Blogs
Home Away From Home
Tennessee Country Road (Unnoticed Beauty)“Did you pack a toothbrush?”
“Mom…seriously?”
“Just asking”
“C’mon”
“Okay” “
Sorry”
“Me too.”
She closed the back door of the Subaru and hopped deftly through the front door into the driver’s seat. “Are you sure you want me to drive? You always get so annoyed with my slowness.” I felt bad. “No, it’s fine.” She turned the ignition and I felt her go over her mental checklist. She put on some heinous fuchsia lipstick and tried to smile at me. I wanted so badly to tell her to stop, to turn around, that we didn’t have to go somewhere where we weren’t wanted. A thousand miles in a car so we could pretend to be a family? Dad wouldn’t be happy to see us. He never had been before.
It was a long drive to New Mexico, but I had come prepared. I knew I couldn’t bear my mother’s tense courtesy and my sharp, stinging silence without adequate distractions, so I brought books, movies and my iPod. She looked hurt, but she always looked hurt. At every moment her eyes threatened to flood and her lips stood in a hard line so they wouldn’t give way to a cry for help. I knew her better than I knew myself, but I never would have told her that because I didn’t know how to help her. I didn’t know that I couldn’t help her.
I settled into comfortable isolation, two feet from my mother. She stared straight ahead, sometimes humming softly but remaining mostly silent. Sometimes she tapped the dashboard lightly to the rhythm of the song in her head. I would never admit this to her, but she’s actually a very good driver: she thinks rationally, steers gracefully, and accelerates smoothly. It’s almost as if the car wants to drive for her. It wouldn’t if it knew where we were going.
We wound in and out of the trees that lined the West Tennessee road, we rolled over the hills of Arkansas, we saw the ground turn cracked and dry as we neared Texas. Well, “we” didn’t. “We” were in our own little worlds, knowing perfectly well the futility of our travels and the unconscious pain the destination would resurrect. The car saw and felt the changing terrain. “We” didn’t see – or feel – anything.
The long drive
Loved the line about the car not wanting to drive itself if it knew where it was going. This really does a nice job conveying the sense of sadness, futility, loneliness, and even dread, associated with this road trip and its destination. It's actually kind of amazing you can do this in such a short space. This me a little of another mother-daughter road trip story, Anywhere but Here by Mona Simpson, where the mother takes the daughter on a trip to get away from an unhappy marriage. It's also a movie. Actually, it's much different from your story—not sure why I mention it.
road trips
It seems to me that the idea of a family road trip is undeniably forced. What is the rationale for spending an indefinite amount of time in an enclosed space with people you get annoyed more easily with than anyone else? Needless to say, I've been on a few of those family road trips. However, mine were filled with many mix tapes of ABBA music. It's the slowest of trips. It's the containment of our own worlds, I like how you put that, gave words to that feeling I always felt in those car trips.