Coppell, Texas to New Orleans, LA = 525 miles
The morning I said farewell to my cousin and her husband and left Coppell I felt scattered. Morning traffic was blissfully light as I traversed the snarl of Dallas traffic. I trained my focus on navigating the plurality of road signs, confusing feeder roads, exits and overpasses that define Dallas freeways to connect with I-10 without risking life or limb. Stopped again at Bucee Beaver's in Terrell, reluctant to leave Texas. I made another stop in Longview for coffee and a truffle (breakfast of champions). A melancholy crept over me; something was tugging at me and not letting go.
Spending time with my Texas kin made me realize how scattered my family has become. Growing up in my grandparents household, I lived on the same street as several cousins and various family members. We ran in and out of each others houses with abandon. Food and discipline was parceled out in equal measures by caring adults. The lone requirement was 'to be home before dark,' and pity the child who wasn't. The street where my parents lived was the same; no cousins, but the neighborhood was brimming with children my age and we ran the block. My grandparents eventually moved a few blocks down from my parents house.
While my great-grandparents were alive, the entire Fisher clan would congregate at their humble home every Sunday. The adults played cards, carried in casseroles, and the children (sometimes 20 or more, most related, some extras) ran amok among the abandoned farm equipment engaging in a variety of games. We didn't need adult supervision because we already knew how to behave and feared the consequences if we didn't. No one had to organize our play as adults do for children today. We were experienced in Red Rover, tag, Ring Around the Rosie and Hide and Seek. I don't remember any fancy toys and certainly no digital devices! Someone might bring a ball and we would all play Dodge Ball but that was rare. Mostly we used our own imagination and energy to entertain ourselves until the adults called us in to eat or gathered us up - sweaty, dirty, tired - piled us in the car and drove home.
Once the great - grandparents were gone, a smaller family group gathered at my grandparents home on Sundays. The family unit had already started to scatter at that point; my grandmother's extended family moved out of state - some to Florida, some to the Carolina's, some elsewhere. I loved the summer months at my grandparents house. Their generous garden produced a cornucopia of vegetables and fruits for summer picnics. The children who played relentlessly at my great-grandparents home were now adults, beginning families of their own. We started to scatter in our own directions, leaving the Sunday gatherings to dwindle even further, until they were no more. Yes, there were the holidays when gatherings were expected, but someone was always complaining because they bore the burden of hosting. It was never the same.
I have tried over the years to replicate those family gatherings with my own daughters. We embraced friends and neighbors as family, hosting holiday parties or carry in dinners. Somehow it has never been the same. Family is blood. Family is solid. Family is the keeper of the secrets, the ballast that rights a leaning ship, the refuge for a beleaguered soul. Until one or more members makes the move to exit and scatter to the four corners.
My reluctance to leave Texas lay in the closeness I felt with my Texas kin. I knew I was headed home to an empty house and a family that has been scattered for years. The sheer boredom of I-10 would not help to ease my melancholy. Each time I saw an exit for U.S. 90 or some other backroad, I hesitated, wanting to jump off and cruise a backroad all the way home. But I knew the slowness of that route would delay my arrival home by a few days not to mention the heat when I hit small town traffic. In his book 'Travels with Charley,' Steinbeck mentions U.S. 90 "I sought out U.S. 90, a wide gash of a super-highway, multiple-lane carrier of the nation's goods." Oh, if only Steinbeck could have traversed I-10! Hindsight being 20/20, that backroad route was exactly what I should have done. The network of super slabs across our country has been the mechanism that has contributed to families scattering; it is too easy to drive a way from the snugness of the family unit.
Debi Tolbert Duggar is the author of 'Riding Soul-O'
Part Memoir, Part Travelogue, Part Spiritual Salvation
Available at Bessieandme.com and online wherever books are sold
Comments
Post a Comment