Welcome to another week of life on the road. I’m Genie Leslie, a freelance writer working remotely and traveling the country with my husband.
This week, we’re in Philadelphia, quite honestly hiding from the heat.
Today—August 1, the one-year anniversary of Aaron and I leaving Seattle—I made scones. A savory scone recipe I’ve made before with ham, cheese, and chives. They were good; better than last time.
Last time I made them we were staying in Los Osos, which means it was October of 2022. In Los Osos, we finally gave in and bought our own coffee pot to travel with since so many Airbnbs insist on only providing Keurig machines. And while we were buying the coffee pot, I decided to buy a baking mat like the one I’d had at home. We had a good kitchen at this house, I thought, so I should bake some scones.
My sister visited us in Los Osos, making the drive up from LA for a weekend. I told her I might make scones for her visit and I could hear her wrinkling her nose over the phone. “I don’t like scones.” I don’t know if she specifically mentioned wanting something savory, or if I just knew that she (and Aaron) would be easier to please if I found a recipe that included cheese. Either way, I found a savory scone recipe and decided that would win her over.
The scones were fine, probably a little over done. And I made them a couple of days before she arrived—I think the idea was that I would make them to try the recipe, and then make new ones for her visit, without realizing that Aaron and I were not going to eat 8 scones in two days and then be ready for another batch. So the scones she had were overdone and a couple days old, reheated in the microwave with a damp paper towel.
But we ate them while binge-watching The Midnight Club on Netflix. And we ate them while watching Bros, which Aaron and I had already seen but were excited to watch again while my sister experienced it for the first time.
I realized, as all of this came to me today, that my memories from the last year are so vivid. They’re so clear and specific, much more than my memories from any given year in Seattle.
The reason we make so many memories as children, and the reason time seems to move slower in childhood than adulthood, is novelty. When you’re a kid, everything is new. Everything is a milestone, everything is a really big deal. And the older you get, the fewer milestones you hit. Many of your experiences are repeats of ones you’ve already had, in some form or another. There are fewer really big deals. Time seems to move quicker, because these familiar experiences start to blur together. They retain less specificity.
Try to remember a specific day from March 2020, when you were locked down in your home. Or try to remember a specific night of going out with friends in college. Memories emerge, details appear, but are they all from one night? And which night, or nights, did they occur? Is there any sense of when they happened?
This year for us is different. We’re not on autopilot. We’re in a new place every month. Everything is novel once again. And all the memories connect back to where we were at each specific point in the year.
The sad, dark Airbnb in Charleston where I attended a five-day writers retreat at the end of June. And where I baked blondies for the first time.
Seeing a dolphin swim by my kayak in Shem Creek.
The reading room in Nashville where I went through five novels in the month of May.
Laughing with my husband, my uncle, my cousin and her fiancé on a hotel bed at 9pm as we caught up on years apart while also feeling like very little time had passed.
The front porch in Jackson, Mississippi where I started working on my script again.
Finishing the show The Last of Us in Austin, on our favorite couch of the whole year, with me crying on Aaron’s shoulder.
The parks of Austin, and how I did a lot of walking before work while we stayed there in March.
The waitress at a Chili’s somewhere between Santa Fe and Austin, who heard about our travels and told us about her plans to take her mother to Scotland.
The bathroom in Santa Fe where I got sick and spent hours feeling miserable.
Meow Wolf.
The snow in Santa Fe, and the breathtakingly gorgeous hills surrounding the city.
Starting The Last of Us in Tucson, where we had to close the curtain in front of the patio door because the desert darkness outside seemed vast and scary at night.
(I could tell you when and where I watched most of the movies and shows from the last year, because they were each watched in a different living room on a different couch.)
The Museum of the Musical Instrument.
The Grand Canyon.
The garage in Flagstaff set up like a man cave, where Aaron and I played a few rounds of darts.
Running in the snow in Flagstaff, my first run since November when I’d realized that Los Angeles’s hills and air pollution did not agree with me.
Christmas with our new nephew.
My mom visiting in Los Angeles, when she and Aaron and I all watched The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent together and laughed until we cried.
Baking cinnamon-raisin scones in Los Angeles and getting my sister to admit that she did, in fact, like scones. That was the apartment where the front door would bang into the refrigerator when you came in.
Cooking dinner for Aaron’s brother and his wife, making the one pasta dish that we know how to cook well and love to share with people, just days before our nephew was born.
Climbing a sand dune.
Kayaking for the first time in years near Morro Bay.
The mini pool table in Portland, where I played a sad little game all by myself when Aaron wasn’t home and after Darcy had gone.
Saying goodbye to Darcy.
Making s’mores in Ocean Shores because, why not, the Airbnb host left all the ingredients and they sounded pretty damn good.
Obsessively watching The Great British Bake-Off.
Completing the sale of our townhouse and opening up a small bottle of champagne our host had left for us, to discover it was in fact very bad.
Moving out of our townhouse, our home since June 2019, in a flurry of rushed activity and very little ceremony.
This has been a wild, emotional, full year. It’s been hard and fun and heartbreaking and so exciting.
We’re not done yet, but it’s nice to take a moment to remember to look back.
Thank you for following along.
What else is going on?
Once again, Anne Helen Petersen articulates my frustration with exercise tracking watches and apps.
I saw Barbie, I had a fabulous time watching Barbie in the theater, and I want to see it again. And also, this piece by Jessica Defino really articulates why the Barbie movie can’t fully accomplish its goals.
Catherine Gray, a writer I know in Mississippi, was featured in Roxane Gay’s newsletter’s Emerging Writer Series. Her piece “Proud Flesh” is, as always, beautiful and heartbreaking and insightful.
It’s so hot. It’s just so damn hot outside. We went to Fairmount Park and walked about a 3-mile portion of it and it was lovely but also so, so hot and we felt exhausted the rest of the weekend.
Happy Travel One Year Anniversary ❤️❤️