driving

Yesterday I drove to Utah.

I don’t know why I went, except sometimes the flickering highway lines open doors and I hoped to have a few doors opened, a few thresholds crossed, a few new rooms with views unfolding before me.

While on the road, with my windows down and the breeze expertly running fingers through my hair, I have a feeling of space. The rain falls against the windshield and the dust is washed away.

Suddenly, I slide into new places and my life is filled with motion.

The cloudy waters clear.

The old falls away behind me.

The light on the other side is fresh and new.

I step through.

I close the door behind me with a soft click.

What did I do in the city? Well city things of course! I have lovely friends I could have shared coffee with, along the way, and in Salt Lake City proper too, I could have met with friends, but I wanted to spend the day alone (right….like I don’t do enough of that already….) blending into the crowds, feeling like as much of a stranger as the person next to me waiting for a walk light. I wanted to sit down with a latte and sketch, loiter in Barnes & Nobel in the art book section, take my sweet time in the change room at Anthropologie. I wanted to selfishly choose the restaurant for dinner. I wanted to lean against my truck, while filling the tank at a gas station, and watch the lightening crackling over the Wasatch Range. I wanted to linger in every place I visited. I wanted to talk to myself as I drove. I wanted to sing, test new harmonies against Karin’s soaring and swooping voice. I wanted to find some motivation in that long stretch of highway between here and there. And on the way home, I wanted to feel my heart soar when I crossed the border into Idaho. Home again. What a relief.

This morning the world has a little more sparkle than it did yesterday,

and not just because I have a new sweater.