Road Trip

Sometimes the writing is no longer enough and the car becomes the pen, the highway the pad.

Those long thoughts you have two hours into the trip about what exactly woke you at 3am, when you hurriedly packed a bag, grabbed your passport and drove south; through Seattle before rush hour, to Portland for a breakfast too white to mention, then west to Astoria, where I once had a haircut and my friend Jeff filmed it.

It is Friday lunch time, and teens are gathering like chat groups on the sunny streets of Astoria to talk about what they might wear to their town's version of March For Our Lives. I linger at a bus stop so I can listen to what they are saying without scaring them.

They are internet informed, these teens -- full of facts and figures about the NRA and the Second Amendment. They also know that Dov Charney is a creepy daddy so "No American Apparel -- not even a t-shirt under your sweater," says the ringleader, Aviva, whose name is Hebrew for "springtime".

Teenagers today are not one thing or another but everything at once, tipping this way and that but never falling over. They know the only thing to get their president's attention is injury to children, so they are risking their lives to prevent more of them.

I interrupt Aviva and am met with hard stares from her brethren. I interrupt Aviva to thank the group for what they are doing and to tell them that I will be praying for them in the days and weeks to come. When I am done, they look at Aviva. She smiles and thanks me, and the rest nod a collective "Uh-huh."