It was incessantly sunny.
The kind of sunny you sort of can’t wrap your head around because it’s the weekend and late morning and you’re admittedly a little groggy still and it’s just so, so bright out. It was dark sunglasses sunny.
Branner and I stepped around one another putting things in bags and poking faces in bags wondering what the hell all these bags were for (me the former, he the latter).
I was in that mode.
The one that made the hair on his neck stand at attention. I was moving around in the ways that said I’d be leaving through the front door and I’d be gone a while and nothing on this beautiful round planet mattered more than knowing whether or not he’d be joining me.
When he sensed that mode he decided the closer he got to me the more likely it was that he’d get to do whatever it was I was planning to do. It was an especially ‘get in D’s way‘ kind of morning, because the last time I had been in that mode we’d packed up and driven to New York together, so it was easy to understand that in the back of his mind he was wondering what he’d do for two weeks while I went on another trip.
I brought him with on this morning.
We popped into the car, he in the passenger seat, and as per usual he spent the first ten minutes figuring out how to sit in a car without getting tossed under the glove compartment every time I hit the brakes.
I kept my hand on his shoulder. I really couldn’t muster up the energy to turn on the radio.
It was really, really sunny out, and it was early on a Saturday and the roads were empty because it was a day people would spend walking around their neighborhood. They’d be at a street festival. They’d head out for a baseball game later.
For just over an hour we drove straight West and the radio was silent and I hid behind my sunglasses, stealing glances at what I really think might be the most beautiful dog I’ve ever seen.
The car was uncomfortable. I shifted around. Branner got bored and curled up in the seat next to me, and I stroked his spine…my mind was absent and my chest was tight and it was just gorgeous outside. The sky was endless and blue and I was looking but seeing nothing but my thoughts. My questions. My self.
I was deeply in love and deeply scared, and I was trying to trust myself.
