audio pilgrimage.

Squinting my eyes to make out the monochrome shape of the car in front of me is not usually my idea of an ideal way to spend a Thursday afternoon. In fact, spending a half-hour in a torrential downpour on I-95 (oh it gets worse…) through Northern Virginia sounds like an episode worthy of an anxiety attack. And in most cases it probably would have been but yesterday was clearly an oddity. Somehow I found a sense of peace among the large drops of water that pelted my car, breaking their round form on my windshield with a loud “snap.”

The thunderstorm was vibrant, providing spectacular bolts of lighting that would work their way through the sky like delicate winding capillaries. Every bright flash warned me for the deafening cracking sound which was always soon to follow.

I was driving home from visiting my family in Bethlehem, Penn., a conflicted city that is trying to find community among rich college students, underpaid Puerto Ricans and unemployed steel workers. To be honest, it's a lot like Burlington, only with Hispanics and mill workers respectively. The trip was short, but since it marked my first long-distance solo road trip, it was one to remember.

One thing that I reconnected with during my trip was my music collection. To be honest, I am often times ashamed out out of touch I am with music. I never devote time to finding new artists or even given my good ole stand-bys a listen. I mostly tune into NPR in hopes they will make sense of the chaotic news cycle. But on this trip I was armed with something that I have never had before -- proper car speakers.

In my last car, affectionately know as Miss Noxzema (or Noxie for short), had blown speakers that would buzz if a single decimal of bass was in the audio. It isn't until you lose the ability to have bass that you realize how much all music depends on it. :/ So my options were always NPR or James Taylor. Now I love James, don't get me wrong, but hours and hours and hours of James just gets old (As do the repeating news segments on NPR.) BUT on this trip, in my new car, I was free to explore the more soulful parts of my music collection -- Bob Dylan, Etta James, Miles Davis, Just Jack, Justice... mmm ... really anything that skewed from beach music was a relief.

I think that 7 hours of music was enough to pull me out of my dry spell. As soon as I got home I began searching for something new ... something jazzy ... something with some bass! I'm already excited about the musical experience during my next road trip.