Travel

She specifically liked places she'd never been, not just travel itself. Each street, each tree or storefront, came under a certain glow by virtue of its newness, regardless of how similar to places familiar. It wasn't wanderlust so much as a need to escape memory. And not bad memory, just a dusty film that seemed to creep over places as experiences overlapped. Time folded into place, layered over and through. A particular stretch of sidewalk was a walk with this boy, with that one, alone, a dozen car rides, a place to bike past, and each with its own place in a different story, snatches of old dialogue or hopes or disappointments which snagged as she walked through them.

Over years, places burnished. The itch under skin of memory solidified if kept too close together. Memories could make her smile, but more often they humidified. So she sought cleaner air, the wonder of trails untrodden, the magic of not knowing what else had happened there.