Last night as I was driving home from Silver Q, I had the windows down and the outside temperature was a cool 73 degrees. I rarely drive with the windows down, but almost always on Tuesday nights after pool because I hate the way my clothes stink of cigarette smoke. It reminded me on a time when I was very young — probably only about 4 or 5 — and was in the backseat of my dad’s car. We were driving down the dirt road past Wycliffe and Palm Beach Pointe (unfortunately, they have a gate there now) well before there was ever an elementary and a middle school around. I was tired and falling asleep in the backseat but liked the feeling of having the cold air hit my face and be breathed into my lungs. It smelled fresh, clean, and new… very similar to the way it was last night. As I drove home the temperature of the air seemed to soothe my skin and I got to thinking how I didn’t want that feeling to end. So I kept driving and my mind wandered to all the late night driving I’ve done in the past, or how it feels to look up at the sky when there aren’t any lights around and imagine the stars as pin pricks in a blanket of felt positioned no more than one hundred feet above. It looks just as nice during the day, I guess, but there’s a mystery in the darkness in that there’s no images to make out of the clouds because the stars remain unchanged. There’s no give with some things, I realized, and then there are some things you can make out to be whatever you want. In the end my clothes and skin were just as unclean as when I started, but at least I was able to clear my head and pretend that I was the child in the back of my dad’s old car.