Alabama to Tennessee

“I’m just happy to pick up two hitchhikers who don’t look like they’re gonna cut my head off.”

We weren’t hitchhiking.

Found an alternate route after we passed through the mountains. Started a little ahead where we left off yesterday – looks like rain. Scott dropped us off at a country road off of the highway that looks like it goes straight to Shelbyville. It really is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s rocky, hilly, brambly… The temperature is perfect, the clouds are hiding the sun. We begin.

After about 20 minutes a woman in a white Thunderbird drives by then puts her brakes on and backs up.

“Where ya’ll goin’?”
“Shelbyville.”
“What?!”
“We’re walking to Shelbyville.”
“Well, that’s where I’m goin’ – I’ll give ya a lift!”
“No thanks, we just started.”
“Well I wouldn’t do it.”

She drove off laughing and shaking her head.
An hour later she drove by again, coming from the opposite direction and honked.


:::::

There are many kinds of waves:

1. One finger up, hand still on steering wheel
2. Two fingers up, hand on steering wheel
3. Four fingers up, hand on steering wheel
4. full hand up, palm resting on steering wheel
5. full hand up and off the wheel
6. nodding

:::::

Stone walls for miles. Low forests. Horses. Cows. One rabbit. Goats making funny sounds and none of them related. Horses running toward us. Cows in stone silence, staring. All the animals are furrier than I knew, preparing for winter. Farmers and oldold houses and newnew houses. Smells like air. Briars and briars. Low lakes (it’s a drought).
We walked all the way from Belleville to just outside Shelbyville (maybe 10 miles away?) and I snuck into the woods over a barbed wire fence and peed. Upon exiting, Jonathan was making a conversation with someone in a car. The car drove away, but as I caught up to him another car stopped. A guy in a cap hollered, “ya’ll need a lift?” We took it.

We were in a red Blazer with three men in camoflauge. Two of them were drunk and on their way to work at the Tyson chicken plant. The driver was in full camoflauge: hat, shirt, overalls. The other guy in the passenger seat was from Northern California but had adapted his accent quite well, said fuck a lot.

“Bought my girlfriend a gun for Christmas.”

no rain

Highway walkin’

Crossed into Tennessee today, making it all the way to Fayetteville. We made our goal before sundown. In the morning we stopped at a Citgo gas station to ask directions. I was mainly looking for an alternative route to Shelbyville to avoid the highway. There were five people scratching lottery tickets at a table with a plastic tablecloth. They all told me there was no other way. I told them I was researching my family and trying to stick to side roads. They told me there weren’t any.

So we walk along the highway. It is not as quiet as last year when I wove through and around the country on side roads. This year I am very happy that my brother is with me. There didn’t seem to be another way on the map, either. Only one road into Tennessee, and it’s the original path. So we must have seen some similar views, shared them with Henry:


(photos to come)


Closer to Fayetteville and only three cars have honked. Walking this way and with someone else is much different. People driving on the highway seem to be preoccupied or going too fast to care that we are walking. No one tried to help or even slow down – much better than my experience last year when it seemed like everyone wanted to help me. The walk, though, is not peaceful. It is noisy and feels more dangerous.

We stopped at Sonic fast food restaurant and ate our sandwiches at their picnic table. It’s strange to think there is nowhere to really rest or eat, but that is strip-mall America. What was here when Henry was here?

Beginning again tomorrow

We arrived in Huntsville, Alabama this evening and are prepared to head out tomorrow. It's pouring rain here and I'm glad 'cause they need it - it's all drought everywhere. This year I am prepared: poncho, yes! Companion, yes! My brother Jonathan is with me and Scott Lawrence is posted in Huntsville in case we need anything. This year I am not trying it alone.

You can read about the beginnings of my journey here http://whyandwherefore.com, a really exciting new project by some incredible folks in New York.

Can't get this quote out of my head:

"Everything is biographical, Lucian Freud says. What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is collage, even genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross."
- Michael Ondaatje , Divisadero

Defeated

When I met my friend David, he was making logs out of ice. I thought it sounded great- he built a refrigeration system and made molds of logs and filled them with water and froze them. He was on his way toward making a raft, which he would eventually float down a river or something, and it was so beautiful and touching. I think he may have worked on it for two years and the day came when it was time to release it into the world. I think there was a crew of twelve people helping him get the raft into the water. It sank right away.

I feel like David must have. Like I just executed a beautiful failure. I have been planning to do this walk since January and here I am, walking away from it. There is something really important here that I haven’t figured out. But when it kept raining, and I stopped walking, it felt like all this preparation and courage deflated, and I was defeated. I probably should have kept walking, because then I would be a hero. But I don’t have the energy to be heroic right now. I am exhausted and depressed and my feet have been wet for two days, not to mention feeling unsafe- a woman walking alone in the rain-hmmm. I don't know what Henry would have done, but I know he wasn't a woman and there weren't cars. He could have been a faster walker than me, he could have hopped a freight train, he could have known where to take shelter since it was his territory, he couldacouldacoulda...

My friend Ben sent me a nice text message tonight commenting on my feeling like a spectacle. It said “you are only a spectacle because you are doing something remarkable”. I can’t help but feel like this was a test run to prepare me for the next time- like this is the sketch. I have to figure out a way to share this story with a greater public, and why it is so important to me to do this. It’s not recognitions if it’s hermetic. I can't do it alone. I was distracted away from my intentions by wondering, when I heard a car near me, if it would stop.

