Ohiopyle
photo by the author
I want to say it reminds me of growing up in Washington, which it does, a little, much more than the Michigan and Illinois where I’ve now spent most of my adult life, but also because reminds me of growing up is one of my favorite things to say. Growing up, we’d go on drives up into the mountains, and then back down into our city—these big, huge climbs with switchbacks and guardrails, little barriers that seemed insufficient for keeping anyone from going over the side and sliding down the mountain. This doesn’t really remind me of that though. I’m somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, driving around this big, long turn while also going down a decent decline. I don’t know how steep; I don’t really have any idea how to measure or guesstimate that kind of thing. It’s steeper than anything in Michigan but less so than Washington, a version of the kind of in-between that I return to again and again—known but not, neither childhood nor adulthood, not quite then or now, here or there.
It’s in the middle of this drive, in the middle of this big, long downhill curve, the middle of this in-between, the middle of a middle, that it feels like a dream. It reminds me of a recurring dream, it reminds me of déjà vu. It reminds me of memories of dreams, dreamlike memories. I have this dream where I’m driving and I take a turn too fast. I lose control. My car goes flying off the side of the road, into the open air. Sometimes I’m on a bridge, but more often, I’m on a mountain, though I haven’t lived near a mountain in fifteen years. More. Every now and then, I do the math, wondering if I have yet lived in Michigan as long as I’d lived in Washington. The idea seems preposterous, though it’s getting close. I’m looking forward to it happening mostly because I’m looking forward to being surprised at the preposterousness. The absurdity of it, this accumulation of years that highlights the ridiculousness of life, like some kind of hypothesis proved true by simple math and residence. Where was I? Mountains, hills, driving, dreams. My car is flying, but without wings, without parachute, without any way to control the situation I’ve found myself in. A complete free-fall. And in that moment, I’m always equal parts panicked and calm. Panicked because I am free-falling through the air, likely to my death, but calm because there’s nothing I can do, and because I somehow know it won’t be to my death. In that moment, some part of me knows this has happened countless times before and I’m always okay, and I also know because another part of me knows this is a dream or déjà vu or some other mysterious trick of the brain that recurs.
They say that the fear of heights is really a fear of an urge to jump from said height. They say that, don’t they? Does some part of me, in this moment, have a desire to drive off the side of this road? Sure. Does some part of me miss home? Of course. Were you to ask me, somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, whether home meant Washington or Michigan, I’m not sure what I might answer.