The Drive
Page 27
I am free and new again, and everything is as fresh as history revealed and the future imagined. I had no idea the end of a journey could be so gentle and sweet-smelling. The sky and the land relinquish their rigid boundaries and melt into liquid and cloudy horizons. The colors whisper and blend into soothing halftones. The breeze stirs the scent of clover, salt water, mussels, and rain into something like a sigh. It is a place where even dreams can rest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Travel and writing are utterly communal ventures for me. Driving to the end of the road and back again required the love, support, and trust of so many people that the list is hard to begin. But family first, because without Gary’s and mine this book would be an uncompleted journey. To my mother and father, thank you for my tough little sister, for your faith in roads that others never attempt, and for sharing your memories, photos, and dubious sense of direction. To my aunt, thanks for saving letters and replacing stolen credit cards along the way. To Gary’s brothers, sisters-in-law, mother, and still-missed father, thanks for never saying aloud what you undoubtedly thought. And Alex, thanks for being the gut check and reason to return that you probably never knew you were.
On both my first drive down the Pan-American Highway and the second, I collected a new family of fellow travelers and uncommonly kind strangers. Thank you Lawrence, Big Alex, Christy, Nancy, Theo, Marc, Shawn, Susie, Ernesto, Yolanda, Yanina, Rodolfo, Mariamalia, Arnoldo, Hooper, Betsy, Sheila, Dennis, Margit, Tia Eva, Don, Sonja, Richard, Magali, Yamil, Audrey, Mike, and finally my agent, Adriann, and equally brilliant editor, Stephanie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Writer/producer Teresa Bruce comes from a background in public television. God’s Gonna Trouble the Water, a one-hour documentary on the Gullah music and culture of South Carolina and Georgia, aired nationally on PBS during Black History Month and won the CINE Golden Eagle Award. Her first book, The Other Mother: A Rememoir, won the Independent Book Publishers Association Gold Medal for best memoir of 2014, and her screenplays have won top honors at the Beaufort and Oaxaca, Mexico, International Film Festivals.
PRAISE FOR THE DRIVE
“How far would you go to make sense of a tumultuous childhood, better understand an imperfect parent, or bring some peace to the most heartbreaking tragedy a family can experience? In her expertly crafted memoir The Drive, Teresa Bruce travels to the ends of the earth. With refreshing honesty, an attentive eye, and her husband Gary and dog in tow, Bruce takes us on an emotional and thoroughly rewarding ride, artfully weaving an inspiring life story that veers between memory and dreams and the space in between.”
—Franz Wisner, bestselling author of Honeymoon
with My Brother and How the World Makes Love
“Teresa Bruce takes us along on an enthralling mid-life road trip through the landscapes of Latin America and those of her own heart. In a story by turns harrowing and heartfelt, she shows how to dive into the past and emerge renewed.”
—Elisabeth Eaves, author of Wanderlust and Bare
PRAISE FOR TERESA BRUCE’S THE OTHER MOTHER: A REMEMOIR AND DOCUMENTARY GOD’S GONNA TROUBLE THE WATER
“Filled with the wisdom of a creative genius.”
—Foreword Magazine
“Poignant and eloquent, this is a graceful exploration…”
—Booklist
“Invigorating…”
—Kirkus
“… Loving, contemplative and nuanced.”
—John Leonard, New York Magazine