Airstream Dream

Last night, I had a nightmare.  The details wouldn't mean a thing to you.  The monsters involved have been hanging around a long time.  I woke up from it disconcerted.  That icky feeling that lingers after something stirs up the sediment of the subconscious persisted through a flying early morning trip to the central post office, drug store, and (God help me) Wal-Mart.  When I got home, I went outside and filled up all my bird feeders, came in, watched Singing in the Rain, and played a lot, and I do mean A LOT, on Pinterest.

While I was avoiding reality online, I searched Pinterest for stuff about Airstreams.  Then three hours of my life disappeared.  There are a million pins about vintage travel trailers.  Some are restorations while others are total makeovers.  All of them made me yearn.  Oh, how very, very much I want an Airstream.

I want to fit it up with vintage colors and cool old stuff, much of which I probably could take from right here in the house.  I want to give it a clever name painted right on the outside, install solar panels on the roof, hook up an old Chevy pickup to it, load up you and the dogs (Chewie and Roux, at least), and head out.

We could start with small trips, I guess, but what I really want to do is head down the road with sort of an end goal, maybe California or Seattle in three weeks, but nothing in the middle nailed down.  I want to stop on the side of the road and take pictures of old neon signs.  I want to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and have my breath taken away.  I want to a cook meal of dubious quality on equipment older than both of us and pray it comes out okay, find a place to stop if it doesn't.

I want to stand outside with you silently in the starlight somewhere that isn't here and look up into the sky until the majesty of it fills me up.  I want to fight with you over something stupid like the stereo or the shower or the inevitable flat tire or the dog walking or the washing-up (as would be bound to happen if we were really trapped together for three weeks in something so small as a truck and my theoretical Airstream) and after, find a way to tape it all back together again, understand each other better through it.  I want to sleep on a bed that we have to set up together, shoo large dogs off, and put away again in the morning.  I want to pour you coffee from my grandfather's stove percolator into a white milkglass Fire King mug I found years ago on eBay.

Ah, today, my gypsy feet are itching, itching, and sometimes lately I think I could happily take only what would fit into this imaginary caravan I'm creating in my mind and not look back.  It's a crazy sort of wide-awake dream, I suppose, but it helps to counter the darkness left behind by the other kind.  It won't hurt either of us if I indulge it just a little bit longer.