The Memory of Spontaneity
Part three of things I've recently missed
Hi, I’m Sasha! This is the 3rd little piece of things I’ve missed since the pandemic hit. If you’d like to, you can read about tourist traps and congregating people: two of the other things I’ve missed on the road.
Monday, I’ll be back to my once-weekly newsletters with an homage to the City Lights Bookstore.
If you like getting these mini memories instead of a slightly longer story, let me know, and I’ll work on incorporating them sporadically.
“Here,” I said, nodding to a painted sign as I let the huge motorhome slow itself down.
We put our next location stops on pause, opting for a random change of scenery for spontaneity's sake. On a whim, we’d taken an exit off the freeway and driven along country roads for a few miles and a fresh smear of green-bodied bugs coated the windshield.
“We’ll stick out,” Jeremiah said, motioning over his shoulder as I unbuckled my seat belt, “let’s unhook the car.”
After detaching the car and parking it across the street in a dusty gravely pseudo-parking lot, I scampered across the road and into the wooden house.
The things we did for a random bite to eat.
As I pulled open the screen door, a trace of Old English Wood Shine lingered and mixed with the smell of smoke.
I can’t tell you what state we were in, but they only served sweet tea as the iced-tea option, so it must have been the South. I ordered water, which automatically came with a slice of lemon. Yes. We were definitely in the South.*
A chalkboard with the menu chicken-scratched across it highlighted the specials. After ordering, the plump woman at the register handed over our red-colored plastic cups.
I shimmied between two wooden tables to find a place to sit in the cramped dining room that was not any larger than most living rooms. A chair screeched on the concrete flooring as a gentleman squished in to let me pass by.
“Do you mind if we sit beside you?” I asked two men in Carhartt coveralls that were finishing up their plates of barbecue. They smelled like dried grass and sunshine. As we sipped our iced beverages, we told them our oft-repeated story of traveling in a motorhome while we were still young.
If I’m being honest, after being served our meal, the memory gets a little foggy. Why? Simple. I didn’t know that I’d need to cement these in my memory, the spontaneous stop on the side of the road so that I’d have something to repeat in my mind later. I didn’t know I would need to remember the feeling of impulsiveness.
Thirty minutes after we’d pulled off the road, we were back behind the wheel, on our way to a planned destination. Something I miss: throwing caution to the wind by trying out a random barbecue joint along the side of the road or stepping into a fairly forgettable train museum.
In the last year or so, we’ve all sacrificed spontaneity, batted against that feeling to just pull over and head into a diner that’s over occupancy per the fire marshall, or squeeze between other customers at a community table in a bakery.
Things are planned now because they need to be. And that’s okay. It’s not forever. Spontaneity isn’t lost. It’s simply put on hold.
Thanks for traveling with me,
Sasha
*In Oregon, I had received lemon with water on occasion, but it’s definitely not a default.