“I’m falling out from the window
You’re calling out from your sleep”
– Annuals, Sweet Sister

I’ve decided for some reason to start each one of these posts with a song lyric.  Don’t read too much into them, they’re just from songs that we happened to listen to on the corresponding day.

So this is Corinne and my first big road trip together.  My grandfather is 89, and he’s the last remaining grandparent between Corinne and I, so I thought it would be fun to take the standard Foster road trip to Florida that I’ve taken a dozen or so times growing up.  All we’re missing is a walkman on which to listen to whatever Michael Jackson tape I brought, and my mother passed out in the passenger seat.

Before hitting the road for any length of time, though, we stopped by my parents house first to hang out with the folks, and also start the road trip from the authentic starting point.  Tomorrow we’ll be off to my Great Aunt Phyllis’ place in Winchester, Kentucky, our standard half way point (although it’s really more of a third of the way).

Hanging out with my parents, I’m usually reminded not just of how great they are and how much I love them, but the way Corinne fits right in is so wonderful, and makes me feel like she was sort of always here (which is kind of spooky at times).  My dynamic with mom, dad, and Corinne is just so natural and so comfortable, and witnessing other friends’ families, I continue to be gracious at how genuine and loving mine is.

Similar to how when you have a kid you get to re-live all of the wonders and joyful things about being a kid, whenever you bring a new person into a family dynamic, you get to re-live all sorts of old stories that no longer make sense to tell each other.  As we sat around the kitchen table, we told story after story to Corinne about Bomp (my grandfather Tyrus Cobb Wallace) and Granny (my grandmother Frida Wallace), I can’t help but be reminded of the fleetingness of mortality, and be inspired to somehow immortalize this trip in whatever way I can (blog perhaps?).

I’ve often fantasized about the various ways to immortalize those that mean so much to me, terrified that my own memory won’t be enough.  With Bomp now it’s hard to not feel like I’m running out of time, and there are so many stories of his that need to be known.  I’ll see how many I can recount via this blog and on this trip

As I laid down to go to bed, I see my initials in glow in the dark stars above my bed in my old room in my parents’ house, one of the first of my many acts to somehow leave a mark in the places that mean so much to me.  I have a feeling this is going to be an emotional trip, but the beautiful and incredible woman laying next to me reminds me that current memories are being made that are just as beautiful as the old ones I’m afraid of losing.