Wednesday's Observation

For those of you not familiar with Ohio, there's this particular time of night, at this particular time of year, when the sky is just perfect. Dusk, twilight, sunset, whatever you call it, it marks the subtle beginning of another wonderfully hot, seemingly endless Midwestern summer.
Sure, there are sunsets everywhere. Every state. I've seen a good share of them. And they're all beautiful, in their own way. But none are quite like here. None have whatever it is Ohio puts into its air to make you feel young and carefree and open to life. The blue mixes with the yellow and the orange, and the world settles into soft light.
And as the color changes, the sounds change. Cicadas and crickets start their songs. Kids laugh and shout and splash and play in yards, because even though tomorrow's Thursday there's no school. All those sounds are lovely.
But I feel like I should stop here, to clarify and before I head too much further down that path. 
This is not about that.
This is about that perfectly right time, that perfectly right light and temperature, when you can put down the windows in the car and go really, really, really fast because the perfect song is playing, and it's compelling you to move.
You know that feeling? The wind (it's not a breeze. it's wind. seriously, i drive really, really fast.) coming in from every direction. Goosebumps, but good ones.
Crank it.
I propose we should all get a free pass - like in relationships, you know, when you get a few celebrities that you're allowed to sleep with if the opportunity every presents itself, as long as your significant other knows they're on The List? - for certain songs. No speeding tickets, no red lights, no douchebags that flick you off when you swerve around them screaming, "douchebag, fucking move." They aren't dancing songs, or slit-your-wrist songs, or memory lane songs or breakup songs or housecleaning songs. They're songs that are made for driving, fast, on nights just like this one.


Here are mine. For this drive, anyway.
1. The Cure, Just Like Heaven
2. Kings of Leon, Sex on Fire
3. Bush, Alien
4. Adele, Rumor Has It
5. The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony
6. Jakob Dylan, Something Good This Way Comes

**truly lovely photo, i think, found on flickr. thanks for sharing your images for those of us who only work in words.