I said 'let's drive to New York' like I had never been to New York before. Like I had not been born there. Like I had somehow forgotten that the distance from Denver to the Bronx is approximately one thousand eight hundred miles of America.
She was sitting at the kitchen table and I said it out loud before I had fully processed it myself. 'We should drive to New York.' She looked up from her phone. She looked at me. She looked back at her phone. Then back at me. 'Like. Drive drive?'
Yes. Drive drive.
I grew up in the Bronx. The Bronx is in me in a way that Colorado — beautiful as it is — has never fully replaced. There are sounds and smells and rhythms that live in a specific part of my memory and the only way to visit them is to go back. I wanted my daughter to see it. I wanted her to feel the city. I wanted her to understand something about where her mother came from and why it matters.
She has heard the stories. She has heard about the neighborhoods, the bodegas, the fire escapes, the block parties. But stories are not the same as standing there. You can describe a city all you want. The city has to put its hands on you directly.
So I said: drive drive. February. Denver to New York. Her and me and the open road and whatever God decided to put between us and our destination.
I mapped it. I Googled it. I planned rest stops and overnight stays. I looked at hotels in Ohio and Pennsylvania and told myself it was all fine and very manageable.
Reader: I had not checked the February weather forecast yet.
But that comes later. The planning was pure optimism. And sometimes optimism is exactly the thing you need to get moving.
Buckle up, buttercup. The road is long and the reason is worth it. Start where you are. Just start.
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