The day and the way we met

Sep 28, 04 | 11:26 pm

Billings, Montana. I ate at a truck stop, scrambled eggs hash browns a permed chubby waitress. A young blond boy with a wedding ring who touched my hand a second too long when he handed me my change.

There is so much nothingness in America. I had a few moments of abject terror, cresting a ridge and looking out and seeing nothing but blue sky and endless rolling empty land. Skye would argue, say it isn’t empty, animals, trees, life. It scared me, though, all that space. Maybe it’s just that I was alone on the road. If I thought about it too long my palms would sweat and slippery palms are not helpful at ninety miles an hour.

It’s a stark barren beauty. This is not anyplace I could live. No ocean. It’s funny, when I drove very fast, late at night along the beach road, the temptation to just drive off the road and into the ocean was very strong. There is no temptation to drive off the road here. None.

There are so many things I want to remember about us, but when I sit to write them down I lose the thread. I am afraid to write these things down. I am afraid to memorialize them because I don’t want to be reminded of how good it was once it’s over.