Car rides with other people aren’t always “driving pleasure”. Small talk is a hangnail in mittens in ten-degree weather to me. It can be fun, but there’s still something about traversing the roadways alone. It’s a form of extreme freedom, and often, an escape from the pettiness of our world.

A turkey sandwich on a kaiser roll on the back lip of a car’s rear drawbridge. The smell of suntan lotion and the feel of sand sticking to your skin. A revolving door at our house; never knowing which guests would sleep where and when. The summers before, when we were shipped away for two months of absolute bliss on our own in the Berkshires.