06 June 2018

Holy Leisure, Batman

4,056 miles. Thirteen gallons of gas between stops. A dozen donuts. Ten states. Six museums. Four Catholic masses. Three barbecue joints. Two beaches. Two state parks. One wedding. One Mississippi River. One broken windshield.

As we traversed the Mississippi Delta and the Atlantic coast, Cerise and I walked in the footsteps of the enslaved and the assassinated, of the Big O and the King; we sang to the tune of Yebba and Abba, to drumbeats and a tambourine; we skipped meals and skipped rocks; we wandered through parks; we smelled jasmine and magnolia and meats smoking on a fire; we skirted around roadkill and planned Cerise's death on a pyre. From the Tennessee mountains to bad margaritas in Mississippi, from the poboys and drunk boys of New Orleans to the pork rinds and early nights of Birmingham, from the sands of Florida to the Glass Doctors of Wilmington, from quiet Shenandoah nights to shouting at a T-ball game under the lights, from wishing love to the bride and bride-to-be to wishing we didn't have to go back home at all.