Memory Monday- How I Came to Love the Road

I got the old photo albums out the other day. The ones with pictures of me when I was small, and of Meah, too. Pages filled with my smiling parents, arms around each other. Meah here petting a rabbit at the County Fair; me there crying on the carnival ride I thought I wanted to go on but changed my mind too late. 
Memories.
     It's funny what change can do to memories. Change like your parent's divorce or your sister's death. Drastic changes can make true remembrances seem instead like mirages so that when you get close you see they are not what you thought they were; what you thought you remembered. But that is Satan's lie, for they are what they were when they were made-fossils from a time, frozen and preserved. Though life now may look drastically different from the times of those memories, they are still true. Aren't they?
     It's then that I realized I needed to preserve those memories. Fossilize them right where they were when they were made. Put words to the pictures I know so well. Put words to the life I can forget if I'm not careful. A sister I loved, now gone. A family I cherished, now scattered. But I have those memories. And in them- the pulse, the heartbeat of a time I long to remember. A time that made me, largely, who I am right now. A time I can't find anymore but know was there because of the memories.
     Do you want to join me? Lock arms with me as I toddle down that lane? You know the one- that lane with all the memories. Perhaps you, too, have some that need revisiting, need refocusing, just need conjured up for a while. Perhaps you have some you need to preserve? Lock arms with me then. Toddle with me now. We'll see what we can see. We'll find what we can remember.


So, thank you for joining me for Memory Monday. And here is how I came to love the road.


I was seven and Meah nine. We pinched pennies for months but who cares about pinching pennies because when July finally rolled in, we packed our bags and headed out for our first family trip to Disney World. Kenosha, Wisconsin is a long way from Florida, but Daddy hated flying and I feared the same, so we piled, no- squeezed into the red, four door Taurus one morning way before the sun ever thought to show, for a long, long trek to the "promisedland". Meah and I in window seats in the back and Grandma bridged between us, (and hadn't she always been that strong bridge for us leading us always to something good?) And for the first hours we slept while Daddy drove and bobbed his head to James Brown and Parliament. Then the sun made her appearance with aggressive rays right in my face making sleep impossible. And I remember, then, waking in the dawning: Daddy's music playing, his eyes smiling at me from the rearview mirror. I remember the hum of the tires on the pavement, the blur of the yellow lines gliding by. And I came to know the road. Her sights and sounds. Came to sense the sun dawning and hours later, still cruising, her descent as well. And when Momma and Meah and Grandma woke we  played games and ate the snacks Momma packed us. We sang the songs we loved and rolled the windows down and stuck our arms out, trying, just trying to catch the breeze. And in those hours, those long hours on the road, it didn't matter where we were going because we were going together. And hadn't I thought we'd always be going together? I came to love the road.


We stopped, legs stretching, bladders full and tummies in want of more than snacks. And we ate together and talked excitedly of the fun we were already having. Then readjusted pillows and cleared out wrappers and got ready to ride again. And sure Grandma's arms bumped into mine and my feet squished her's sometime, and Meah wanted to listen to this tape and I wanted that one, and Momma and Daddy fought over the map and which way was best and how late should we drive before we look for a hotel- but I loved the road, and I knew they loved it, too. I knew, from Grandma's smiles and Daddy and Momma's quick make-ups, and Meah's singing to the songs she loved the best, and my stack of books I'd never have enough road to finish. I knew we all loved it. We loved it together.


We'd make that trip again six times before Grandma died and Meah got too old to come and before Momma and Daddy split. Before Meah died. We'd make that trip and dozens others on the road, each one pounding in me a love that can't be pried up again. And I can still feel the breeze on my face, hear the hum of the tires, can still sense the dawning of the sun I came to know on the road.


I remember.