When I was three years old my mom loaded all her belongings, myself included, into her 1984 AMC Pacer and drove to Florida. I don’t remember any of it of course. It’s a story I learned from her retelling it. It’s a story she would only approach with a certain flavor of courage. A story that required a fearless reckoning with her past that always involved a bottle of wine. I wish she had told the story more. I wish I had the chance to hear her tell the story now.
My mother was a jazz musician. My dad left after my little brother was born. My mom got all the custody and the house. After trying to make it in New York, a city she loved, she decided to change everything and start a new life. She moved to Miami on the promise of four sets a week with a band that used to play with Charles Mingus. It was the only connection she had to make money doing what she loved. After one love fell apart I can understand how important it was not to lose another.
When she tells the story, the part that always gets me, the part she glosses over, the part she uses to frame the story – I sold everything I had. She would always start with that. Then she would tell us how small the car was and how my brother and I took up the whole back seat. She would describe to us how her clothes looked laying next to her in the front. Somehow, I still don’t know how, but she says she fit her Rhodes in the middle of the back seat, between us. She would describe driving through the night so that we could sleep. She always reminded us that she listened to a recording of Nina Simone improvising gospel songs. A few years ago, when she was telling me this story from hospice, she gave me the Nina cassette from that drive through the night.
Like every story, this one had an end too. She would always finish the story about the drive at the gas station. I'm remembering now she never told us about actually getting to Florida. She would say she drove her second tank to empty and stopped to refill before sunrise. She would describe the muggy air. She told us it was at 5 am and we were somewhere in South Carolina. And then she would tell us that I woke up, that I would always do that when the car stopped. She said I was awake for 3 minutes and that I immediately asked a question. I asked her where we were going. And she would always remind us, like that perhaps this was the point of the story, like that she needed this part to be true, that she had really said this. She would tell us she looked me in the eyes and said "We're going where we need to go."
A few months ago I took a photo of an AMC Pacer stopped at a light in front of me. It was the inspiration to start this piece. I’ve had a hard time finishing it until this morning. The pacer had a trailer hitch with a storage rack on it. A strange thing for a small car. But it gave me the idea of someone moving in the little car. As i’m sure many folks have done.
I don’t know who the person is in the story. Perhaps it’s Ian from our last series. Maybe it will connect? Maybe it’s the start of the next chapter? Maybe this is a standalone?
I’m in Mexico City this weekend and recorded this audio snippet from my phone. A jazz trio was playing outside a restaurant. Every road in CDMX is lined with trees. It’s like they built the city over a the forest. The birds are chirping everywhere here and it’s a delightful addition to the music.
Keeping going where you need to go friends,
Robb
Sold Everything