The first night

I parked just after dark, killed the engine, and listened. No hum of a furnace, no neighbours, just the wind off the Pacific working at the solar panels I had bolted on the week before. I had built the bed three days earlier and was not sure it would hold. It did. I lay there fully dressed under two blankets, watching my breath, certain I had made a terrible, wonderful mistake. Around two in the morning the wind dropped and it went completely silent. That was the moment it clicked. Nobody knew where I was, nothing was scheduled, and for the first time in years I had nowhere to be but right here.