Offseason Post II

I always wanted a place on the ocean. Water calls me in the same way the sky does. I think it has something to do with the infinite horizon; endless possibilities within the unknown or something. And blue has always been my favorite colour, its only other competition being black. I digress.

I concluded my 2024 travels with a rather selfish trip that exploited my inlaws’ new relativity to the ocean, specifically, the greater Pensacola area for the Blue Angels homecoming weekend.

I wasn’t planning on going this year, which is convenient considering the airshow was canceled. But yet, over the last week or so, I’ve been feeling an emptiness that I can only explain away as a weird form of “wanderlust”. Because of the perennial nature of the racing schedule, my brain somehow locked onto “we go to Florida to play with airplanes at this time”.

As a person prone to anxiety who generally doesn’t like crowds, I’m by no means sad to not be flying today, the busiest travel day of the year… but still, I’m missing white sand beneath my feet, afterburners in my ears, and fighter jets in my viewfinder.

It’s only been six weeks since I returned home from the Petit/SRO Indy combo trip… and it’s starting to feel like waaaayyyyyy too long to be in one place. . . . .

“Silent wake as the day is burning
Slip back into my silhouette
I don’t know when the trains are running
Get me back home to hide away

Sky ablaze in the subtle turning
Two-way motion in a pirouette
Wide awake with a quiet yearning
Get me seaside to hide away

Time waits for me in a blue reverie
Time waits for me in bloom

Do you imagine
The illusion calls your name
From a world you can’t embrace
Hide away
All the rain that’s falling
That the clouds cannot contain
Until the embers find the waves
Hide away

Is wandering the cure to the quiet annihilation?
A trilogy of decades gone knowing now that I’ll always be searching…“

-J . Cavey/J. Cash, 2024