Grace Notes on Highway 43

Dawn slipped in like a lo-fi tape hiss, soft and a little warped. I brewed the usual gas-station coffee in Dad’s dented percolator, then sat at the kitchen table mapping the miles between Grande Prairie and Edmonton with my fingertip, the way kids trace toy-train routes. Google Maps feels clinical; on paper the road looks more forgiving, almost lyrical. Still—June’s eviction deadline beats like a metronome in the margins, steady, impatient.

I keep toggling between two windows: Koho balance on one side, Kijiji job listings on the other. Digital worry beads. My five-buck Red Swan allowance already spent itself last night (pineapple, jalapeño, nostalgia). Darian’s text chimed at 9 a.m.—she’s boxing up the living-room records, asking if I’ll DJ the unofficial move-out party. My answer floated somewhere between a heart emoji and an anxious shrug, but I hit send on the heart. Love first, logistics later.

Lunch break became a thrift dash—Smith’s Trading Post. Scored a scratched but playable VHS of Run Lola Run for a toonie. The clerk said, “Nobody keeps tapes anymore.” I smiled, knowing I archive each one like a preserved heartbeat. Analog ambitions in a streaming world. In my mind’s edit bay these clips will loop on Darian’s blank apartment wall, projector hum whispering, this place is still alive.

Back home, I fired up the Telus CRM idle game I’ve been Frankensteining after hours. New “Case” counters stack like city lights against the dark-mode UI. Funny how clicking virtual buttons calms the real-world chaos. Each incremental number feels like a mantra: one more task solved, one more kilometre conquered, one more reason this leap might pan out.

At sunset I pulled onto Highway 43, windows down, mixtape spinning breakbeats and rain-streaked synths. The prairie fields glowed neon-gold, and for a fleeting bar I believed the road itself was singing backup—reminding me that movement is meaning, that anxiety and excitement share the same octave. I whispered the chorus to myself: even unprepared wheels can roll.

Now the house is quiet but my head is loud. I sketch tomorrow’s budget in fountain-pen ink because it feels sturdier than numbers on a screen. Darian’s record boxes wait like timestamps on a promise. Edmonton still scares me, but so did Grande Prairie once. And every mix I’ve ever uploaded started as silence. Time to press record.