It’s 198—something. I’m on a road trip with Nancy. Marlin is at home. We’re heading to Oregon to deliver her Professor’s car, and we have a hard and fast deadline, except we jump off the road at every tourist stop.

We eat at Heavenly Hamburgers. We drive through redwoods and visit plastic dinosaurs. Every moment feels stolen because when you’re twenty-whatever,  you don’t yet understand that you’re not stealing your moments, they’re yours. You should be burning them.

We listen to lots of Heart and Tom Waits on cassette tapes. We get speeding tickets and smoke French cigarettes and blaze in the car until a thick fog leaves the vehicle every time we do.

My mother must have been so proud…