Road Trip Blues: Part 3
Nashville, Tennessee to Hot Springs, Arkansas to Abilene, Texas: Two days, 13 hours, 844 miles
This post is a series.
If you haven’t read the night before Sam left, part 1, and part 2 I suggest you start there. 🫶
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Sam and I make sentimental stops before we leave Nashville.
We visit Third Man Records, owned by Jack White. Every time I think of his name, I am sucked back into the 7th grade locker room getting ready for gym with my girl friends. In-between talking about the guitar chords for Seven Nation Army, and my friend Elana tells us that if you wear red underwear it means you want someone to see it. I was flummoxed by this statement as boys had just gotten onto our radar. A year ago they had cooties and now we were supposed to kiss them? But after 20 years of confusion and misadventures with men, walking around Jack White’s space, it was such a relief to have found my person, who was flipping through the records. I walk over to him and rub his back, and notice a sweatshirt to purchase tucked under his arm.
Sam dives to a little purple studio where his favorite singer/songwriter records. He slips a little note in the crack of the locked door. We circle the building to see if there is anywhere else more secure. He gets anxious and wants to make sure Todd Snyder gets his letter.
“If he gets it, he gets it. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t, honey, but you gave your offering,” I say as we walk back to the car to make one last stop.
Our final stop is Parnassus Bookstore, owned and operated by the insanely talented Ann Patchett. ( If you are reading this and you don’t know Ann Patchett, stop what you are doing and go read her books instead. I cannot emphasize this enough.)
Bel Canto, one of her earlier books, is on my desert island list. It is the second book in my life that I have stayed up all night to to finish and wept silently over the pages as I finished it, trying not to wake my bedmate.
( The first book was OBVIOUSLY the seventh Harry Potter book. I finished it at 2am during my family’s annual vacation to the Adirondacks. I let the tears stream down my face as I took quiet, quick breaths so as to not wake my middle sister who I was sharing the bed with (and was waiting for her turn to read it ( this was 2008)). The next morning, my family wanted to go horseback riding, but I declined because I was BEREAVED.)
Bel Canto was the second book in my life to do that. I have never been so held by the lapel while reading ( I should really just copy paste all of this for Goodreads, shouldn’t I). I won’t get into the plot, but there is a French Ambassador that is separated from his wife. He doesn’t want to be in the country where the story takes place and had been finding a way to get back to France.
Then plot happens, and the whole time he is looooooooooonnnnngggggggging for his wife.
He is so nervous he will never see her again. It’s the only thought that keeps him afloat through the book. No so secretly, I loved that part. I have always wanted to be longed like that...and, unfortunately, I was about to get my wish.
We get back in the car and cut through the rhombus of Tennessee. When we land in the Home of the Blues, we get more fried chicken and BBQ. It is delivered to us on styrofoam cups and plates. That plastic squeak hurts my Lorax sensibilities as I lick every piece of chicken clear off the bone.
Before we get back in the car for the final drive of the day, we meander over to the Mississippi river.
We stand and look out at the great Mississippi river. The one of Huckleberry Finn and Showboat lore. The 2,340 mile river begins in Minnesota, snakes through ten states until she spills out into Louisiana. Steamboats of an olden time passed through my mind.
But as Sam and I stood there, all we saw was muddy brown water. I felt disappointed by the mythology I had been fed, not in awe. As we look out at the slow moving water, a quiet sadness sits between us.
We get back in the car and cut it into Arkansas. Our conversations over the miles and states continues to center around the podcasts we are listening to. We don’t talk about the anxiety we feel as we inch closer to our destination. We just focus on the story. The thing that will pull us apart indefinitely is the only thing keeping us together in the moment.
We landed in Hot Springs at 10pm.
Hot Springs, Arkansas to Abilene, Texas
When I wake up the next morning, I started dreading the car.
Getting in and out, packing and unpacking, repacking, unpacking, repacking, zipping unzipping my skincare bag.
