Subaru, armadillo, tumbleweed
Brooklyn, NY
Chincoteague, VA
Richmond, VA
Lexington, KY
Bentonville, AR
Amarillo, TXTucson, AZ
Wilcox, AZ
Flagstaff, AZ
Santa Fe, NM
Denver, CO
Kearney, NE
Rockford, IL
Brooklyn, NY
*
Last winter, we drove to the Grand Canyon and back.
I mean Ilya drove.
When we turned out the lights in whatever motel I’d found us for the night, we could see a thin line of light under the door, from the hallway with its repeating carpet.
*
The wild horses on Chincoteague.
Bread pudding croissants at Sub Rosa in Richmond.
In Lexington: Blue Door Smokehouse. The car fragrant with ribs and brisket all the way to Arkansas.
Dinner at the home of dear friends Sam and Rachel in Bentonville. Their shelves full of books I also loved. Bringing in Frog from the car to meet Chompers, their kids’ shark.
Running through Crystal Bridges in the hour before closing. Sitting on the heated bench inside James Turrell’s Skyspace, looking at the sky draining, draining, drained of light.
*
At a donut shop in Amarillo, TX, the cashier stared at my Oakleys.
“Did you run here,” he asked.
He hadn’t seen me climb out of the cinnamon brown Subaru Outback, where my husband was trying to restore the voice of the GPS. A voice that went mute at random as we drove cross-country.
He hadn’t seen me sitting in hotel lobbies across America, composing a eulogy for my mother.
He couldn’t know these sunglasses never got dark enough.
“Yes,” I said.
*
Love’s gas stations/rest stops.
Freight trains measured in hours. Some carrying tanks.
The gift shop in Roswell, NM.
The unattended roadside shop where we picked out a metal armadillo. Slipped thirty dollars into the mailbox on the door. Honor system.
Tacos in Las Cruces. Our closest brush with the southern border.
*
In a dust storm
Pull off road
Turn vehicle off
Feet off brakes
Stay buckled
*
“International gem show,” said the clerk in the third hotel we tried in Tucson. “There’s not a room in town.”
We had never heard of the international gem show. Never heard of a city selling out of hotel rooms.
It was midnight.
We drove ninety minutes back to Wilcox, the closest town with a vacancy.
Our room there opened directly onto the parking lot.
When we turned out the lights, we saw a thin line of darkness.
*
In Flagstaff: tumbleweed.
Also in Flagstaff: a blizzard.
Looking into the Grand Canyon. Hiking at Sunset Crater National Monument without seeing a single other person.
How I kept looking for trees as we approached Petrified Forest National Park.
I didn’t understand they’d fallen first.
*
And then: about face.
A super straight road approaching mountains that seemed to never get any closer.
Sand dunes. A bobcat. Stars.
Prairie dogs and bison on the outskirts of Denver. Magpies with inky tails in the parking lot of the state’s busiest Starbucks.
The false promise of sandhill cranes in Kearney, Nebraska. Only mobiles of colorful paper ones hanging from the lobby ceiling.
Wind forecast caught on the lobby television.
Lifesaver Gummies Collisions. Flavor Blasted Xtra Cheddar Goldfish.
A single sad night in an extended stay motel in Rockford, Illinois.
Ukrainian flags on highway overpasses in Chicago.
In Gary, Indiana, we touched the Great Lake, collected flat stones.
We drove the rest of that day and into the night. Saw nothing of Pennsylvania. Crossed into New Jersey on empty roads around three in the morning and entered New York shortly thereafter, without the usual resistance.
New York, where the night sky is a threadbare blanket that hardly keeps out the light.
*
Sometimes the road can be a container for grief.
