[Mary Karr, The Liar's Club, p177:]
We moved to Colorado wholly by accident. We were crossing the state, headed for the Seattle World's Fair, when Mother, who'd been staring blankly out the Impala's window, cried out for Daddy to stop with such a screech that I figured she was carsick. They were both carsick a lot on that trip, plagued as they were by Smirnoff flu. We eased over. The road sloped down into a broad valley all embroidered with columbine flowers and pink buttercups and white Queen Anne's lace. Beyond that stood Pikes Peak, which, for a kid reared in the swamp, looked unreal. In my chorus book was a similar mountain on the page facing "America the Beautiful," a purple peak with a long wisp of cloud dragging across it and a snowcap. Stepping out of the car air-conditioning that day was like entering that picture. How weird, I thought, the air's so cool, for in Leechfield [Texas] blue sky meant suffocating heat. Also, the smell of evergreen was dislocating, for it conjured the turpentine in Mother's studio.
[This memoir of Mary Karr's has been a real wake-up for me again; it's so stark and unromanticized compared to my own memories that it makes me rethink, and that's always good.
Enjoy the day, peeps.]
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