“Fuck me,” I fume as some of my creams have leaked.
All the sitting starts to hurt my body as well. It activated some old hemorrhoids that I thought had healed. They made their presence known when I found blood on my toilet paper during a week when I did not have my period. And I HAVE to sit for 7+ hours today.
God fucking damn it.
I pray and hope they ease up as I flush the toilet paper down and repack my skincare bag yet again.
The agitation of living out of hotels and only sitting in a car for a full work day starts to grate on me as we walked around Hot Springs.
The streets are more like an extension of everyone’s living room. I watch a woman sit down on the sidewalk to let her toddler pet an old small dog, panting and lined in grey hair. If I did that in New York, I would have to burn the clothing that touched the street. Two stores over there was a real baby in a bassinet in the shop window. Just sleeping and on display for the whole town to ooooogle at. We weren’t in Kansas yet, but, we definitely were not in New York anymore.
We get our coffees and breakfast and hit the road. The floor of my passengers seat continues to gather dust, hair, crumbs, empty cups, dirty napkins. As we hit the highway, the light in Arkansas felt aged somehow—tinted yellow. I can’t fully describe it, but the light unsettles me here.
In the long hours, staring out the window, watching the South blur by, I think about the wife from Bel Canto. Yes, she is longed for, but she is also left waiting, wringing her hands, wondering when will she see her husband next. She must have sat in a paralyzing state of uncertainty. I didn’t know how the wife felt yet, but, it wouldn’t be much longer until I could really empathize.
After two hours, we cross the Texas border. True to its motto, everything DID start to feel bigger. The East Coast trees fade behind us, and the sky opens up and gains in height. It somehow becomes a deeper blue and took up our whole field of vision. The Bible billboards try to reach the heavens. The plains are expansive and flat every way I looked. The longhorns we drive by, with all that space, have no change to poke someones eye out. Even the gas stations came in mega gulp size.
Fuck we are in Texas....
Something about crossing into Texas made Sam leaving feel more real. I could no longer daydream or astroproject or ignore the fact that Sam and I were on a road trip to drop him off in Phoenix, Arizona. 2700 miles from where we had built our little life–from where I thought we wanted to live. For him to start a new life there...without me.
Reality starts tailgating the back of Blubaru, and I mentally start road raging. Dread begins to rise inside me. The idea of opening up the car door, rolling out onto the plains, and letting crows pick at my body under the Texas sun started to feel...enticing. Then whatever th!S feeling–anguish, anxiety, grief– was would be gone. Instead, we kept speeding head on towards our new life at 80 mph.
We had spent just short of six months in suspension, unsure where we would be working in 2024. However, driving across the entire country still didn’t feel like a real fun conclusion. If anything, I was more exasperated. As we drive deeper into Texas, my cheeks clench and lips purse. Water fills the bottom of my eyes. I glare out my window, avoiding Sam’s gaze.
How the fuck are we going to do this?
Driving him to Phoenix is reaaaallyyyy dragging out the inevitable. Good lord.
We stopped in Dallas, a secretly great food town. We return to a BBQ at a joint we visited back in 2022, when we came here for a wedding. That weekend looms large in my mind. We drove around blasting Lucinda Williams as her smokey voice belted out “Wheeeeeeeels on a gRAVel roaaaad.” We just romanced all weekend, got coffees, tacos, and cocktails between all the wedding activities.
What has happened between now and then? What life choices should we have made instead?
Back on the road, a traffic sign looms in the distance. It reads, 03/18/24 freeway is closed. That is the day both of us will start our new jobs. That is the day that will delineate Sam and I are not living together. Our time together will be bookmarked between the five hour flights or a six day drives just to be physically near one another.
Holy fucking shit…
I try so hard not to think about what the end of this trip will bring, just a few days away, biting my tongue hard enough to leave a jagged tooth indent.
Needless to say, Texas was where I started to crack.
