with the world rushing by—a memoir summit, a long drive with A.S. King, Carolyn W. Field, PA Librarians

The day before, I'd stood and talked memoir at Rosemont College. A beautiful young woman took this photo. She sent it to me. I treasure it.

(Thank you for the photo, Kelly. Thank you for the summit, Carla.)

The day of, I left in the early dark, drove an hour and change to a turnpike exchange, parked at a hotel, then waited for an already infamous rented Chevy Impala (gray) to find me. Behind the wheel? The marvelous A.S. King. Our plan? To get caught up after too much time apart, each of us moving in our own whirlish circles for months now, months and days.

We were headed west together—way west—through a state we both love, through the bellies of mountains with names like Blue and Kittatinny, past cornfields, barns, longhorns, Angus's ammo shop. King was receiving the Carolyn W. Field Award for Ask the Passengers from the Pennsylvania librarians. I was a grateful honoree for Small Damages. King (like the true sportsters we are, we long ago stopped calling each other by our first names) and I had stuff to say, secrets to share, worries to fluff out, appeasements to offer. We did all that, and then we arrived, found our way through hallways, found our way to K.M. Walton and Eugene Myers and Kit Grindstaff and Karl R and Chris Caputo, found our way to lunch, and then King gave her fantastic talk, and then I hollered "King!" and we signed some books, and we were back on the road again, and now the day was starting to get pink. And the sky was incredibly blue. And I kept trying to take photographs while King drove (and a fine driver she is), but mostly I got blur.

"Blur's good," King said.

And I guess, for both of us right now, it is.