Somewhere

Every now and again I recall a memory from when I was 5 or 6 years old. It was in Altadena, California and I gazed out at our street. It was fairly busy. A two-lane residential street but it connected two suburban commercial areas. That started me thinking – these cars are coming from somewhere else, and going to somewhere else. Where is the somewhere?

I began wondering where our street went farther to the east and west? I imagined trees, homes, buildings and other cars. But were the mountains still there? Or was there another landscape? What would it be like to go there? Wherever that was?

Our family liked road trips. Dad was a civil service engineer working for the US Navy. He had a four- week vacation each year. We spent much of it traveling throughout the western states. On Sundays throughout the year we took rides up into the mountains, out onto the desert, and down to the ocean. Rides were a thing. They were the family’s greatest pastime.

Over the years these rides defined somewhere for me. I knew this road connected to another that would take us up over the San Gabriel mountains and into the desert. Later we lived on the desert for nearly 3 years. We traveled back and forth from Inyokern to Pasadena with regularity. Travel in that environment was highly varied – desert landscapes, desert mountain ranges, coastal mountains, seaward slopes in the burgeoning Los Angeles Basin. Nighttime lights from atop mountains were breathtaking. So too were long shot views of the ocean on days when smog was light.

Streets had routes through many somewheres. I pondered the beginning and the ending of such streets but never quite got a clear answer to that. Space and distance were great. No clear start or finish to a street. In residential areas, yes; deadends, cul de sacs, and T-intersections were plenteous. But not through roads. They just kept going on and on.

From then on somewhere became a destination but we learned to enjoy the journey. A whole lot like life itself.

I must admit the Midwest destinations are not as exciting as California’s, but the journeys are just as interesting. Guess it depends on what we focus on?

October 20, 2020