

Thelma was that obedient housewife—the ones who didn’t dare speak back to their husbands and cooked and cleaned all day, I bet. I was that obedient daughter. Friend. The girl who sat in the back of the classroom and never spoke. The girl who always followed the unspoken rules and conventions, held my tongue when I needed to, and didn’t speak unless spoken to.

And here we were, out in the dust-smote heartland of Oklahoma, having kissed the people we shouldn’t have kissed, having done the things we shouldn’t have done. We were supposed to prim, acquiescent girls with duty and yet, in our own ways, we both threw away peoples’ expectations and became the best, truest versions of ourselves.

Liberated

I’d get where I needed to go. I had no choice. Public transport had failed me, and I refused to carry on at the mercy of others whilst hitchhiking. I sat curbside, disheartened. I needed a plan. A sign from above. Someone or something to point me in the right direction…any direction.

I squinted into the heat waves, shielding my eyes against the sun seemingly set ablaze. I surveyed my surroundings and noticed a gas station to my left. I watched as a weathered silver Volkswagen pulled up. The engine remained running as the driver popped inside the mart.

Three, two, one…I sped down Interstate 83. With hands gripped tightly to the wheel and stare affixed to the road ahead, I pressed onwards without remorse.

In short, I had stolen a car. One might ask, did I found myself suddenly overcome by a deluge of guilt or shame for my misdeed? I did not. Instead, I let out a primal scream, raising my arms to the interminable sky. I felt liberated from the misfortune that had led me to this very moment. I was San Francisco bound, finally.

Room For Improvement (Week 8)

Another morning is bought in with weary eyes and a longing for my destination. We only have a little bit of our trip remaining, but the short distance might as well be a plane flight over seas. I decided to open up LinkedIn for the first time in a while and saw a powerful piece by the same former start-up CEO that I read about last week (Mekhi's character for the 2nd and final time this quarter). Apparently, the road trip he's taking allowed him to open up about his past. The conclusions he reached - at least to me - were probably some of the most important I think a man in his position could come by. He reflected on a film titled Thelma & Louise and how it made him think of times where he could have been an ally for female friends who he saw maneuver some frightening situations at parties he attended back in college. Out of curiosity, I decided to see the movie for myself.
After watching, I was thoroughly reminded of the privilege I have of being a male and how much responsibility that privilege carries. The series of bad events that continued to occur were spawned by a husband believing he owned his wife and a random guy believing that he owned a woman he just met. I pride myself on how I have been raised to respect women as if they are my own grandmother, but this movie reminded me that I need to do more than that. I can't just stroll through life happy that "at least I do the right thing". I need to implore other guys that I know who do not think like me to feel the same. There is indeed, much room for improvement.

Thelma and Louise

Driving through Texas, I was shocked at all what had just happened. I was taken hostage by a maniac and had my life put in great danger. I could not believe I got out of that situation alive, but I was glad I did. Of course I was. Nothing can be worse than death, right? Being homeless, driving nowhere, family left behind… That was tough, but definitely better than being shot by a psychopath. I kept driving because that was the only thing that cleared my mind. The road felt like an extension of me. I would never feel lonely this way

I turned up the radio to listen to music. God knows how much I love music. I used to spend hours and hours listening to my mom’s CDs when I was a kid, but there is something about listening to the radio that is just special. It is thrilling when your jam comes up unexpectedly. And magic happens when they play an old song, perhaps one that you were tired of having on repeat and that would probably not want to listen to it again on your own: it just becomes brand new again. There I was, driving and singing out to “Heart of Gold” on the top of my lungs. It was liberating. Memories invaded my mind. Memories of my childhood that were somehow forgotten until that moment. My flashback was interrupted by the police transmission. “Frustrated wife goes on crime spree with a female friend. Husband suspect they were having an affair. They are armed and extremely unstable. Beware!”. Something about that announcement was funny. It was so mean and biased I can only laugh at it. “If they are not harming anyone, let them be!” I thought. My guess is they are girls who are only having fun to a level men believe is dangerous. No one would question a man fleeting with his mistress. No one would question a man with a gun. No one was questioning me. What a world we live in!