June 7, 2022

wherever home was

For three solid weeks in 1981, a maroon Ford van took us west as we tumbled out of 
one nest and drove to the other. Nights were spent in off-highway motel rooms, pillows
starched clean and carpets that bore the marks of whatever the former tenants had ground
into the weave. En route to California, the cracks in the van’s vinyl seats filled with 
the flotsam of any road trip—pens, gum wrappers, receipts from chintzy souvenirs. 
From my purchase at the window, I saw the backs of my parents’ heads and stayed 
at the outskirts of their conversations, jostling instead between the pastoral views outside
and the makeshift bingo card at my lap. I was looking for an orange car, a spotted cow, 
the letter Z, a barbecue restaurant. My bare feet brushed the floor mats absentmindedly.
It was the beginning of summer. Wherever home was, it was also here.