Gonna put on my traveling shoes

The woman at the tire store came into the waiting room with a lovely Good morning! to which I answered good morning how are you and she said Exquisite! she was my mother’s age and she was exquisite in her red shoes, matching purse and jacket. She then said, I see you still are wearing a mask, does it bother you that I’m not? I said not at all as everyone must do what is right for them, and I will stay across the room. Then she said I have such trouble with masks, they won’t stay where they belong, they’re always going up and covering my eyes, it’s not safe! To think I’ve lived this long without knowing what a weirdly shaped face I have, and we shared a wonderful, long laugh.

When she spied my book, we had another a quick chat. Then my car was ready, (tires and brakes checked great). My new friend and I exchanged have a great day be safe, pray for peace and I went out to my car and the display popped up “Low Battery Charge”.

Choice cursing. 😠


Here's a traveling poem of sorts:

The first time I arrived in Amarillo Texas
it was snowing. I was on a Greyhound bus,
eighteen hours into a trip to some place
I thought I needed to be but failed to get to.

The second time I arrived in a Yugo
after two days drive from Virginia.
I was in possession then of a life
that surprised and scared me
in its order and wonder.

The second time it was hot, very hot,
July heat. The first time it was some
winter month. I don’t know now,
just like, now, I don’t know how old I was.

But the third time I was in Amarillo
I was almost sixty, so close to tears
that for the past few days we’d
only been able to laugh at our hurt

for fear of the hole awaiting us.
A hole as big as this western sky
a hole as wide and deep, as dense,
as Texas. A hole that held its own

gravitational pull upon us. One
we needed to drive away from

to ever see clearly.