Dusty Dirt Roads

Below is an extract I wrote that still hits my heart.

It's an extract from collection one of Stories with a Sunday Roast.

It's funny, cause often when we get the chance to read back what we have written a year or more later there's a soup of emotions that can go alongside.

Disbelief.
Wonder.
Awe.
Flutterings.
Nostalgia.

I still love me a dusty dirt road, and still avoiding those potholes like the plague.

Enjoy this extract, from my heart to yours.

**

There’s something quite nostalgic for me driving between moist, dense eucalyptus trees down a windy dirt road mazed with juddering potholes. It’s a sweet goldmine of chew over time, enriched with a great Spotify playlist while the kids weave their chatting through my thoughts somewhat effortlessly. Maybe my love formed as a little Linda because my grandparents lived at the top end of a steep dirt road in the old, yet revitalizing, apple country. Maybe it’s because the city bustle and diminished starry skies are further behind with each turn of the tires. Maybe it's the somewhat unscripted conversation that flaky Wi-Fi and nature alone allow for.

The dirt roads I love to drive are often secluded and lead to slightly secretive campsites where we don’t have to lock the car, can hear the creek filled with swimming holes, and bird song as the main source of companionship. Sure, there are some added risks when that rubber hits the dirt. The car suspension gets a bit more of a workout. If you have a white car, it’s bound to be tinged with a thick coppery coat until the next wash. You drive in the company of possums, wallabies, potoroos, maybe even deer and elk depending on your current geographical location. Dents, dings, and bruises from rocks drumming and flicking around you add to the risk mix. And, speaking from experience, it's usually a good idea to keep those windows closed tight!

Yet, my dirt road driving days are not as regular as I'd like them to be anymore. While I still need to dodge a few potholes in our own suburban dead-end avenue, it isn’t quite the same experience. By extension, my driving skills seem mundane, less challenging, and automatic on city streets compared with driving those powdery dirt tracks.

Casting back, I think I can remember my very first dirt patch of road endeavour. We had driven to Burnie to visit my Poppy and extended family in Launceston. For whatever reason, we had also hired a car to transport us on the three-hour journey to the north of this little island. A maroon Mitsubishi Magna, likely top of the line at the time, yet not so common on the road all these years later. Here’s what I recall. A rocky semicircle type ‘carpark’ and my dad with delight in his eyes, “Wanna take it for a spin?” Now, ‘spin’ at that time may have been quite an ambitious, and far from true, phrase. I tried to mask my trembling hands and noticed every beat of my juddering heart. Forwards, left, right, reverse—all tenderly selected on the gear stick, possibly with added teenage clunkiness at a granny-like speed.

The thrill and adrenaline ran through my teenage veins with the dreams and possibilities of independence and maturity. While it was only a short snatch of white-knuckled adventure, for some reason it has stuck with me, like the dust to a white car in a sea of hazy nostalgia.

**

To read the rest of this chapter and others like it, I would love you to visit www.lindabonney.com/books