Simple Pleasures

Today town smelled like something that comes out of a jar at Bath and Body Works, all herbs and peonies withering in the smoldering noon and empty lots full of honeysuckle. I hate stinging insects.

I was driving up Bear River Drive today between Pilot and what used to be Welling Ford, my elbow out the window of my truck. The wind caught the frayed sleeve of my oldest blue Old Navy t-shirt and swirled in and puffed the back up and whipped my hair, and I got catapulted into an August memory of Dad on I-15 in the long blue-gray Cadillac he had before the gold one before his last one, which I've brought home to stay. I was in the back seat doing Mad Libs, drinking plain tonic water out of the plastic bottle. Somewhere in Nevada he turned the A/C off to spare the engine added stress during a climb and rolled down the window, laying his long arm with its soft frizz of gold hair on the sill, and the desert wind caught his shirt just so, like mine today. And this afternoon I slipped a single tear and prayed again that they have Cadillacs and desert highways in Heaven.