The traffic from Denton to Dallas was always horrendous, even back in the 80s, when there were still blotches of country between the two. I always hated that drive, especially at night when it was raining, and it always seemed to be night and raining when I returned from Denton. It probably wasn't always late, just winter, and in Texas, winter means rain, as does spring, and even good chunks of summer and fall. Anyway, when I think of I-35 from Denton to Dallas, I think of a wide, slick freeway glazed with rain, traffic moving oh so fast for being almost bumper to bumper. The population of Denton is 136,268. The population of Corinth is 21,152. The population of Lake Dallas is 7,958. The population of Lewisville is 106,021. The population of Carrollton 135,710. The population of Plano is 286,143. The population of Dallas is 1.341 million. These are just a few of the folks getting on and off the freeway between Denton and Dallas--and they hate it. All they want to do is get home to their quiet suburban neighborhood, pull down a narrow little alley to their rear-entrance garage, get out of their car, go into the kitchen through their back door, and then into the family room, where they can plop down on a large sectional couch before a TV and forget there is anything remotely like the office or I-35. But until then, it's hell, and they're hell-mad, and they drive like they're hell-mad, even when it's raining, which except for a couple months in the summer, that is likely. They'd drive like that on all Dallas area freeways except for the fact that all of the others are so clogged up with accidents, everyone just sits there almost forever staring at a static line of red taillights reflecting in the rain, the Police's "Synchronicity II" raging in his or her head:
Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race
Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break.
The stretch of I-35 between Denton and Dallas is where it breaks. There's just enough space between you and the next car to gun it without instantly getting glass and metal in your face. And gun it they do. Yee-haw! I'm going over Lake Lewisville on a bridge! There's no on-ramps! I don't have to brake for any merging traffic for maybe four miles. Woo-hoo! Six lanes of traffic (each way) going 70 miles an hour with two car-lengths between, racing in the rain on a bridge over a lake in the rain. Insane Texas fun.
I didn't love it even when I was a Texan. But I sure put myself through it a lot. There was one year when my typical day looked like this: Wake up, commute 54 miles from Richardson to Arlington to go to school. Commute 54 miles from Arlington back to Richardson to go to work. Commute 38 miles to Denton to see Andrea. Commute 38 miles back to home to go to bed. That's 184 miles a day, two or three times a week--
Wait. Something's wrong. I know I didn't drive 184 miles a day, two or three times a week, on top of work. I couldn't have. Let's see. Oh yeah, I only drove to Denton on my days off. Let's redo the math. Wake up, commute 54 miles from Richardson to Arlington. Commute 46 miles from Arlington to Denton. Drive unknown miles of farm road with Andrea looking for grain elevators, tarantulas, and happiness--the last nowhere on the visible horizon for either of us. Commute 38 miles back home to go to bed. That's still a minimum of 138 miles on those days, and counting the country roads, we probably did sometimes put on 184 miles in a day.
What's interesting here, though, is that one little incorrect memory added almost an hour of driving a day, and a schedule, that with work, clearly did not fit reality.
That is how memory is, and yet most people trust it so. I don't. I believe there is a solid reality; I just don't trust my mind to be the retainer historical accuracy. I don't trust anyone's account of the past as far as historical accuracy goes. All accounts through human eyes, by nature, are flawed. However, I trust those who recognize that fact more than I trust those who claim otherwise. That does not mean all narratives are equal, and that everything is just perception. There are facts. In this day and age more than any other, we need to recognize that and cling to it. But we also need to recognize that we each see the world through our own lens, and even that lens isn't stable, but shifts with our moods, thoughts and changing beliefs.
Reality is a difficult thing to grapple with.
Back then I didn't even try. Rational thought arrives sometime around when you hit thirty. Before that, you're just experiencing--taking in the lights, the movement, the loneliness, the pain, the adrenaline, the boredom, the restlessness, the heat, the rain--ticking, ticking, ticking.
That's when I lived my life wound-up. I see my son Rio doing the same thing. It may be alright. It just may be alright. One couldn't keep it up for a lifetime, but it may be alright. It sure crams the head full of material to draw on later for artistic purposes or to just sit in a white rocker on the porch, and go, "You know, when I was a kid..."
Oh, how I pity my future grandchildren. I need to tell stories so much that I even try to fling them out there to an unknown audience through the web. With grand kids, I'll have those little suckers right where I want them. "Yes, we can go to the pond to skip rocks, but not until I absolutely know you've experienced the terror of driving I-35 between Denton and Dallas at night, on a bridge, in the rain!"
Luckily, on the night of which we speak, Marci was driving. She seemed in control. She seemed poised. It almost seemed as if it was no big deal to her.
Perhaps it is no big deal. I have really adapted to living in my county of 6,828 square miles with a population density of two people per square mile, and only one stop light in that entire great expanse. Even driving in Provo scares me.
This is why point of view matters. The only story I promise to tell accurately here is the one I'm experiencing now, sitting in this green recliner on a dark and drizzly day in central Utah in April, clouds heavy as a Texas sky hanging over White Rock Lake.
Memory, like life, is a reel-to-reel movie--that splits, breaks, and is reattached a thousand times over in different ways. Each time a writer writes, he sits down, looks through the loose strands of footage and tries to assemble them together into something meaningful.
That is memory's limitation, but is also its magic. This trip to Texas that I'm sharing now--I will never pass this way again. Another reflection will be distorted by whatever happens between now and then. Writing it down freezes the record--at least one version of it--to go back and visit again.
Today, I came across an article in the New York Times about how in the 1930s New York City sent photographers out to photograph every building on every block. It wasn't for art's sake, but for tax purposes. What clearly shines through though is how important documentation is, even of the mundane captured mundanely.
I sometimes want to stop writing. I have doubt. I worry that I'm no good. Even more, I worry I may do someone else injustice. All that may be true, but ultimately a writer's only job is to write, and even if we don't always get it right, any written record is better than no record at all. Each memory captured in print freezes something for someone that otherwise would have been lost.
That is, and should be, enough for anyone and everyone to want to write. I may not always believe in myself, but I always believe in the power of the process. To stop the film now and then and stand amazed at the color and movement going by, for me, that is ultimately what it is all about.
To be in that car, with Marci, over a lake, in the rain, going way too fast, on a freeway way too congested, in a city way too big, on a planet spinning at 1000 miles per hour, orbiting the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, the entire solar system orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy at 1.3 million miles per hour--Well, even for one living the most mundane life comprehensible--that is one hell of a trip, and somebody somewhere should be trying to get that down. I have a willing hand, and so I push on.
References
Barron, James. Every Building on Every Block: A
Time Capsule of 1930s New York. 28 December 2018. Document. 7 April 2019.
Police. "Synchronicity II." Synchronicity.
By Sting. Montserrat Island, 1983. Vinyl.
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