Summer 1969. Age 8. Tulsa to Las Cruces.

The thin, scorched air nudges me awake. From where I lay in the backseat, damp cheek pressed against my pillow, I watch the telephone lines undulate up and down, up and down, rising, rolling outside the open car windows against the heat bleached sky, an endless black snake wriggling along the highway. My dad is driving us all in Old Merc (my compulsion to name things is genetic) past White Sands, through places with the names Carrizozo and Oscuro towards Cloudcroft. I rub my eyes and see what I’ve been waiting for the entire summer.

Mountains. Heavy with clouds. Just dripping with them.

I sit up. Find that I've been laying on poor Jane West. I put her on the seat beside me. Because of space considerations, including my little sister's need to bring her stuffed monkey Judy Peanuts along on the trip, Thunder the horse stayed home.

My mother looks back at me and my pain-in-the-behind sister, and gives us that dazzling smile. The sheer scarf tied around her head ripples behind her in the wind, mingles with her brunette hair. Her cat-eye sunglasses frame her pretty face, rhinestones twinkling in the mid-day sunshine. I search with bare feet for the mason jar I borrowed from her pantry and stashed beneath the front seat. My toes find it—cool and hard and round.

Now for the plan that no one knows about.

When we drive up into those cloud-ringed mountains and stop at one of the scenic views my dad is telling us about, I’m going to pinch off a little piece of cloud, just for myself, just a fist full, and seal it up in the mason jar. Just like we do with fireflies at grandma’s house. Except no holes punched in the top.

When we get back home, I will let it go in the bedroom that I share with my sister. The small devil is digging into my bare legs with both feet now, her back braced against the car door. She’s cute, but treacherous. I ignore her and decide that the cloud will stay on my side of our bedroom. I imagine that I will let it follow me around in the silent air-conditioned air of our house. I will be the only kid in the whole Magic Circle subdivision who has her own little piece of cloud. And when I sleep at night, it will float above my twin bed.

Occasionally, I think the little piece of cloud might rain on me. I worry some about the possibility of thunderstorms inside our brand new house.

As we drive up the mountain to the lookout place, we peer out the windows of Old Merc down into the desert valley below. I am so excited I can barely think, but that soon dries up as the clouds dissipate into nothing, like ghosts. I cannot put my hand on them. How did this happen?, I think. They are a mirage. Like the shimmering silver pool of water that appears on the highway. The kind that Gilligan sees when he's thirsty or hungry or pining for some nearly forgotten treat on the desert island. The more he tries to sneak up on them on Gilligan's Island, the farther away they are. With Gilligan, the mirage isn't a cloud, but usually some kind of cake or pie or cookies that don’t involve the bananas or coconuts out of which Ginger and Maryanne have to resort to make everything.

I leave the mason jar beneath the seat.

Flickr photos: Specific Gravity