Then you're driving again. The sun is out and the summer shade from trees tiger-stripes the road. You are together again and you are heading home.



You relate to the world through smells. Oak campfires smell like beach-fires in San Diego. Incense, car carpet, and cigarettes smell like being 18 and in love. Drying dog shit, black on green Kansas lawn, smells like summertime. Water and river brush smells like summertime in Arizona, Colorado River. Hot buds of weed burning smell like being 15 and sober while your friends laugh and grin, slant-eyed and high.



Rosewater on bare skin smells like your woman when you're heading home with her from weeks away, apologies made and nothing resolved—nothing is resolved—life is still a big hanging sulk of mystery or futility or repeating patterns or hurt feelings of too much damage done maybe. But together and heading home—you are heading home.