LJ Idol 11: Week 6: Solvitur Ambulando

 

she's impressed, Titi E, doesn't realize that travel is a lifestyle that I have mastered.
 

It’s easy living on the run at all times, except this time is different, I’ll be back this time. I just need to roam. Solvitur Ambulando. I cannot sit still.

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I'm all packed already and free to spend the day saying my goodbyes and fiddling with the sewing machine. The upper thread won't catch and I can't figure out why. Eventually, I give it up as a project for my return. I end up forgetting the brass buttons for my double-breasted vest that I planned to stitch on on the bus. I tie a strip of yellow bias tape around my fresh woolie-locs in what becomes the last minute rush that she had expected and I had planned meticulously against.

Then the car breaks down on our way to the market to pick up snacks for the road. It's the radiator, we find out after almost two hours waiting in the auto shop.

I spend the time talking to my sister who had her first kid eight months earlier. I make plans to amble her way around All-Hallows.
 

I don't look at the clock until we get back to the house. It’s after five. There are black clouds on the horizon and I have twenty minutes left to tuck the last of all into my pack and say farewell. <i>Bendición</i>, bless me, say a prayer to keep me safe, wish me luck on the journey…I’m still not sure I believe in luck or God but their love gives me wings. Restless, persistent, rusty wings.

The sky opens, electrical white-hot bolts sizzle across the highway. The rain makes it difficult for Titi E to drive. I'm grateful that she is willing to aide my wandering addiction. I'm sad that they will still have to deal with the radiator. I am soaked from the rain but early for my bus only to find the the rules have fluctuated.
 

I am put on standby. The bus is full they tell me and I burst into tears, beg them to let me on, I bought my ticket a month ago…I've been at the station for over an hour…I was told we didn't have to wait in line anymore.
 

I am sent to customer service and I can't stop the flow of tears as I'm rerouted, given a voucher to stay at a hotel and three meal tickets to use along the way. I have to wait an hour for the shuttle to the hotel.
 

I take an aspirin, set an alarm for 3 a.m. and finally doze off listening to an audio-book.
 

I'm in the lobby before 4 and drink complimentary coffee with powdered creamer while waiting to be shuttled back to the bus station. I use a meal voucher to buy a breakfast sandwich and a chocolate milk. I almost lose my wallet but someone points it out to me. I give him a dollar and resist giving him a hug.
 

I sit on the floor in front of the door marked “gate B.” I get two seats to myself and get some good sleep.

I get a seat mate and can't stay awake. I want to sit in the aisle but she doesn't want to switch.
 

My M&M's melt in Tallahassee. I have to chase down the baggage handler to make sure my bag is put on the right bus because it's still tagged for Atlanta even though I asked many times if it would be an issue and it almost is.
 

I wait inside trying to win a staring contest with my anxiety. A bottle of coke I bought with the meal ticket explodes when I open it, crouched in the line behind door number 5. Wet wipes to the rescue. The baggage handler teases me as he mops it up…spilling drinks, wrongly tagged bag…I laugh, “this is the strangest Greyhound trip I've ever been on,” I say, instead of if it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all and make absolutely sure I can see my bag in the compartment of the old Trailways bus before I board. The regular greyhound bus for this route broke down and so we are without outlets, Wi-Fi and AC until Montgomery. My water bottle leaks all over my laptop bag, I haven't even made it out of Florida.

The young man across the aisle is sharing his story: just released from lockup, arrested for “gta” at 17 spent five years in county in the not so great state of stupid stupid Florida. A firecracker in the front of the bus raises morale, tells a joke as she'd heads down the aisle to the bathroom. “Anyone going to Oklahoma?” she calls out later. She's a storm chaser. She's looking for a tornado. I’d go anywhere with you baby girl the brazen part of me wants to call back. Let's chase the storms across the lower 48.
 

When we cross the state line into Alabama I'm on the wrong side of the bus to get a picture of the sign. The firecracker gets drunk. The smell of pot wafts from the back of the bus. The girl behind me is horrified. I'm just jealous.
 

After zigzagging in a northwesterly direction for 2 and 1/2 days I lose track of how many times I have to transfer. It all starts to blend together somewhere around St Louis where we have to wait for a new driver for almost three hours and I use my last meal ticket.

Somehow still, I make it to Portland in time to witness the eclipse. The journey by far greater than the destination.
 

I amble back to Orlando eight months later. I’ve been here for two years this time and I simultaneously want to get gone and never leave again.


My body is tired but longs for new locations.

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