I’ve got an empty stomach, but a full heart. Driving where the sky meets the road. No more good-byes, a life of hellos. One hand on the steering wheel and the other out the window, this is my self-portrait.

Slightly harvested wheat fields yawn out beyond the horizon. I’m yearning to reach the place where the transforming aspen leaves blink in patches on either side of me like the last embers of a dwindling fire. I’m yearning for the mountains, for the West. I’ve been driving four hours, heading home for the first time in months. The air is saturated with the necessities of fall — pumpkins, costumes, ginger cookies, campfires and the faintest promise of snow. And it courses through me with the rushing wind coming through the windows.

Driving with the windows down, I don’t worry about my hair staying in place; I let it whip around my head. It gives me the sensation of being wild and free. In these moments of carefree independence, there’s a glitter of the untamed in my eyes. I’m flying, as fast as I want, to where I want.

On the road, as I belt out anything to the great soaring plains, my voice is not my voice any longer. The wind takes my thoughts and throws them hastily behind. My smile greets each passing white line as a new discovery.

Every time I get behind the wheel, I know that the breeze will be soothing to my skin, and I’ll finally find time to breathe. To me, air conditioning is one of those luxuries I laugh at when I’m confronted by it. Fake air on your face is almost as bad as fake grass beneath your feet. I want that wind blowing in the willows to blow through my hair. I want the sun that heats rock and road alike to burnish my face, my arm. The intangible knowledge that a season is coming or going makes my very core quiver with anticipation as I inch my way through vast distances. I don’t want to be partitioned with the elements just because I’m traveling through them.

When it comes down to it, it seems so cowardly to lock ourselves in vehicles with the ability to control the temperature and move our seats up and down with the touch of a button. When we drive with our windows down, each gust accentuates everything you may be running away from, evaporating past you, and everything you may become up ahead as fresh as a hot shower in January.

Somehow, driving with the windows down transports me, if only for a while. It takes me to the Green River, my hands working the paddles as I drift downstream. It takes me to the top of Byers, catching my breath while having it taken away by the view. It takes me to the many midnight adventures in the woods under a spotlight of a full mountain moon. It takes me, no matter the traffic, noise, or artificial light to a place I feel at home. When I drive, I can’t help but believe that an open road should be greeted by open windows.

Cori Anderson is a student at the University of Colorado-Boulder. This is her first story for the Gazette.