People talk a lot about the out of sight, out of mind deal — which to me equals utter bullshit. I believe running away never truly works because eventually, things have a way of catching up. What we can do, is temporarily avoid. But I wasn’t travelling to avoid, I was travelling to face.

The previous years had been a blur, so this would be the first Summer of potential sweetness. And although I had convinced myself that a solo quarantine in an empty village hadn’t been rough, I might’ve lied a little. Three months later, large sidewalks, transit sounds and city agitation were all I could think of. It’d be pretty damn sweet to take my car to new roads, I thought.