Questions for a Friend

What sorts of vacations did your family take when you were a child? 
Were they road trips like the ones my family took? 
I know your family had more money than mine did, 
maybe you took trips to Europe or something, I don’t know. I want to know.
But if you ever did take road trips, did you love the big skies over small-town motels?
Did you love seeing what each night’s swimming pool looked like?
Did you ever ride past Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas along Route 66 only to find it lodged inside you forever?
Did you sit in the backseat with headphones on, completely lost in music, trying to escape from things outside (your father) and things inside (a self you couldn’t be)? 
I’m guessing you didn’t. I want to hear all about the difference. I want to hear all about the specificity of you. 
Was there laughter in your childhood car rides? Were your parents gregarious? Did you play games together to pass the time, looking for license plates from different states or cars of different colors? Or did pop songs from radio stations fill the air until they shattered into static?
Were you ever affected by a sadness you couldn’t name as you moved through the vastness of it all?

Did you feel free out there, as if everything under the grand expanse belonged to you? 

I did. 

I don’t anymore. Do you still? 

Do you think maybe we could go to some of those places again, together, you and me, and get them back?

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