And, yes. Because I had to come back here. Lost Hills. I had not intended to come here. We had so many good times. I didn’t want them to end. Coming here was an acknowledgement it was over. And it’s over.

It’s over. Shit. I had intended to come here, triumphantly, with the road behind me and the newfound wisdom it had bestowed. I had intended to talk about the acceptance of what is unresolved. I had intended to write about the peace of resolution.

In other words, I had expected some kind of resolution on this return to Lost Hills. Whether I accept stopping, I accept moving on… All good. But not this.

The Love’s I enter seems a lot smaller that I remember. Everything is there, but bunched together. More rummagy. The hats with the Shiny bands are there. The fireball candy and beef jerky. All there. The audio books claiming “Like a Movie in Your Mind,” there. That stupid caterpillar toy with the thin fishing line that you can make crawl up your arm. Yes. It’s there. I remembered these things, and here they are.

But this is an Arby’s, not a Del Taco.  And there’s a Pilot across the highway, and I know we spent some time in there, too., and I realize there is, besides remembering and forgetting…acceptance and denial, motion and stillness–there is another type of memory. It’s a difficult poetic memory, where details are concentrated and crystallized and forced together with the heat and pressure of the soul.

And this makes the poems shine. It makes the writing sparkle, the scenes unforgettable.

But when we apply it to our own memories… Especially if we diminish ourselves before our pasts and our surroundings, which so many of us do. We begin to put all the good parts of ourselves, all the good parts of our histories and our memories into the relationship we have at hand. We concentrate all that good stuff and attribute it to the love we feel for that special person, those special moments, that special connection. It is so special, we give our relationship the greatest gift we think we have.

We turn our relationship into a poem.

And then what? Sometimes I look at the work I created, all shiny and sparkly, and glowing and I cannot believe it came from me. I refuse to believe it. It’s all the setting, it’s all the inspiration, It’s all the community. It’s all their stories. It’s all their brilliance. I just write shit down about it, but it’s all them.

And I do this to my own history. I cede my identity, my self-esteem. I put everything into the Love’s I am in infusing it with any literary magic I can offer. And then I forget my own role in the result.

But now, I come in here, and think–if it looks like this now, in the daylight–out of the photoshop poetry of my memory. If it is just this–then where the heck did that other stuff come from? It wasn’t a wrong memory. It wasn’t made up. Where did that magic come from?

It must have come from me.

Me. Wow. Me.

There were many good things about what we had. But not all the good things. There were many things I could not have done without her. But that goes both ways. I am a poet, a writer. I am also a pretty magical person, and kind of neat. Let’s remember all of that goes wherever you go, girl, and that’s yours to keep no matter what, K?

Okay. <3

I get into my beautiful Honda with my Arby’s version of the Diet Coke/lemonade I always make. Hey, maybe there was a bit of resolution here after all.

But I am not thinking of Lost Hills.

I am thinking of me.

I am driving in a daze after Firebaugh. I am telling myself come on, girl, get yourself together. But I am not really together, to be honest. And so I miss the Santa Nella exit. You can also see the gap between this and the last Day Two recap. Sometimes existential thunder happens in the desert and it leaves you shaky. We don’t have much time in our day-to-day to be in this mental state and it’s more than “getting away from the city.” It’s being on the road, dealing with trucks and rough patches of road. Of changing lanes. Not changing them.

A whole lot of nothing, where you are still aware that your Honda is careening down a highway at 80 mph, and if you hit something you will get very injured. Plus, I am alone on the road. So it’s this dull, placid, bucolic, slightly terrifying focus, driving here.

The periphery of the I-5 is far more beautiful than I think people give it credit for. Not for what it has, but for what it has not. The hills roll gently, plants and trees grow gently. Cows! Outside of the occasional political sign, there’s really nothing breaking up the rather featureless scenery. It’s like a Bob Ross canvas, colors blending into each other, the occasional highlight, the Van Dyke Brown, Indian Yellow, Phthalo Blue (use just the teeniest bit).

And driving here, the only thing left is you. Where are you in this world. It’s like Genesis, right?  But the Lord called, “Where are you?’” Where will you place yourself, put yourself. And the weird thing is, rather than the generalities that come forward–it’s the details. Not “queer or not, we are all human”–but its opposite.

Human or not, I am queer. Trans. I am Asian. I am Japanese. I lost family in Fukushima. My car is green. I like donuts. I don’t know how to make love last. I wish I did not have to pee so often. I really like my hair. My pinky hurts.

As Bible God would say, “Where are you?” As Bob Ross would say “This is your world.”

Where am I, in my world?  What would I say–if I had to do it over again. Me, with all of my aches and poems and closet of clothes I do not wear enough. In love with someone I cannot love? What would I say? Have I really travelled so much? How do I go forward in my world?

So I miss the exit. Not that it really matters. I think I need more time here, with myself, on the highway, in my world, wondering where exactly I am.