Return to the Promised Land

The return to Richmond was supposed to be an anti-climax, a return to the normal.

It felt more like a time warp had erupted on the side of my brain.

I drove down from D.C. on a Tuesday morning, after 3 months of being out of the country I was happy to discover that the I-95 was still riddled with roadworks and bad drivers.

I was also relieved to see that my car worked after baking on a friend's drive all summer.

Interstates are the same wherever you go, they are a stretch of slightly bent and cracked highway rhythmically thumping away under the tires. You hit a gas station followed by a bridge over a valley with no decent view and the occasional phantom traffic jam, followed by a gas station.

Richmond became familiar just before I hit it. There is a junction for another highway just outside the city that I know very well. It is just another junction like the other 20 that I passed through Spotsylvania (I love that name) & Fredicksburg. Except I know every bend. My Brain got very confused by suddenly transitioning from 100 miles of dull highway to dull highway that was as familiar as the road I grew up on.

I went into autopilot and descended on the city that has only been changed by the roasting southern sun. Nothing was different.

Within 60 seconds of getting out of the car, someone from school drove by waving.