memories i sometimes remember

i can hardly tell you how it feels to be home and breathe in this air and drive these roads with the three i love most in this world.
i rarely ever remember my childhood stories. Ben is always telling me stories i know are true because his mind remembers the slightest and smallest details from left field. i just smile like a little girl hearing knew adventures of old friends, only a little frustrated that they do not exist as actual events in my mind.
driving home tonight on back country roads that wind like the north anna river the smells of a million younger days braid their way into our car, through my hair, and deep into my heart that aches so much for home these days.
hay, honeysuckle, wet soil, gasoline on cement, moss, barns, my nanny's house, and dirt dusted rock all fill me while the sunshine fades into the purple sky whose only interruption is the cadence of a coming storm. its jaged lines of light tear through the expanse, momentarily showing snapshots of still lingering clouds, and in between these things my brother speaks the stories that tonight i can remember if only by their smells. and i can't tell you how it feels to breathe this air and drive these old roads with those i love most in this world.