Storm Running

The Road Offers A Doorway

Out our car’s front window, we see our escape.

We’re tooling east, in the morning dark, along the NY State Thruway. We’re storm running.

So far, when it comes to our big daddy/daughter travel excursions, we’re two for two in getting blown, literally, off course.

In Atlanta, the hurricane locked us in our hotel and then we chased that sucker all the way to Nashville. Now, just a half hour east of Buffalo, we’re runnin’ for our lives, trying to put as much blacktop between us and the lake effect snow storm barreling it’s way up the Erie shore toward the Queen City.

“Look, right there,” I say pointing at a break between a mass of roiling clouds to the south, and a torrent of black clouds to the north. “That’s our window!”

“It’s like a doorway,” Little Bean says from the back seat.

By the time we reach Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, the storm is reduced to blowing, frigid wind. Once we roll on through Utica and Albany, the sky is blue. Later, in Massachusetts, the weather actually seems to warm up.

We jangle on into Marlboro, battered and exhausted, the car a mess of crushed fruit loops and orange peels. Our hair smells like chlorine and I’m pretty certain both of us have been wearing the same clothes for 48 hours.

But we beat the storm and it’s glorious. And we’re staving.

We drag ourselves into a ramen joint for dinner, just an awful wreck of a duo, and throw ourselves onto a corner table, where we’re plied with Spite and Smoothies and an enormous bowl - nearly a tough - of spicy ramen, pork slices simmering. We eat with ladles, not saying anything, slurping. The restaurant owners must think us mad, or destitute, or both.

I pause for a second and watch her eat - my child, a hot mess of knotted hair and half-pajamas, dirty fingernails and pink cheeks.

We’re only an hour from home.

“This was fun,” I say. “I really like being on the road with you.”

She nods, not looking up, scooping another pile of noodles into her mouth. “Me too,” she says.

High praise from a pre-tween. The road offers us panic and praise, we run from the storm, we run toward another. There are always storms. There’s also always a doorway.

And ramen with my child.