Friday, July 28, 2017

Warning: Objects On Map Are Farther Than They Appear

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.