“Track Seven:” The Trouble with River Cities

Float like a sparrow, a T-top Camaro…

Is the wind done blowin’ you down? Do you need oxygen? Do you need out of your room?

This was becoming a very unhelpful routine for her. Lying on the grass in her fenced-in backyard, eyes shut tight; she had been repeating those words over and over while the sunshine washed over her. 

While this was a peaceful place, no noise or congestion outside of the occasional car passing by, the relentless questions in her head she couldn’t seem to solve provided her with no peace at all. This routine was simply a distraction, delaying any and all decisions.

Stay? Or go?

Her opinion of this place had changed drastically over time. She had grown to love it, questioning her initial interpretations. Was a small town comforting, or suffocating? Was a big city really as exhilarating as it seemed, or was it just incredibly lonely? To her, these were complicated questions, even though she knew that far bolder people would tell her they are simply two sides of the same coin. So why not just flip it? But she had never arrived at an answer that way before, and wouldn’t start now. While many things were unclear to her right now, there was always one thing that seemed to provide her with the guidance she needed.   

That’s what the drives were for. And it was time for a change of scenery.

The leather on the seat of her car was hot from the same sun that had just been turning her still winter-white skin pink back on her lawn. She looked to her backseat, where the sunshade meant to prevent this sort of annoyance was still rolled up on the floor. It wasn’t a stretch to assume she had been preoccupied with thought or was lost in a song, the last time she parked her car. Whatever the reason then, the backs of her legs were on fire because of it now.

She cranked up the AC and made a mental note to avoid this mistake once she returned from her ride. As the cool air started to do its job, the sting from the hot leather faded into warmth that was actually soothing. As she relaxed back into her seat she plugged in her iPod, moving her thumb in a circle around its face; click, click, click.

Selecting the perfect song to begin a drive along the river was key to any successful trip. She and her best friend had kept a multitude of pre-made mixes to select from over the years. Playlists for running out their annoyances after a date gone wrong, pre-party mixes, and the older they got, the far less used, post-party mix. But the most critical mixes were the selections of songs chosen for their drives along the river. An excellent song was the key to channeling whichever emotions they were sorting through at the time, a necessary process to lift them out of whatever it was that was weighing them down. The song choice didn't come down to just tone or sentiment; no… it also had to match the weather.  

For instance, trying to work out a struggle between two positives would require something ‘sunny’ in tone. But if this issue arose in the dead of winter, the song selections would become that much more difficult to balance between the snow and the state of their hearts. But beyond all that, these songs had to walk the line between their two extraordinarily different tastes. Volume, pace, genre, and twang; they were all factors. In addition to the balance between weather, taste and problem, there needed to be a melodic and lyrical combination, too. And the lyrics were perhaps the most critical trait involved in song selections meant for a drive along the river. While this all might sound complicated (or insane), somehow it wasn’t. These drives just happened and the songs were always perfect.

Sometimes they would drive out far enough to listen to an album play from front to back, requiring them to start it over for the return trip home. Other times they wouldn’t drive far at all. They’d happen upon the perfect turnout that would allow them the space to pull the car over, walk on the rocks, and dip their toes in the water. But this time, even by herself, she was struggling to select a song that would set her free from her driveway.

It’s clear that any sunny music suitable for the day wasn’t right for the question currently plaguing her brain. And winter music was just entirely too wrong for a day overwhelmed by heat on a cloudless day. So she let out a breath and selected what she referred to as, “cinematic sound.” Not music from an actual film, but the types of songs that when she heard them, she could tell where they would fit in a movie… should they ever be used for such a purpose. 

The 1975, Tony Molina and Pela, Mallrat and Exes, Northcote and Beach Slang. These were the artists she’d turn to when her thoughts needed to rely on something of a cinematic scope. And so, she was finally able to pull out of her driveway.

Speeding out of town, she made her way down a winding road lined by trees and flanked by the river on one side. Getting lost in the playlist her mind wandered away from her problems by staying focused on the turns in the road. And before she knew it, she was listing out all the reasons to leave this place, though she still wasn’t quite sure why her thoughts turned to that list first. She slowed for a turnout after a long and narrow stretch of road. It seemed to be waiting there just for her, free of any cars, and clear of people.

When she got out she shivered, forgetting how much cooler it could be on the water under the shade of the trees. Still, she slipped off her flip-flops and took a seat on the bank, allowing her toes to move over the rocks beneath the ripples of the water. As she let the gentle current float her feet between the rocks and the surface, an avalanche of reasons crashed over her, pushing her mind in another direction. Suddenly it made all the sense in the world to stay put in this place.

She wondered if she left this place, how she would solve a problem in the city? Surely a drive locked in traffic to even get near the ocean would cause more problems than they would solve. But she couldn’t know that, not for sure.

Not unless she left and tried something else.

The wind picked up and the water was turning her toes to ice so she pulled herself up from the bank of the river. This time the warmth of her car and the heat radiating from her seat was exactly what she needed as she let her head full of reasons weigh themselves out once more.

What would life be like if she stayed?

What could life be like if she left?

And what level of regret might she be willing to live with, after leaving one choice on the table over the other?

There were people she loved here, and careers to be chased elsewhere, and it caused her stomach to turn at the thought of the required goodbyes that leaving would force her to address. And truthfully, there were a select few she never wanted to have to exchange a goodbye with. Some people just mean too much to reduce to a final word.

As she pulled back onto the road, she realized her biggest problem was that she wanted to be in two places at the same time. But there was no drive along the river that could fix that. She knew that having already lived this life, she wouldn’t be ready to come back to this one until she got a chance to know the other one, too.

With her problems fading in the rearview mirror, it hit her that the river, the music, and the drive had yet again given her the answer that she needed, even if it wasn’t the one she was hoping for at the start. And that's the trouble with river cities.

*Inspired by William McCarthy’s, “The Trouble with River Cities”