"The ornate, hand carved wooden box that held Bree's remains perched on Della's kitchen counter awaiting her attention. Della's bike was packed for the trip and the last item to go on the bike was Bree's box. Della purchased a hard-shell, watertight case, the kind you might carry expensive camera equipment in, that she fastened to the luggage rack of her 2018 Road Glide. The case was lined with thick foam rubber and the wooden box with Bree's remains fit snuggly inside. Della agonized for a few weeks over the transport of Bree's remains. I mean, you don't just toss your dear friends ashes in a Ziploc bag and stuff it in your tour pack. Bree bought the box on one of her treks to India to find enlightenment. Of course when she bought it, she had no idea she would end up in it as 5 pounds of calcinated bone. The box sat on Bree's tea table in the sun room, along with a cacophony of other collectibles she amassed from her travels. The day she was diagnosed with the cancer and given her death sentences, she looked over at the table, pointed to the box and told Della 'Please have them scoop me up and put me in that.'"
(To my readers: the 'excerpts' I offer of my new book project #Scattered, are not even 'excerpts' yet. Please know that I am simply shoveling sand into a box. Later I will make castles.)
Central Florida to Bremen, Ga = 525 miles
I've kept a watchful eye on Tropical Storm Cristobal for the last three days. This mornings track looked like it would (and possibly still could) wreck havoc on my route across the south/Gulf Coast states. "Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome" ...so I decided to try and stay ahead of the deluge of rain and head farther north than I normally would have. I donned my rain gear and headed out in a steady drizzle, riding about 300 miles before the rain stopped. After navigating the snarl that is Atlanta (even trying to 'by-pass' Atlanta anymore is a cluster fuck at best) I connected with I20West. I'm crossing my fingers that I'm far enough north to dodge the rain until I get into East Texas.
There are two books I like to skim and peruse prior to a road trip: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck and Ghost Rider by Neil Peart. I know for a fact Peart was a fan of John Steinbeck's and I'm fairly confident that Steinbeck would have been a fan of Neil Peart as well. Yesterday I picked up Travels with Charley and sat down to skim my favorite passages in between laundry, errands, and packing. Steinbeck wrote the travelogue after a cross country trip he took in 1960 in a camper truck he named Rocinante (the name of Don Quixote's horse). I love this quote and am drawn to it time and time again,
"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked."
And it hasn't worked for me either John after 65 years. I still have to urge to go, to wander, to see, and explore. I've been accused of 'running away,' but nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm always 'running to' something, and sometimes I don't know what it is until I find it. If I were 'running from' I would never come back...and I always return home.
My main character Della was a constant source of chatter today on my ride. There is a little bit of me in the character Della, unfortunately there is not a whole lot of Della in me. I like her; she perpetually wants to do the right thing even though she may not wholeheartedly agree with someone's motives, their politics, or whatever it might be.
"Della scooped the box off the counter and carried it out to the garage. The effort was so 'ordinary,' Della kept thinking there should be a soft dirge playing in the background while she held the box aloft and slowly walked it to the back of her bike. Something ceremonial instead of functional. Della placed the box inside its protective case, gently closed the lid, latched it securely and for the hundredth time, made sure the restraints holding the box to the luggage rack were secure. She would never forgive herself if Bree fell off the back of the bike and went bouncing down the freeway helter-skelter."
Debi Tolbert Duggar is the author of the book 'Riding Soul-O'
Part Memoir, Part Travelogue, Part Spiritual Salvation
Available at Bessieandme.com and online wherever books are sold
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