EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'

First wake-up after an 8 day road trip, sort of a déjà vu rewind. Covid kept me sidelined for nearly 16 months and I have missed truck stops and tires singing on the blacktop. Not knowing how I would hold up, I split the drive down to the Gulf Coast in half with aa overnight layover in Grenada, Mississippi. Sleeping in the truck cab is nothing new, been doing it for decades but temperature and humidity made it uncomfortable. Daylight is always a welcome sight over the dashboard, even more so when you have slept folded up like yesterday’s crumpled napkin. I thought about bringing the generator and a cot for the back but chose otherwise in the last minute. The revelation here would be that I am a year older but none the wiser. Next time I will bring my bed and electricity with me. The year may have dulled my edge but not enough for me to shell out ‘beaucoup’ (too many) dollars for eight unconscious hours at a Best Western or Super 8 Inn. I remember on this same trip in 1993 I paid $12 for a good sleep at a little Mom & Pop motel in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She dropped the price $1.50 if I agreed not to use the towel or take a shower. In the spring of 1970 my brother in law and I slept on plush chairs pulled together in a motel lobby in Durango, Colorado, $5 for the both of us. Nobody does that anymore. A mediocre bed now would cost $100 with taxes and a tip. Call it progress, not complaining but I can be like the turtle, carry my bed on my back. Either way I keep my $100 for another day.

The drive yesterday (850 miles) with fuel stops, food breaks and time to stretch & walk-about took 15 hours and minutes. After the lesson learned on the drive down I figured to drive until I needed a nap. I can still nap for half an hour and be fresh again for another hundred miles. If the coffee doesn’t keep me alert, stopping frequently to pee does. 

I will bumble around the house today, putting things away and reorganizing the mess I came back to. It makes so much sense to leave things in order so you don’t come home to a train wreck but I haven’t mastered that trick yet. One might think I would learn but when the last minute comes and time has run out, I just go and don’t look back. What I return to will be neither a surprise nor a disappointment. It is what it is and that’s alright. I keep telling myself I’m not complaining but for someone not complaining it sounds a lot like complaining. 

This time last year I was social distanced (home-alone), listening to my favorite music on You Tube and CDs. I’ve stopped prefixing my days in pandemic time. This would have been day 456 but from now on every day should be day number #1, start off fresh and new again every day. I still keep the music going. Right now it’s Susan Tedeschi; “Everybody’s Talkin’...goin’ where the weather suits my clothes…bankin’ off of the northeast winds, sailin’ on a summer breeze…skippin’ over the ocean like a stone.”