Where could we drive with sleep permeating the back seat? Driving was the point and not the point. Here is where the eagles circled above the waste management centre. Did you ever go to the dump with your dad on a Saturday afternoon? Piles of unwanted remnants of households that you inexplicably wanted to gather as treasure. The town dump, run by the only garbage man in town, whose large belly always hung out the bottom of his shirt. What surfaces when I follow this curve of memory to men who hadn’t yet died? The mountains in my rear view mirror had their own ways to manage the dead, nothing wasted: why didn’t I learn how to nourish myself with death?
I’m thinking about that road because the highways between here and Vancouver are washing away. Because I listened to the impulse to leave the coast but couldn’t hear why the coast never let me take root. Every road I’ve driven has context I can’t see. I didn’t mention that it was my two small children asleep in the back seat. We drove because it was the only space I could create for myself in the extreme imbalance of those years. My ancestors did not give me a legacy of balance. My hands always stayed loose on the wheel. I assumed so much between the eagles and home.