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A friend of mine has been asking me to visit for some time now. As the only person from my high school friends who didn't have a car, I was the one everyone saw the least due to the difficulty of transport. Few were easily accessible through public transport and often times the length it took to reach a location made it difficult to schedule. After we all scattered due to college, I became distant and frayed with many of them. While some of that distancing was due to changing as a person and not enjoying the company as much, the physical distance certainly contributed. Despite that, I still wanted to visit now that I had the means to do so.

While I've been to my friend's new location before, this was the first time I had done so myself. It was also the first time I really personally traveled what felt like a great distance. The only other expedition by car I've took was down south to my brother's wedding. I was a passenger the entire time, my only real relation with both the environment and the act was needing to keep my dad awake and the rest stops. While this trip was minuscule in comparison, the physical feeling of movement was there. The car dulled those sensations but the body and mind had enough to intuit the rest.

The state highways are a much more "present" experience than the 2 other primary highway types (I've never seen a county highway, maybe its more common outside of the east coast). The roads turn and shift more, the environment changes more often. There's an actual sense of movement, compared to the tedium of a typical highway. I found the intersections into various downtowns to also give a greater sense of distance. Even if the speed loss bothered me, they were nice rests on my eyes.

I took a different route to and back, the first was a much more plain affair. It was mostly straight with some notable curves and oscillations. The backdrop was often more fields, which made for decent transitions into the numerous towns I passed on the road. It was a serene ride, barring some roadwork frustration. The in and out nature of each area brings to mind a kind of dreamlike descent. The real highlight was the route back home for me. It was almost exclusively surrounded by dense forests, with the few towns I passed by often feeling like they were hiding themselves from me. There were far more turns and aberrations in the road, a route that was carved hastily and urgently.

The most appealing of that route back was that secrecy I felt. A straight stretch would have the forest suddenly open itself up, a tiny dirt road leading somewhere inwards. Taking a turn would reveal a quaint restaurant or shop, with further civilization seeming to hide behind the open establishment. All places one could hide in or run away to. I have had this juvenile fantasy for some time, one of running away. To leave all those I know behind and begin again. The reasons for this do not matter, or rather aren't worth writing about here. I bring this personal detail up because it came to mind almost pathologically as I drove by. Every corner felt like a potential escape, somewhere to shed myself and move on. While it's almost impossible to do nowadays with technology's advance into omniscience and distance continuing to lose meaning, it seemed possible to get away for a time somewhere along the long trip.

I watched the film "The Devil All The Time" and the part that stuck with me is the several moments, including the end, where a character gets in a vehicle and disappears. That in this country, because of its vastness, it was almost trivial to escape a life. I'm sure it's largely fictional, but I imagine it was quite easy to start anew on almost a whim. Back then they probably could just travel 100 miles if they felt like quitting. Things have changed, these roads have been built up over centuries to sustain a consuming network. The corners have been illuminated and the greenery has been measured and gutted. The radio towers keep everything under some national exposure. Even though everything is highlighted and located, when I drove by those forest paths and human stops, I felt as if I could go in and hide away from it all.

I visited a friend a few weeks ago who lives in another city nearby. There was a movie screening he invited me to, which wasn't a very good movie, but I feel the need to mention that it is somewhat related to the topics of this blog, as the movie largely consisted of the main character being a flâneur. After watching the movie, we ended up wandering around, mostly in hopes of a particularly frugal late hours deal I spotted. That ended up failing apart, and we wandered for a bit more before settling on a place to eat. The area we were in is owned by a famous college, and as a result, the way it was constructed had a particular feel to it.

