A. just texted me a few minutes ago to let me know that she had reached Minnesota. This was her second such message of the day; the first advised that she had entered Wisconsin. (She departed her brother’s house in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, this morning.) I asked what the weather is like. “Snowy,” she texted back. There’s only so much elaboration you want to ask of a driver via text message, so I let it rest at that.
Snowy. I can only imagine. I try to picture what she’s seeing, and all I can manage is a sort of generically wide horizon, a lot of white, and maybe some mountain-like lumps off in one direction or another, but I can’t actually summon up any views of Minnesota in my memory so it’s all guesswork. Besides, she’s not just seeing Minnesota, she’s seeing Minnesota on one leg of an almost-cross-country drive that is taking her away from everything familiar in her life and toward a dreamed-of future.
Must be quite a view.