And The Hawks Circle

It's a long drive, up north. Past a myriad of small communities, tiny one horse towns with similar sounding names, ending in brook or hurst or steed. The occasional signs of big box stores and chain  groceries glow in the dark off an exit ramp in the distance. Last chance for food, shelter, gas and family size jars of dijon mustard and 46 rolls of toilet paper for 34 miles. Hawks circle above, banking, soaring, catching updrafts and hovering effortlessly above the treeline. There's rain in the air, a faint shift in barometric pressure. Should've packed a tarp. Should've packed her life, jammed her belongings into boxes and bags and thrown everything she's ever been into the rental car.  Never come back. No real sense of where she's heading or why she's leaving except it's something she can do. Volitional, for now, at least. No set schedule, no dependents, no rhyme nor reason to anything anymore. Despondency, ambivalence. These are foreign words now tattooing themselves under her skin, ricocheting around her cellular matter, firing synapses in new ways, lighting up sensors in her brain she wasn't even aware of. Or shutting them down. At this point nothing feels normal. Since normal wasn't feeling too great, she thought why not disappear in order to reappear. Reconfigure. Reassess. Some things remain constant. The mountains, the lake and 6 acres 5 hours north west of the city. A lodge, a cabin, a tent, a Motel 6. It'll do. The boot of the hatchback pulled off on the side of the road, any place to rest, decompress. Four months of planning, preparing, subtly shifting every thought and feeling towards one singular focus in order to prepare for the life after. The new world, ways of adaptation. Somewhere along the way the present self reared up to override the future yet to be and remind her that in fact she has no control. There are underlying forces at play that will not be ignored. Not now, not ever. Unchangeable in it's dominance, the present makes a forceful case. Go where you know, re imagine what will be, what's to come, and plan accordingly. The first drops land like frogs falling from the sky. Apocryphal omen for her future. This is not fantasy, religious fiction, some make believe tale of magical thinking. She flicks on the wipers, clarfiying her view. The hawks disappear, seeking shelter from the storm. She drives on.