1971 I have a little suitcase where I keep my important stuff, a realistic rubber frog with a partially severed leg, some Peanuts playing cards, a fun calendar with stickers, and some small dolls complete with quirky personalities I ascribed to them. My mom sits in the back with me, and a small 5 gallon aquarium of gerbils is in the front passenger seat. I suspect my mom doesn't trust my dad's driving. The 1960 Mercedes is full of rust holes and one can literally see asphalt pass by below. Western Nebraska is growing colder and colder and the bluffs look like giant sitting Buffalos complete with molting pelts. People out here were different. I couldn't describe it, they were just different. I had to pee, but the gas station wasn't heated. It was stark white with rust spots and a broken transom window. It was most frightening and unclean. I barely sat on the seat. It snowed outside, a real western snowstorm in October. I wondered if I would see cowboys. I wondered if the Mercedes with its war wounds from the rust belt, would make it in this new harsher land. I was a new pioneer, the rusted Mercedes a 20th century covered wagon for a micro-sized nuclear family.

199? 200? I am lying awake at night on the rollaway mattress by the piano. The house is creaking. My house was built in 1908 and it never creaks except for nights that turn abruptly cold. This house was built in 1962 and it creaks all the time. It will not stop. There is no other noise at night, just the creaking. There are no crickets or lonely western winds like in Montrose. There is no soothing traffic like at home. Just creaking. It is warm. I want to open up windows, but he has everything locked so I can't. I can't take off my clothes because I am in the living room and in the morning he will come by and interrupt my privacy. I hate this place. I hate this place so much.

2002 We are leaving now and the tears I shed the rainy night before are gone with the clear blue skies in the morning. Who knows when I will take a ferry in the Atlantic again, so I relish this time on board, and instead of spending a stodgy time inside, we go up on deck and take in the crisp November sea air. I can see land across the water and wonder what city it is. Is it New York city? I wish I'd been able to eat more sea food. This time, I'm actually glad to be going home.

Labels: Vacation