While the university does not own the entirety of the district, one of its central hub areas is named after it and is right next to the campus. Many buildings in this urban hub are owned and operated by the university, being a mix of business, housing, and administrative locations. This central hub contains many of the city staples, but the friction of the environment is noticeably reduced. Everything is very concentrated, and flows into each other much quicker than your average city environment. The other hub/packed area of the district is much more typical to me, longer grid-aligned blocks that stretch on forever and numb your brain. Where the next bar over still takes about 5 minutes of real time, and 10 of mental patience, really making you salivate for the next pint. Every bend of the university adjacent hub leads somewhere in an instant. The flow of movement is never static, being far more curved and free-flowing. Never is there a moment of dull walking to your next destination. The alleyways are also filled with something, instead of feeling like a portal to the inner workings and underbelly of a city. It is a remarkably "safe" and active, removing any of the forces that a city uses to push against you.

Universities like the one in question are for the wealthy and privileged. While some attend without those prerequisites, having the right connections and influence are usually the deciding factors in one's admittance. Most already know this, but the actual benefit of these universities is not really in the academics. The prestige and connections that these places give you are the real prize, letting you access the upper levels of our world faster with less effort. This adjacent urban hub to me is a reflection of that process. Everything is easier and faster to access with less of the typical city friction, of course, only if you have the prerequisites to get there. All of the shops are trendy or historically important, same with the restaurants. You aren't going to find those special small joints that make up for the most beloved parts of a city, but it's got quality and the new exciting spots that keep things moving. I guess I prefer these areas existing over gentrification, but it's not really what I like about a city. I enjoy the friction, but more personally, I like the way you enter a city and it is clearly not for you, at least not yet. Over time, you carve out the locations you belong in, joining the community you have found yourself in or making your own over multiple locations. This process, of becoming one with the city and making it your home, is what I think is the core appeal. A place like this is too curated and controlled for me to find it interesting or worth being around.

The next day, I had planned to just walk around the city for a while, do a dérive. Instead, my brother let me know he had availability, so I decided to just walk over to his place. This was an unnecessary choice, since the transit system is perfectly functional. I mainly did it for exercise. I've been doing daily walks for a couple of months now, so as much as I'd love to pretend I'm all about that situationist life, it's largely about wellness.

The walk took around 2 hours and was 6 and a half miles. The initial few miles were more of a setup for the rest of the trip, which consisted of going down a main road for approximately 4 miles. This beginning portion was much more interesting and felt more adventurous. Bridges, transitions through streets that didn't really seem to be there, and underground tunnels were the highlights. Part of this early section was through a college campus, where I walked alongside others whose main connection with the environment was as a transitional place. The most interesting locations were the ones that felt so awkward and brazen. Solutions to planning problems that took 1 minute of conceptualizing. Quickly burrowing an underground tunnel to fit a new railway, fences still left up. Typically, the flawed and annoying parts of a city are rooted in core planning issues that aren't so easily addressed when scaled up. It's nice to just walk through somewhere with surface-level issues and a lack of time and thought. One of the bridges on the straight portion overlooked the main river. I thought a lot about the water, its serenity being a nice and needed contrast to the busy road I was stuck on for the rest of this walk. The long stretch should have led to a consistent amount of interactions or at least notable events, but there wasn't much to linger on. Unlike the previous night, stretches between spots of interest were far apart. Perhaps it was the more specific goal I had, clouding my ability to notice things or be in the environment.

Over the summer, I reached one of the touchstones of being American: obtaining a driver's license. I went through the usual process when I was a teen, but by the time my driver's ed finished COVID hit. When I attempted the test a year later, my knowledge of the required maneuvers atrophied, and I failed pretty definitively. My next test was delayed until this summer, largely because I found scheduling lessons to be a bit of a pain with my college schedule. I also don't like the reliance on cars and found it a worthless investment of my time since I wouldn't even have one myself at the time. Unfortunately, here the highways stretch far and wide, a great boon for employment opportunities. My preferred public transit couldn't compete without massive burdens, so it was time to finally find a steel box to become acclimated with.

