When I was a kid, I tried to memorize time.

I wanted to possess forever not only the big milestones, but the smallest, most ordinary flashes: the sound of coyotes howling in the desert at night, the edge of a metal science desk beneath my fingers, a friend’s secret whispered in my ear like a breath.

I told myself: Remember this. I repeated it a few times, as if by sheer will, I could preserve every fleeting fragment of experience.

As it turns out, I remember the act of willing memory more clearly than the details themselves. But this trip is, in part, a return to that childhood instinct: to listen closely, bear witness, and then hold on to what might otherwise slip away.

We’re living through a seismic shift—as individuals, as communities and families, as a country. Something is being reshaped, though into what remains unclear. I want to see it in detail before it recedes. Tracing I-95 rest stop by rest stop, story by story, I hope to find out what’s been transformed, what’s been lost, and how to hold on together to the best of what’s here.

Some part of me believes it’s the smallest moments that matter most. Maybe I’m still that child, whispering: Remember this.

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Late night at Mile Marker 225 along I-95 in Florida.