I found that after my first year of teaching English, I was
really tired of words. Not at a loss of
words, that will never happen, but just completely tired of words. Tired of reading them, tired of writing them
and tired of thinking in them. Then Bill
took a job that has him mostly in Dallas and I was afraid of using my words or
hearing people’s words when they asked how that was going, so I hid from
words. Hiding from words is burdensome
and while I would like if my husband was home more than he is gone, we have
come to the perfect balance of words by summing it up as “It’s hard AND we are
making it work.” And, not but.
I will offer the advice that should you ever find yourself
afraid of or hiding from your words, there is nothing like a 4,562 mile road
trip to get them started again. Days of sitting and watching the interstate fly by helped me find my words
again. Why a road trip in eight days
that normal people would do over a month?
Summer is Bill’s busiest time, always, and we squeeze in what we can
with changes to plans all the time. We
were supposed to fly, but then there was issues with the miles and the charges
on the miles and why spend $700 before we even left the state? I have to say that I have some pretty stalwart
kids because when I told them we would be driving instead of flying, they
paused just a minute and said “But we are still going, so okay.”
We drove hard this trip.
We made it from Dallas to Buffalo in 21 hours, no stops other than food
and to use the restrooms. That was the
beginning of the trip though, so it really didn’t seem bad. We sang the Hamilton soundtrack throughout the entire state
of Tennessee and I forgot to be worried about those asshole deer between
Memphis and Nashville that always seem out to get us. We played the alphabet
game and I got stuck with all the sucky letters. I am still angry about Q. We
talked and laughed and we got there fast. And then I was home and I was hugging
my parents and I was watching their disbelief as they saw how big the kids
are. A few days later we were doing the
same thing with Bill’s family in the beauty that is Canada, and again, that
drive just slipped away.
Roadtrips are not without their casualties: roadkill, flat
tires, boredom. We measure ours by
breakdowns. For example, I was a complete bitch in Montreal. I needed a bathroom, some dinner and a
bathroom again. Yes, nice cobblestone
streets and lovely European flair but all I wanted was a place to pee. I also wept copiously outside Grand Rapids,
MI because I was so tired I was seeing things on the side of the road
(Sasquatch, a man running down the center line of the highway and a series of
doors set up on the side of the road) and I just wanted to stop and even though
we saw a hotel sign we couldn’t find the damn hotel and I was going to scream
if I didn’t get out of that car. Sophie
had hers in Indiana early on the second day, but hers came in a verbal attack
on her brother that had me fearing for his safety. Bill, stalwart Bill, had his in Texarkana
where he could no longer make words or sounds or grunts in reply to “Doing
okay?”. Only the boy remained whole this
trip.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we push and drive and teeter on the
edge of renal failure and deep vein thrombosis and call it vacation? Why pick a route that has us drive top to
bottom of the longest, finger-like states (screw you MI and IL) and call it
fun? Family. We drive and drive and get to the places
where people love us and our kids the best.
We spend just enough time that no one gets mad at each other and we
reminisce, we show our kids things that we did when we were young, we see
people we miss furiously throughout the year, and for a little while, we feel
whole. And our kids are off of their
phones and talking and laughing and learning how to fish. We see beautiful things: eagles, mountains,
places I am sure bears are waiting to attack me and well, beautiful, clean
Canada. This time, because we cannot accurately read a map, we saw all five Great
Lakes on this trip. That is a lot of
water to kids growing up in dry, dry Texas.
Hell that was a lot of water to me.
 |
| looks far, but we made it even farther through Sault Ste. Marie |
My neighbor commented that our trip was more of an
expedition than a vacation and he is right.
We could have flown and had a vacation, but we had an expedition
instead. We are explorers! Pioneers!
Barreling our way through the country like escaped convicts! We’ll show you the road not taken! Most people come back from vacation feeling
rested, but we come back feeling like we survived. I really want a decal for my
car that says 4,562 in an oval like the marathon decals. I like going into the end of summer thinking
that Lewis and Clark had nothing on us.
I feel strong, I feel ready for the school year and best of all, I feel
like I want to use my words.