My current residence is a frankly awful place to drive, so for safety and learning reasons, I stayed a couple of nights driving around in my hometown. I had been familiar with these roads for years, especially through the lens of a windshield, so my relationship with the space of the town remained rather unchanged. One road, however, stood out once I began driving through it. The road is named after a common natural formation, and while it does run along one of its namesakes, at no point is it actually visible to the driver. It is about 7-8 miles long, making for a considerable stretch of land covered. It's about 2/5ths of the average boundary-to-boundary length of the town, according to my crude and unthorough measurement method of right-clicking google maps. The speed limit is set to a surprising 40mph, given that the road often bounds and enforces harsh bends in matters of seconds.

Driving through the road is a slightly surreal experience, one I couldn't really pick up on as a passenger. Now that I drive myself, all of the time I've spent in others' cars hasn't transferred over as much as I thought. Maybe it's the worsening memory, but I find myself having to relearn routes and paths I have been through enough to view in my mind. Perhaps it is the difference between following a guide and trying to navigate the map yourself; the relationship you have with the land is a lot more active and more "connected". It's easier to really feel the distance and route when you're treading it. Becoming more connected to the road is what pointed out its surrealness to me, along with doing it alone for the first time. Some of the realities I outlined earlier show this.

The speed and shape are odd and cumbersome, but a bad road isn't uncommon, especially in this massive country. What initially tipped me off was the length of the road. It's much more expansive than it really should be, as it feels like it goes on forever. Nothing else in the town feels quite as long as this one does. Part of it is the purpose of the road, or rather, what it is mostly used for. It acts as a gateway to the vast majority of neighborhoods and streets present in my hometown. It is such a structural force that on a map it acts neatly as one side of a triangle, bounding much of the residential area of the town. Nearly half of my friends resided in a location where this road was the only path to reach them. I hesitate to use the word "liminal" despite its potential accuracy here with regard to this road's very transitional purpose. The road is too lively for it to be talked about as such, but that activity is largely a farce.

The thing that sticks with me is the actual visual element of driving this road. It's funny how you can't even see the formation it's named after. There's nature, sure, but largely other than the connective tissue you see as you cruise along, it's all about the houses. Those upper-middle-class homes, with yards that took a couple of days for the foliage to be ripped from its rightful place. The road stretches on, house after house, blocking anything interesting from being viewed*. The real purpose of this road shines through; it's an unabashed shrine to the affluence of this town. Unlike the other major roads, it doesn't link to or have anything one might stop for, like a place to eat. There is no community here, nothing for anyone to gather for, outside of interpersonal events. The sole emotions to be felt passing by here is when am I getting to my friend's house, and why does that person's house look better than mine? For its purpose as a gateway to the enjoyable parts of your day, the vapid riches that take up all the auxiliary visual information make it a lonely, impersonal place. It's a road littered with contradictions, many of those being core to what living in a suburb was like for me.

*A term brought up in my psychogeography class once was "fractal qualities". This referred largely to anything natural or resembling nature, and how something about the colors and patterns was calming to us. I am unsure if my memory of the description is correct, but if it is, you could argue that this road is meant to put you more on edge. In a way, given its design and rules, this might be a good decision. Unfortunately, places like these still have "nature", often a gutted and manicured version of a once beautiful system.

Current Mood: amused

Lately, I have found myself ruminating on the spaces I exist in. It made me want to dredge up this old project that went nowhere. I'm not entirely sure I'll continue with this page. It all comes down to personal satisfaction; if I end up finding what I write uninteresting or not really worth expressing, it'll get deleted. Reading back on my old intro (which will likely be privated or removed), many of the goals expressed were lofty or, in retrospect, a little silly. This journal will be largely dedicated to place and space, the ways that I inhabit them, and how they make me feel. It is inspired by my time in a psychogeography course, which I found very interesting and valuable. I would say I am inspired by or cite some of the readings and practices I learned in that class, but to be honest, I've forgotten most of the actual details. Maybe when I decide to reread the situationist literature and other related points from that class and academic discipline, I'll try incorporating the theory more directly. For now, it will just be a record of all the spaces I find myself observing while being as invisible as a body can be.