You’re loves the only thing I've ever known
One thing for sure sweet baby I always take the long way home

Last night was an Iris night. It is the wrong night, but her normal babysitter got sick. She and I went out and about to Helen and then to Tom Hickey's birthday. He is 36. She was totally exhausted by the time she was buckled in for the final ride home. She was fussy and it was past her bed time. I looped one of her favorite Indigo Girls song on my cd player and by the time we got to Sautee she was yawning in to a sleep. When we turned onto 105 to head to Demorest, I turned it off. I can only take so much of one song being played over and over. The quiet of the car was something I hadn't heard in a long time. As the car slowed to the stop sign at 105 and 115, I noticed a familiar aire. It was the rhythm of the car or the way it slowed. It was my own exhaustion. It was the yellow of the headlights in the darkness. It was the baby breathing in the back seat. I knew this feeling. I couldn't place it, but I knew it. The more I listened to the car and myself the more I discovered, it was my family. I was in this place with my family. We used to drive from Chesapeake to Atlanta in 12 hours for Christmas Eve at my grandmother's home. I was tucked into the floorboards behind my mother's seat. I could feel the rhythm of the car and no matter how much I fussed or got up or fought, I would inevitably fall asleep. I used to watch the moon out my window and how it would change. I would watch the rain droplets jump together and make a flow up my mother's window and because of the halting motion would pretend that they were Indians going to a sacred bonfire for the hunt. As I grew older and we would travel, we would be on our way home late at night I would be strapped into the seat belt of the Volvo. I would be exhausted and fall asleep just after my Dad would turn off the radio. I would try to make conversation about nonsense that no one would respond to because everyone was equally tired. That sound of silence except the tires on the road. The way he drove the car so that it slowed with out using the brakes but rather the gears. The speed of the car tuned into my ears. Last night, with Iris in the back seat dreaming, the radio in its silence, the rhythm of the car, the tires on the pavement, I felt like I was on my way home.