A Song for the Weary Traveler

Sara Reed Wilson

Virginia and I spent a lot of time driving together in my first junker of a car. Curly dark hair pulling me in, already calling me a sucker. Intern at NASA with clashing star signs and a love for Marvel movies. Lots of trees. We drove down to Harpers Ferry and talked the whole night through, and the next morning, I got up like it was nothing, and drove away.

Michigan had droopy eyes and a leather jacket, mud-stained dirt-bike making my heart instantly skip a few beats faster. Shots of Fireball, a veterinary school hopeful and big belly laughs. The cutest little kitten you’ve ever seen, rescued from a Craigslist posting. A sickly kind of spring. Practically threw my stuff off the back of the bike, and sped off towards Lake Superior. You never looked back, and I guess I didn’t either.

Boston always baffled me, because we didn’t meet there. In fact, I’ve never even been to Massachusetts. We met in Tampa, down at some skeezy dive bar. Green eyes and glasses, Hawaiian shirt seemingly perfectly placed and out of style. But the accent was thick, and the kisses even thicker. Karaoke and punk rock and an oddly obscure fascination with Tarantino. Tampa was too hot, sweltering even, I’m sure much worse for you than me, but I still left first. At least physically I did.

Boone, where the mountains seemed to touch the sky, and where I would sit like a low hanging cloud in the bed of your red pickup, a 1990 Ford something or other. Count me in, I would always say, and it ended up getting us closer to death than we would’ve liked a handful of times.

Junk food and cheap beer and Walmart parking lots. When you got in the pickup and drove away for good, I felt a sigh of relief come over my exhausted lungs. I left minutes later, stopping to get a breakfast sandwich while I filled up the tank, and driving down and out of the Appalachia’s. I, too, was gone for good.

Toronto doesn’t deserve to be another line in a list of cities I’ve run through. Kindness and concerts and the best french fries you’ve ever had. Falling asleep is easiest in your arms. Never having to worry or wonder if you return my affection. The most peculiar and comforting kind of cold. Laughing in the kitchen, making pasta for two. Trips to the CN Tower just to watch the city under our feet. Cheesecake in the parking lot, our breath in the air. A warm sweater, a place that finally feels like some sort of home.

It was late at night, you held on tight. In the Toronto International Airport we stood, gripping each other with the vigor of maybe never getting to see the other ever again. Because we truly didn’t know if we would, and because we truly didn’t know each other.

What does it mean to know someone? I have the belief that we can never truly know one another, and I think because of this, departures have been easier on me. You can’t lose what you never had.

Someone is crying, and I think it’s me.

great power, great responsibility

Sara Reed Wilson

bell hooks and Joan Didion died and I didn’t even realize. these women who influenced me and my writing spirit passing gently into that blissful night that never ending ether that truthful abyss and here I have been, watching tv, wrapping gifts there is no way for me to grieve these parasocial relationships within my heart these blunt women with their gut wrenching words reaching deep within my very being and pulling out the belief that I too can do something write something great there is no other way around it there is no other way about it how can I be one of the greats?