First Trip

I doubt it's significant--hard to say what is, in the long run--but here's the very first thing I'm sure I remember, and it involves two themes that have kept coming back ever since.

It's two weeks before my second birthday, and I'm in the back seat of a red Plymouth Rambler. The car's red, the upholstery's red. My sisters or brother must have been in the car with me, but I don't remember them.

I remember the dog. It was a birthday present for Mom, and I remember the tiny puppy, and the way it filled the whole back seat, just by being a puppy.

Last night, we went to see Alanis Morissette in concert. During her song "Hand in My Pocket," with its chorus of "everything's gonna be finefinefine," she ran a film of her dog, in the car, face out the window.

And I think this is what I must have learned from my earliest memory that I can put a date on: all you have to do to be happy is put your face out the window and start moving.