In August, we bring a set of new full-time writers to the blog. Today, please welcome Kipp De Man (’23), who will be writing for us on the 4th of each month. Kipp graduated from Calvin University in 2023, having majored in film and media studies. He is currently working towards a master’s degree in the same discipline at Washington University in St. Louis. He enjoys reading and writing poetry, rock climbing, and Coke Zero.
The traffic congests as I guide the truck down US-131. I balance a cup of coffee in my hand as Steve says whatever comes to his mind. His voice plays at half volume in my head, my mind more focused on summoning the patience for expressway travel at this hour. I’ve driven this stretch hundreds, maybe even a thousand times—which is at least enough times to know that you shouldn’t go flow-state on it. This is an expressway known for daily rear-endings and persistent road construction. And I’m in a company truck, attempting to manage that responsibility well as we head to pick up another company truck on 44th Street.
The lid of my coffee has betrayed me enough times to leave several dark splotches on my shorts, next to the diesel stains and smears of dirt. I notice it only because something itches behind my eyes: that unavoidable, persistent need to reach into the past for a memory, some link to a previous something that resonants, almost like deja vu. I attend to the details of my perception to unearth it. In this case, it’s not one memory, it’s hundreds of them. Hundreds of commutes down this same length of expressway to the summer job I used to work at a warehouse at 36th Street and Roger B. Chaffee Memorial Boulevard. I didn’t do much other than work that summer. By 5:30 am each morning, I’d be in my maroon Toyota Camry, energy drink in hand and putzing down West River Drive to hop onto 131, which I’d take for about fifteen minutes to Exit 80 and then another five minute jaunt down 36th Street. I’d punch in a few minutes shy of 6 am and try to welcome the spiral of a day’s labor.
I’m not a warehouse crony anymore; now, I drive US-131 bearing the smudges and stains of a landscaper. I try to make that sound or feel defiant and empowering as I imagine the reaction of my former coworkers. It doesn’t work. Steve and I stop short of Exit 80 for 79, and after pulling into the truck repair lot I hand him the keys and tell him to head back. I pick up a much larger Ford and soon I am back on US-131, driving towards downtown Grand Rapids. I listen to NPR and feel disappointed that my coffee is finished. I think of the indie rock I had on repeat just a few years ago, “Birth in Reverse” by St. Vincent rattling through the ever-increasing pile of empty cans on my passenger seat. I would talk to myself on those long rides home, try to imitate podcast hosts or imagine telling my story to someone like they would; spin a future where there wasn’t a pandemic anymore, and I wasn’t working at a warehouse anymore, and I wasn’t alone anymore.
When the big white Ford and I hit the S-curve, I recall that I used to practice taking it at high speeds, jokingly referring to it as the Kessel Run as I flew between lanes and around white lines. Like I said, company truck, so I’m far more careful now. I get off at West River Drive, just like I used to, but I take the truck beyond the bounds of my old course. I thrum across the East Beltline and down Cannonsburg to company headquarters. My time re-treading the past ends with the slam of the truck door, and I attempt to welcome the spiral of the rest of the day’s work. The distance between an old self and a self suddenly uncertain of its newness snap back together, if uneasily.
Seems I can trade energy drinks for coffee, warehouse dust for diesel smears, edgy tunes for NPR and still feel much the same as I did what feels like centuries ago. I can drive the same road, relive the same route hundreds, maybe even a thousand times, and still arrive at the same, simple truth: these things are part of me, and maybe they always will be—both this expressway I’ve traveled often and the loneliness and frustrations that have always traveled it with me. Some roads hurt to take and to take hundreds of times.
I head inside headquarters, hanging up the keys to the truck with the same flick of dismissal I would use to toss Camry keys on my parents’ countertop. I reconvene with Steve and Doug, then spend the rest of my Thursday patching up old projects. Just shy of 5 pm, I punch out and hop into my Toyota Matrix. I slide the aux chord into my phone. I putz down the gravel driveway, dust flicking up in a haze behind me. I turn right onto Cannonsburg. But it feels like US-131 as I drive home.
Kipp De Man graduated from Calvin University in 2023, having majored in film and media studies. He is currently working towards a master’s degree in the same discipline at Washington University in St. Louis. He enjoys reading and writing poetry, rock climbing, and Coke Zero.
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Great post–welcome to the post calvin!
Thanks Tiffany!