Because Texas is also the dividing line between the East and West. Squarely in the center and encapsulates the lush low level forests of the East that bleeds into the prairie dust. There were wind turbines to our left; oil rigs to our right.
As the tears collected in my eyes, I frequently squeezed Sam’s leg or thigh or back of his neck or arm to feel him next to me...to remember how warm he feels because… I knew it wasn’t permanent…unsure how long the valley of time would keep us apart. How long will it take to find our way back to each other? I bite my bottom lip.
As the hours continued to peel away, the thoughts swirl.
This is insane. I am willingly helping my fiancé drive across the country, so he can live out a dream without me?
Wait a minute, why did I agree to this?
Who co-signed this decision and forged my signature?
What version of me would ever agree to this?
Have I become a “cool girl” fiancé with dead eyes and a big smile? Who doesn’t push back; she lets him do what he wants.
Why the fuck am I supporting this???
The landscape thins out. Shrubs are spaced out along the red soil that casts an orange hue over the land.
I don’t articulate my thoughts. I get quiet and let the podcast of whatever we are listening try to distract me.
He wants this.
You can’t be upset.
You have to support him.
You don’t want him to resent you...
You should have said something!!!
It’s too late now.
By nightfall, I’m pissed. I am tired of being in a cramped car on this ill-fated mission that is designed to break my heart. My patience flies out the window as I roll it down to try and get some air. I see my face in the mirror, an angry face. I am suddenly fed up with all of this.
Good God will this drive never end?
We land in Abilene; another destination picked after a song, written by the spectacular Waxahatchee. When we get to our hotel, and I shlep my day bag in for the fourth time this week. I need some space. I need to move my body. I go down to the hotel gym and hop on the elliptical to stretch my legs. The adrenaline and some real alone time fuels my anger even more. I find every reason to be upset.
I hate that I can’t move my body for 6-8 hours of the day.
I hate that I am giving him this week. I will have no time to get all my ducks in order before MY life is sucked into the chaos of my new job. I wanted this week to be centering. I wanted get lunch at a restaurant in the middle of the day. I wanted make all my doctors appointments and organize my mail. I wanted go on long walks and fill my apartment with flowers. I wanted organize all the files on my computer. I wanted to walk into my new job poised, together, nails done. God, think of all the wedding planning I could have been getting done! But the moment I’m in the car, I feel like I can barely do anything but keep Sam company and focused. Fuck wait, we still have to plan a WEDDING!?? In FOUR MONTHS?!??
I kick the elliptical up a notch.
Instead I’m in the middle of fucking Texas, five days out from my new job. I will be throwing myself against a wall and waking up next Monday to get to work at 9am pretending to be bright eyed and bushy tailed after the most emotionally catastrophic week of travel I have ever experienced.
Faster, faster, faster go my legs.
I am giving this precious week to this fucking road trip?? I’m giving it to this fucking job that I don’t even want Sam to take. Fuck this. It feels so classically female that I am the one giving up something so my husband can live out his dream.
What the fuck????
Why am I supporting this??
I point all of my rage at this situation. At that moment, I couldn’t see the full scope of how rare our job opportunities were, how our industry had sold out to big tech who had promised us millions only to strip each independent company for parts. I get to our hotel room and Sam can tell I need space (I am not subtle).
I take a bath to try, get some introverted time, soften my hemorrhoids. But the down time does not ease the full on panic attack I feel festering in my body. I beg myself to keep cool, to not get upset, to keep it fucking together. So I avoid Sam.
I go to bed without kissing him goodnight, hoping I will feel better in the morning.
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This post is a series.
If you haven’t read the night before Sam left, part 1, and part 2 I suggest you start there. 🫶
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Next: Road Trip Blues: Part 4
I love the raw honesty of this part. We often romanticize travel, but you’re capturing the gritty, introspective side of it that people rarely talk about. That feeling of being 'unmoored' is so relatable.
you inspired me, what a great read