Dirt-road living makes a different kind of American child. The impact of car tires on gravel,  the weaving around tiny mud caverns, the gravel popping like confetti bombs, all make the sound of a warm body coming for you, someone new at the door. Even if you know it’s your great-uncle Sam and he’s just coming to ask about the hay, you can’t help the heart throb.

The new rhythms, because your feet felt the vibration, a transference, a motor rumble for the bored nervous system, spike adrenaline in ways you know, even as a child, that they shouldn’t.

I walk to the driveway, rolling clouds of dust, signature parting gifts.

In the dirt, in some Tennessee bottom land, I twirled a dress that my Mama might have made. The sun turns me summer-blonde, still.

Still, I like the adrenaline, to dance, to go absolutely blonde, to let my feet cake up with proud mud. Still, there’s something about it that seems right.

Aren’t we all waiting down here in the dirt for the sky to split right open? Won’t we be glad when we feel the earth move that one last time? Strong white horse stomping the air. A man with tattoos on his leg.

He’s coming.