• Home
  • About
  • BOOKS
  • Playlists
  • BLOG
  • Appearances
    • Workshops
  • Contact
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

04/10/13

Standing in a Cow Pasture in Amarillo, Texas

Ever since she was three, we’ve been charting my daughter’s growth on the doorframe of her bedroom closet. Tiny marks etched into the wood; a date beside each. The big jumps from one pencil mark to the next always surprise us both. We don’t see physical growth while it’s happening, but at least it’s easy to quantify.

As we get older, intellectual, spiritual, or emotional growth can’t really be measured precisely. We can’t stand straight with a book or ruler on our heads while someone draws a line on the wall behind us. Often, we don’t even think about whether or not we’ve made some tiny step or big leap forward in any of those areas unless something prompts us to do so.

I think that’s why I’ve always loved road trips so much. Whether it’s a four-hour car ride home from college or a trek across Canada, there’s something about being on the road, away from regular life, that makes you stop and think about where you are.

When I was in my twenties, I took a cross-country road trip with a guy named Kenny. He was a friend of a friend and I didn’t know his last name until a few days before our trip, but he was willing to travel west with me and fly home. I was going stay on near Phoenix for a few months and live with my college friend. I was at the proverbial crossroads, contemplating my next life move and thinking about making Arizona part of the plan. The route we took from New Jersey to the west coast was similar to the one traveled by the characters in my debut novel HOW MY SUMMER WENT UP IN FLAMES. Unlike my characters, I did not have a very detailed itinerary. Aside from visiting friends in Pennsylvania, Texas, and California, the only other stop I wanted to make was at Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. I saw it in a travel book and thought it looked like a road-trippy kind of place stop.

CadillacRanch

Located in a cow pasture off Interstate 40, Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation consisting of ten Cadillacs buried nose-first in the ground. Visitors are allowed to spray-paint or write graffiti on the half-buried cars. I didn’t, but Rosie, the main character in my novel did. She wrote “Why?” Maybe because that’s what I had been thinking years ago when I stopped there on that cold January day. At that point in the trip, Rosie and I were both trying to figure out where we were going next. And just like Rosie, I couldn’t see at the time all the ways that road trip had already transformed me.

Sometimes we need distance to recognize our moments of growth, and sometimes it is the very thing that sparks them.

This post first appeared over at YA Outside the Lines http://yaoutsidethelines.blogspot.com/, where all month the fabulous authors there will be blogging about change and moments of growth. I was thrilled when they invited me to join their talented group!


Uncategorized

« Writer2Writer with author Kit Grindstaff
These shoes were made for writing… »

Connect

The Summer After You & Me

View Book

Famous Last Words

View Book

View Book

Recent Posts

  • Fitzroy Books prize for young adult fiction
  • AUGUST AND EVERYTHING AFTER release day!
  • Kneeling at Well-Curbs or Why I Write
  • RELEASE DAY! Sunny Sweet is So Not Scary by J. Albert Mann
  • COVER REVEAL: Spark by Holly Schindler

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • January 2023
    • April 2018
    • February 2017
    • October 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • December 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • August 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • January 2014
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
    • June 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012

    Blogroll

    • Macmillan
    • Miss Page-Turners City Of Books
    • On The Verge
    • Pure Imagination
    • Sarah Cloots
    • Sharon Biggs Waller
    • Simon and Schuster
    • Sourcebooks Fire
    • Stereo 87
    • The Lucky 13s
    • WordPress Blog
    • YA Outside the Lines

    Copyright © 2023 · Novelty theme by Restored 316