The trade winds have roughened since yesterday. There’s a cinnamon whiff of Carolina allspice in the air, another thing that’s blown in from the south. It doesn’t remind me of home, but it does remind me where I came from.
Each thing in this room is balanced by another thing, and each of them falls, eventually. Do you remember telling me that?
I smell the rain, hear it erase the miles between rest stops and parking lots. There’s a suitcase in the back I haven’t touched since Cincinnati, or maybe Youngstown. Things I packed for you, things I can’t bear to lose. I keep my things in a duffle bag, something I have to remind myself is still mine. Your hand-drawn map is still on the dashboard, yellowed from old sunshine. The miles, dear, the miles, all contained in the briefest of thoughts.
“Do you know where you are now?” she asks.
“Indiana?”
“Yes, silly, but where?”
“Mecca? I think that’s what the sign said. I drove through a covered bridge.”
And she is silent, and I wonder where I am.
All the flags were at half-staff as I drove north through Kentucky. “You still don’t like to drive, do you?” she asks.
“The drivers try to drive me off the road.”
“Of course they don’t. Follow the map I drew for you. You’ll find your way.”
“Way where?”
And she is silent, and I wonder where I am.
I have become a brief collection of things to her, of aching bones and tired griefs and driving tantrums. “Way where?” I ask again.
“Way Ward.”
“My name isn’t Ward,” I say, an old joke of which I have forgotten its origin. “Am I That Easy to Forget?” is on the radio. The Jim Reeves version, I think.
The westerlies have roughened since yesterday. There’s an industrial whiff of cabbage in the air, another thing that’s blown in from the north. It doesn’t remind me of home, but it does remind me where I am going.
Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels
Ordinary Handsome 
Excellent story. It left me feeling somewhere between sentimental and moonstruck.
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Thanks so much. 🙂
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I really enjoyed this story, so poignant and evocative.
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Thank you. 🙂
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You’re welcome.
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Scents carried by the rain can trigger so much:-)
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Yes indeed. And it’s been raining for days! 🙂
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I wish it was here😊
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I’m sure you’ll see it soon enough. 🙂
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I love the depth in this ordinary conversation and how the smells evoke the past and future. Magical writing as always, Steven.
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Thank you, Diana. Rainy and restless, with the scent of cinnamon trees reaching down the driveway. 🙂
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We had our first morning about 50 degrees. It smells like fir trees and mint. 🙂
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Equally wonderful smells! It’s too early for autumn, isn’t it? Though with this year….
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We just started summer, but the leaves are starting to change.
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Well, I hope you have a long Indian summer.
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Alienation? Two people sitting so close in the same car, but far apart? I don’t know if this was your intention, but it left me with this feeling of things that remain unsaid.
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Unsaid, yes, but lives and years apart. Very astute of you. 🙂
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Did I also say how much I liked it?
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Thank you kindly. I always appreciate your comments and conversation. 🙂
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Me too!
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