I am the Highway

I am the summer solstice, with its foiled windows; a canopy of light that gives the illusion of safety. I am home videos and oatmeal and karaoke and a pen that bends. I am Kathy Mattea, walking on tiptoes; a strange iridescent lamp, whose needles break off easily, making it impossible to step into the bedroom without sharp pain underfoot. My mom is running after me and my dad can’t hold the camcorder steady to save his life. I am flying down a snowy hill on a red sled and it feels like home.

I am the other side of the country. Where men go to lose their minds. My hair smells of pine; it is covered in sand from the neighborhood playground. I am aerobics in the living room and Easter Parade Hats and an ink drawing of a thunderstorm in the local paper. My mom is seven feet tall and I am learning that I should not use “ducklings” more than once in the same sentence of my story… and wondering why that is. I am a classroom with two teachers; a room full of other army brats just like me. Their dads aren’t home a whole lot either, but their dads don’t offend the teachers by saying books without words are not really books.

I am the highway; a long car ride to a magical land of Sunflowers and cousins and working mothers. My best friend is coming with me. She runs beside the car. She sometimes rolls along the hills. I am the grass beneath her; the flowers she picks along the way. I am country music and the sunset over a Texaco sign. I am aware that I probably know too much, and so I pretend to know nothing.

I am straight bangs and dirty hands and high-waters; a new school and then another, where there are only white kids and I am totally freaked out by that.  And then, almost overnight, I am unwanted attention and late night phone calls. I am awkward and I say all the wrong things. I am fairly certain I don’t belong, but then again, none of us really do. I am in awe of the tiny freshman girl who spins around in the rain during lunch; ashamed that the other students make fun of her; sympathetic because I know they will never feel that free. But I am mostly sad because I will never feel that free.

I am savagely beautiful but heartbreakingly unaware. And then I barely have time to exhale before I am first kisses I’d rather forget, pickup trucks, football games, 3am bonfires, abandoned houses, haunted cornfields, uninhibited laughter, shy smiles, busted window screens, parties I wasn’t invited to…and maybe a secret even I couldn’t keep. I am spinning times.

I am so much more than all of that.

(inspired by the poem “I am from…” by Meredith Winn)

And I’m wondering…who are you?