Can a Mountain Move You?
It’s this past Saturday. My in-laws are visiting from Back East, and we want to take them West to the coastal town of Half Moon Bay to see some galleries and mooch around. Dan takes the lead in his grey Prius, with his Dad and Stepmom in tow. I bring up the rear in my white Jeep Wrangler with Mom as my sole passenger.
Life for my favorite eighty-five year old can be hard these days. When she hears music she loves, the past animates her present moments. She’ll sing, and I’ll sing too, and I’ll feel like a kid again and recall endless road trips across America with my Mom, where we passed the time by singing all kinds of songs.
So I decide that Kenny Rogers will accompany us on our 30-40 minute trek to the coast, and I pull up his greatest hits on Spotify. “Lucille” comes on first, with its raucous assertion that a woman has left her husband and four children while the crops await harvest in the field. Up ahead, the light turns red. I shift the car into neutral and brake to a stop behind Dan. Mom and I pass the time waiting for the light to change by banging our loud alto voices against the windows and soft top of the car.
In “Lucille,” it’s clear that Kenny Rogers is taking the side of the jilted husband. But when the light turns green, and I shift into first to take off again, I picture Lucille making her getaway in a Jeep like mine. Or maybe even in a pickup truck, which just might be my next vehicle. Sometimes life can get to be too much. Sometimes it feels like such a relief to take charge of something.
Soon the houses and businesses of Palo Alto are behind us. The road opens toward the smooth yellowing foothills which stand between our city and the mountain range, on the other side of which is the majestic Pacific Ocean. Spotify tees up the next song: “Lady,” where Kenny Rogers croons a testimony to the ache of love, in lyrics penned by Lionel Richie. I speed up the Jeep. It pulls like an eager thoroughbred toward the crest of this first big rise, and wails a bit as I fail to keep up. I shift into third, enjoying listening to the car ask for what it needs. Mom and I and Kenny Rogers and the Jeep are in some kind of harmony, while I remain mindful of Dan ahead of me, this human to whom I’ve been tethered for the better part, I mean the best part, of my life.
Soon we leap onto Highway 280 – the seam where the foothills meet the mountains which stand between this land and the Pacific – dubbed the most beautiful freeway in the world. More golden mounds of California countryside burst into glorious view, more and more and more of them, dotted with lone green trees that will give way to full forests when we scale the mountain, and the air will turn cold, and we will get to the ocean. Typically, I drive faster than Dan does, but my job today is to follow behind. It feels like an obedience I could use more of sometimes.
Still, I drive hard. And I sing about love. And I cry.
For so many years I thought I'd never find you You have come into my life and made me whole Forever, let me wake to see you each and every morning Let me hear you whisper softly in my ear
I wipe the tears off my cheeks, and ask my spirit why I’m crying. It answers: AWE. For California itself, for my beloved life partner Dan, and for my Mom, on a certain journey, however far.
xo
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So much love to your beautiful mom.
This is lovely Julie. I am a cryer — at songs, at beauty, at hugs from family — and it used to embarrass me. Now I know it is just a reflection of my humanity.