sea_to_sky ovenbird We left the kids and set our sights on the mountains. We had thirty-two hours of freedom that we intended to pick clean. We didn’t care what it cost. We just wanted to feel young and unencumbered. We wanted to be reckless. We wanted to pretend we might not come back. We were willing to risk rockslides and traffic jams and wildfire haze and criminally overpriced hotels to form a memory in which we were all together. On the Sea to Sky Highway I glanced in the rearview mirror to see my friend and her husband sitting in the back seat of the car–-both tethered to a disease that takes your mind and then takes everything. The light off the water plucked at my eyes but I kept them wide open. I refused, even, to blink. Later, when my friend had fallen victim to too much fun, she said, slurring only slightly, “I don’t want to live without him.” We cried and hugged and I used my body to hold hers upright, then we went in search of chips and dip. You can want to die and still crave salt. 250831 what's it to you? who go blather from