Just drive.

I don’t do enough just getting on my car and driving. In my twenties, I had no fear. No gps, no cell, just instincts and a folded paper map in case I took too many turns down farm-to-market roads. Of course things are different here. I never realized that moving here meant learning where I am and am not welcome in my shade of skin. Where I’m from, you had to drive pretty far out to find confeder-hate flags. Here, there are some just down the road. My naivety is a threadbare coverlet from my childhood. I still try to cling to it, but it’s too short and the heat escapes.

Years ago, on one of my just-get-in-car-and-drive trips, I came across a tiny town in Texas, just north of DFW. Wasn’t much to it, just some hollowed out buildings and a lonely sign. Population 201. Summertime, circa. ‘99 or 2000, I can’t recall. Maybe even 2001. The older I get, the quicker time passes. I wish I could remember the name. I remember making a photo & words website on something called Xoom and linking it from my AOL account. I knew the name of the town, then. Wish I had those memories to go along with these negatives.

From across the empty street:

It’s hard not to think about who lived and worked here before this point. I tried to pinpoint on a map where I may have been, and I think the suburban sprawl has spilled out this far, and this may be a Costco now.

The old gas pump that doesn’t belong gives me more questions than before:

I would have stayed longer and taken more, but I do distinctly remember someone inside coughing and making deliberate noises, so I chose to leave and not bother their rest on that hot summer day.

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Another day, the same summer, different feeling. Out and about in Deep Ellum with a friend, I just wanted to capture the places I saw on a daily basis.

The usual graffiti and billboards. Weird unintentional art gracing the neighborhood.

Other people left their mark here.

In more ways than one:

I hope Rachel & Jack are still doing well.