Some notes on navigation

You leave right out the front door, and things stay familiar for a little while. This is your neighborhood; you've walked this street, biked the one beyond it, driven a little further. You push further, and maybe you've passed through once or twice, as you do now. Less reasons to stop, so you keep moving, and soon you break free from memory all together, and the long farm rows stretch off into the distance and the road winds on and on.

You've never been here, but you learn it soon enough. Avocados grow in those sunken orchards along the highway. You pass through small towns, someone else's neighborhood, and think about living out your life a place like this one. Growing up near the railroad tracks, running down to the river in the summertime, and watching cars whizz by with strangers gazing out of the windows at you and wondering.

The road turns and spins off again, back towards the coast, threading its way through the land, riding again towards the cool fog of the ocean and away from the heat of the valley. The smaller roads that come away from the coast tack their way up into the hills, where fences are still allowed to gather rust and you see small quiet homes off the shoulder.

This land is well worn despite the loneliness. Unmarked and memorized. The people here know which way to go, and can tell whether you intend to stay or leave. Their familiarity with this place stretches off in fading, twisting ribbons towards the horizon, and maybe one day they find their way along the same winding path you've walked to your front door and never think twice about it.