I LIKE SLEEPING WITH THE FAN ON BUT THE WIND KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT

I LIKE SLEEPING WITH THE FAN ON BUT THE WIND KEPT ME UP ALL NIGHT

cross-genre literature by Clara Sperow

love is here, in this queer platonic spring break desert camping trip. we trade off driving, playing our old music. we build fires together, pitch the tent. we talk about how much we love our partners and what it would feel like to be parents. we share hard kombuchas and honey dijon chips and toothpaste. make rice noodles together and laugh. i’m so scared of losing community as i get older but here it is, still.

the best way i can explain my spring break to my family is “like a girls trip” even though some of us aren’t girls, and we’re not escaping husbands. we all have different experiences of queerness – one is tired of being everyone’s first “girl crush,” one is coming to terms with her queerness within a loving straight relationship with a childhood friend, one wears a “tiny hot topic bitch” shirt (based on the hayley williams tweet), one is me.

we use a handful of different pronouns and labels to communicate our identities, but here in the car world we’re just singing fun! songs and the sound of music soundtrack together.

two of us have pisces mercuries (we speak softly to each other in the back seat). two of us have aquarius moms and gemini dads (we are the first to pitch the tent). i’m looking for connection everywhere, looking for patterns. finding my childhood best friend in my neighbor in the dorms. finding my partner in my friend driving the car to joshua tree.

the trip is one long game of sweet and sour. i played it as a kid – waved and smiled at strangers from the backseat of my parents’ minivan. my parents would tell me to stop, worried i might upset someone. but i wanted to see who would wave and smile back.

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i think about this as i step out of the car at a gas station in arizona. i look at the american flag flying, the trump bumper stickers, i look at my tattoos, my piercings, my outfit. i put on my mask before i walk into the store, looking for sweetarts and a bathroom.

i think about it again on a hiking trail in the grand canyon. we wave, smile, say hi. some do it first. others avert their eyes, and i can’t tell what to take personally. i think about it again, again, again, i’ve thought about it before, before, before, before, before. when i get dressed in the morning, when i hold hands with my girlfriend, when i notice another gay person in public and this feels unusual, rare, an exciting sighting. when i think about every time i have heard queerness labeled as attention seeking and i wish i could switch my identity on and off and still feel okay when i’m alone.

we park at a busy campsite and i don’t want to leave the car world.

but i do. and we exchange plant names, rock facts, memories. we do bits, laugh, assign each other percy jackson parents because half of us never read the books. we take breaks and feed each other trail mix when the hike gets hard. i feel the wind and i feel my body and the stranger in the campsite bathroom asks if i had a nice day and i say yes. i ask where she’s from and she says colorado and i say it’s so beautiful there because it is.

every night of the trip, the four of us sleep next to each other in a big tent with the top tarp off so we can see the stars, even though it’s cold. we rotate one over each night, switching spots and tent positions, and on the second to last night (right before sleep) a friend tells me she likes hearing stories before bed and then she is quiet. and i tell her i’m not very good at making up stories even though it seems like i might be. i only know how to talk about things that are real. she says she’s sure i can tell a good story. and then she is quiet. soft quiet, waiting. and i am quiet. and then i ask if she wants me to tell her a story. and then everyone is quiet. and so i do.

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