Steering upriver

Non-fictionAt dawn I cross the bridge, Missouri to Iowa, and turn down the gravel drive. Though I’m different now, this place is the same as it always is this time of year: the sun glowing red over the paddock next door, the grass not yet green, the maple stark. I go away, come back again, and home is like a photograph where time winds back, slows into stasis; where the carpet has changed, but the dishes have not, the cookbooks have not, the piano and artwork and bath towels have not. Here, I can be a child again, my best self, briefly. I hold on to this moment for as long as I can, because too soon I’ll remember how disobedient I am, how bossy and domineering, how I slammed my door until Dad took it off its hinges, how soap tastes in my mouth, how I pushed on these walls until they subsided.