Today, the boy and I watched Up. He hadn’t seen it before today (we never went to see it in the theater together for some reason), so we went to the store and bought the DVD, invited one of his friends over, and sat down to watch it together. When we got to the montage of Carl and Ellie’s life, and Carl was sitting alone after the funeral, Connor said, “Did they get a divorce?” His friend answered him and said, “No, she died…” “Oh,” said Connor.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to watch him try and untangle his life, at those times when his world mixes with the world of adults and he doesn’t know quite what it all means. His parents separated before he was two years old. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel sad for him.
The drive down the I-80 corridor from Utah to California . . . is long. Yesterday, during the late afternoon hours, I got to watch the sun go down while Weston slept in the passenger seat. As we drove past the town of Wells, the clouds were dark, almost black, but the sky was lit up all gold and orange. There was a razor-sharp line of contrast between the clouds and the sky . . . Then, the clouds passed, and the colors got darker and richer until the sky was this gradient of fiery orange on the horizon transitioning into the deep blue-black full of stars at the top. The heaven seems closer in the middle of the Nevada desert, and it gives you a chance to think, because once you’re there, you’re stuck in the middle of it for a long time. There is no better place on earth (that I have found) to see the stars—the milky way is this shimmering river across the sky, and there is so little moisture in the air that the stars are clear and bright in a way that makes them seem more real, somehow. It makes me think about the difference between heaven and earth, because it feels like you’re driving right on the dividing line between the two. What happens when we leave the highway, and make the transition into something . . . else. I think the Nevada desert knows.
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