Robin Grace Soto on family and Texas highways
Park ‘n’ Ride takes place during your childhood, in a moving car. And if I have this right, the Mi Casa audience will experience it while sitting in a parked car.
That’s right. I’m recording it on Sound Cloud and people can play it on their personal devices. It feels more auditorily performative than visual to me. And the story takes place in a car, so. . .
Why a car?
I’ve realized that so many impactful and pivotal moments happen in the car. Those hard conversations where you’re just looking straight ahead. And also because, where we grew up, cars were never traded in or sold, they were just driven into the ground. And then they ended up at the bottom of a hill on my parents’ farm. My parents were hippies, not white trash, so they held on to recyclables, hoping that someday there would be a recycling facility near us. When we sold the farm, there were 9 vehicles at the bottom of that hill, like capsules for memories, each filled with its own kind of trash.
Should I be picturing a specific make and model of car?
An ’87 AMC Eagle station wagon. Mustard, with burgundy interior. There’s no [official] back seat, but my dad has bolted a seat back there and my brother’s in a child safety seat buckled right into the frame. There’s no air conditioning, so the windows are down the whole time. You’ll hear some music that’s really reminiscent of my parents.
I’ve heard a version of Park ‘n’ Ride, and those sounds resonate with me. So do some of the feelings.
Yeah, I mean, what’s worse? Dad not in the car, or being in the car with Mom and Dad at the same time?
Still, you’re very close with your family and a lot of your memories of that farm and those days are magical, in a good way. At the same time, you seem to have decided to take a completely different approach car ownership.
I bought The Girl (my Subaru) in 2012 with 16 miles on her. I named her after Marilyn Monroe’s character in The Seven Year Itch. She was so pearly white and perfect — she looked just like Marilyn in that movie. Unfortunately that character doesn’t even get a real name! Just “The Girl,” which I kind of dig.
And that’s where people will hear Park ‘N’ ride?
Yes. Look for a white Subaru. With 120,000 miles on the odometer. No trash.