Eavesdropping on the road with Dudley
….1700 miles, but who’s counting?
J. Dudley Gilbert and I took off on a long road trip, just the two of us, to Florida on Tuesday.
My co-human husband, Richard, had meetings in Baltimore and Chicago, so it seemed a great time for us to relocate to a warmer climate, and have him fly down to join us.
Our 7-month-old pup is a fluff ball of energy, or as our trainer called him, a ‘red tornado.’
Miraculously, when we are in the car, he sleeps quietly in his crate until it’s time for him to pee. He whimpers a bit, and we pull over wherever the closest electric vehicle charger is. His bladder and the Kia Wind 6 battery seem to be synchronized.
The downside of his being still all day, however, is he insists on going out of the motel room multiple times until 3:30 a.m. Being outside at night is creepy, especially when realizing how many things are in the grass near a motel room. A used condom raises questions one does not want to ponder yards from outdoor lighting.
I would not want to be forced into traveling solo after being in the company of a loving partner 24-7, but these occasional excursions are soul-enriching.
A four-day road trip without another two-legged person means no negotiating about what is on the radio or what route to follow. A good relationship is founded upon mutual compromise, which means mutual giving in. No two people can be on the same page at all times, so considering a partner's wants is helpful, with the key word being ‘mutual.’ If one or the other gives in more, who wants to be in that kind of relationship?
I settled into this unusual period of audio autonomy just east of Altoona, when I realized I wanted to listen to IPR host Charity Nebbe and her podcast, Unsettled, about women and contemporary issues. Charity will be our guest on this Monday’s noon Zoom call, so I needed to familiarize myself with her work. By the way, she has a fascinating discussion about the film Barbie, which I recommend. I’d been a bit ‘unsettled’ myself about that movie, so I was interested in the conversations she had pulled together. If you haven’t listened, know that whatever Charity Nebbe does - via Iowa Public Radio or Iowa Public Television - is worth catching. And I’m delighted she'll be joining us for the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat to hold workshops and appear on panels about interviewing, podcasting, and writing for audio.
I also started listening to the music of the songwriters coming to the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat in September. I am blown away by all kinds of things I’m learning about this industry and how many talented artists there are in our midst. Jason Walsmith’s storytelling by song accompanied me through Missouri and parts of Tennessee, Now, I’ve tuned my Apple Car Play Okoboji Songwriters’ playlist toward, Kathryn Severing Fox. Holy moly. Chills.
Songwriters face challenges similar to those that writers, small farmers, and filmmakers are navigating. The consolidation of industry’s bottom-line cost-cutting, coupled with the digital world, makes their work available without compensation, leaving only those with independent means to create. What works of art and sound are we going to miss because of this?
Eavesdropping
When dining solo, the opportunity to eavesdrop presents itself. One of my all-time favorite eavesdropping sessions was overhearing a middle-aged man and woman, clearly on a first date that did not go well.
The couple next to me in Tennessee is now my new favorite story.
A man and a woman appearing in their 70s were within earshot. They had a look of familiarity to them, but not the ‘married' look. He had half a glass of wine before him, and she was on her second. He had told her he wasn’t well and didn’t make plans beyond a few weeks at a time. She winced.
“So, do we have anything we should clear up about why our relationship didn’t work?”
She looked down. What had been unsaid all these years appeared to be on his mind.
“Oh, my. I don’t think so. We were in college, having many of the same experiences and living in the moment. But our backgrounds were so different, and I think if we’d stayed together, we would have been anchors around each other’s necks. We would have been committed to making it work, no matter what, and we would have given up too much to make the other happy that it would have been suffocating.
“It’s easy to leave an asshole. I know. I did. In that case, divorce was easy. But it would have been hard to leave a nice, good man, even if it isn’t a fit. You would have wanted to live on a farm, and I needed more people and a community. I craved action of all kinds, and you saw something in the soil, the plants, and acres of land that I didn’t understand. And we were so young. You were my first love. But I believed if we stayed together, it would have been a trap neither of us would take the step to escape.
He smiled.
“I suppose so,” he said. “We’ll never know, will we?”
Charity Nebbe, of Iowa Public Radio, will be our guest on Monday, February 5. We’ll talk about her podcast, Unsettled, among other topics. Subscribers are welcome to join in the conversation starting at noon: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86879634328
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I am glad you and Dudley have arrived in Florida. I hope the same is true of your two-legged sidekick! That conversation you overheard had a whole lot of layers that were leveled out with a simple conclusion. How many of us get to have that kind of conversation with our first love? How many of us want to do that?
Glad you made it to Florida. Some conversations to eavesdrop can be so enlightening.