Windows Are Rolled Down

Dear Ones,

Its been a little while since I last wrote to you. Yesterday, I was up before the sun, in my car heading south. It was so cool outside, I rolled down the windows, opened the sun roof, turned on a favorite song and hopped on I-95. As I accelerated the wind whipped through the car, I turned the music louder. I was filled with a feeling of freedom, and I found myself thinking back to other times. My brain began putting memories and visual images together with words that I so wanted to write to you there and then. I wanted tell you of the exhilaration I felt and the thoughts of road trips in my life. How we’d always leave before dawn to avoid the heat, the windows rolled down and a little chill in the air. Wanting to describe the smells of that pre-dawn hour, the Florida smells, of musty woodlands and marshy canal banks zooming by. Of watching intently out the window hoping to spot an alligator on the banks. The fog that would pool along the ground of the orange groves, eerie and beautiful all at once. My Mother at the wheel of her Pontiac Catalina, my brother and I on the back seat. The car radio playing top forty tunes. Fast forward to me in the drivers seat, snacks procured, fountain cokes in hand, gas in the tank of my Toyota. My own precious charges on the back seat and whichever one that won out (always Naomi-“I CALL SHOTGUN!”) as my co-pilot up front, manning the music. Tracy Chapman? Delirious? Or could it have been our favorite there for a while, “Pure Moods”? Always on the hunt for a boiled peanut stand. The trips with my daughter and Grandson Aedyn every summer to “Granma-James’s” (that’s not a typo) house. Our traditional stop at Cracker Barrel for candy. But on this fine morning, I was alone and listening to a favorite song “Windows Are Rolled Down”. There’s no pork rinds or Skittles, I quit soda years back, and my little white Toyota (the SPSHL-K) now a fond memory. Then all at once, there it was, that moment of a new day turning, the fog lifting, the orange fireball seeming to rise from the edge of the earth engulfing the horizon, huge and beautiful. I am filled with hope at that moment, knowing in my heart and mind the promise of a new start. My reminder that someone greater than the past and this messy present is still in control ultimately. The beauty of that moment was staggering.

In this time we all need an epiphany. I don’t want this rare moment of isolation to go by without changing me. What have I left behind that I need to revisit? What new thing might I learn to take forward? I want to dig deep, deeper than I ever have, to let go of what no longer serves me and grab hold of what will see me through the future.

This morning twenty four hours and several chapters of news alerts later, here I am up before the sun, writing to you at last. I hope that you and those you love are safe, I pray that you have all you need and some to share. I pray you have delicious road trips in your future and that you savour each moment and write to tell me about the sounds, the smells and all the memories you made. Take good care dear ones.