What I did instead of walk today: called Mr. Jim Phillips and asked to visit the graveyard on his land where my g-g-g grandparent’s are said to be buried and where they held camp meetings in tents. He generously comes to meet us and tells us everything he knows (thank you!!!). We are told that there is also a “colored cemetery” nearby, but nothing is marked. The only way we know is because all of the land caved in recently, when some of the wooden coffins finally gave in. (photo above) Wonder if Henry is buried there?

Doesn’t seem anything is left of our family. All the fortune is gone. Thank goodness.

The walk is over. Incomplete. Who wants to go with me next year? I realize now I can't do it alone. It's not about that. I'm nobody without you.

look:

“makin’ a silk purse from a sow’s ear”

Woke up today around 5:30am with a sore throat but tried hard to ignore it, though now I feel it more than ever. Jonathan fell asleep long before me and I didn’t get much sleep with the combo of my anxiety and his snoring. Got going at 6am with a fill-up breakfast at the Waffle House diner. It was full of regulars and we had the sweetest waitress named Francine. Nice to get out of my self-consciousness for a bit as we listened to the morning stories of the regulars, who smiled at us like we were a part of the gang. My favorite interaction? One gentleman said to another, who had obviously not been around for a while, “glad you’re with us- ain’t it a blessing?” to which he replied, “Sorta.”

Maybe I walked 15-20 miles today? I started at 7:30am, after Jonathan and I drove over to the train depot and the possible area where the Carson’s may have lived. (And this we only guess because I have a record of my g-g grandmother writing that she went to school within view of the L and N [railroad intersection] near the fruit stand.) It wasn’t raining, but looked like it might. I started in a residential area on Meridian Street, which, in 1866, was the only trail going North out of town- it soon turned industrial and abandoned. After about an hour I came upon Alabama A&M University. I stopped here for a moment and wrote myself a postcard, then kept going.

I was walking on a 2-lane road that passed through fields and fields of cotton. Beautiful, but nowhere to pee, which became a problem in an hour or so. There were cotton bits everywhere- it was as though it sort of poofed itself to be sprinkled all over this place. Dogs were barking at every house I passed- it kept reminding me that I wasn’t somewhere I know, although it all felt very familiar.

Jonathan is checking up on me every once in a while. I’m text-messaging him from my cell phone every time I make a turn so he can sorta keep track. He thankfully took me somewhere to pee, then dropped me back off (thank you). The land eventually changed from cotton-farming land to a mix of farming and forest. This is when it started to rain. And now it’s ten o’clock and still raining. I kept walking in the rain for about forty-five minutes, then Jonathan came and picked me up because I wasn’t comfortable-- folks were stopping to offer me rides, which was nice, but it also freaked me out a bit. I can’t help but wonder if anyone thought I was a terrorist (don’t know if this fear is as widespread as I think it is) or a burglar, because I was this random walker in a place where no one walks.

So we went back to the library with records of property ownership that Jonathan found at the courthouse. It seems our g-g-g grandfather moved a lot (3-4 times in 15 years; a lot for the late 1880’s), never claimed his wife on deeds (strange) and possibly skipped town to Gadsden, Alabama when he had some outstanding debts. The first property he owned in Huntsville, which is where Mary must have been born and where Henry must have been, is now the lobby of a hospital, pictured above.

Learned:

1. I have placed myself into a situation where I am a spectacle and don’t like it
2. I am bothered by the noise and speed of cars when I am outside of them
3. I can use a camera as defense by showing it as an explanation for my presence
4. When it rains, and you’re walking, people stop
5. It is much more difficult to pee publicly when you are a woman
6. I am much more shy than I expected, considering I love stories and talking so much
7. I now understand the Amish- a desire for quiet and less distraction by technology

It's supposed to rain aaaaallll day tomorrow. The upside of this is that I can continue my research in Shelbyville. I contacted the property owners where my g-g-g-g grandparent's (The Wilhoite's- Henry's owners) are buried and have permission to visit. We'll see what happens. If it's raining, something else worthwhile will happen. I just can't walk in the rain. I feel too vulnerable that way.

"I haven't seen you in a coon's age"

After an unexpected and eventful detour in Gadsden, Alabama (more about that later), Jonathan and I arrived in Huntsville around 2pm and headed for the library. There we met the amazing (!!!) Donna Dunham who helped us sift through records and records trying to locate the residence of our great-great-great grandparents. I thought it would be nice to leave walking away from where Mary may have been born, the way Henry may have walked. Not an easy task. The only documentation was of our g-g-g grandfather being sued- heh!

What we did figure out, eventually, was that the Carson's lived in Ward 2 of Huntsville. When we looked at their neighbors, it seemed our family was surrounded by railroad workers, housekeepers and prostitutes, so we are able to narrow down the general area to the old train depot. Now located under a sprawling highway, my walk will begin there in the morning.

Stay with us

As some of you may already know, I am currently working on a walking project that takes me from Huntsville, Alabama to Shelbyville, Tennessee. The walk is motivated by a letter I found that was written by my great, great grandmother about her birth (she was born this day 145 years ago), and about the slave named Henry who walked the 60 miles to announce it to her grandparents. At the moment I am sitting in a cafe with my brother on the way to Huntsville, and I wanted to let everyone know that I hope to be updating my blog each night (if possible) as a way to document my journey. Feel free to visit for news.

Also, pray it doesn't rain.