I’ma Teach You How to Mosey

Late last night I stumbled upon a quote from Kurt Vonnegut I hadn’t read before.

It was the kind of quote that compelled me to toss my phone across the room, hope it spontaneously combusted, and mosey down the busy highway I live off of in pursuit of, well, anything at all.

Instead, I held onto it and began writing this post, of course.

A Change of Pace

My grandpa lives in northern Alabama nestled atop the southern edge of the Appalachian Mountains. A dozen years ago I spent a couple summers on his acreage, leaving my forearms carved by barbed wire and skin stained by the sun.

This is where I learned how to mosey.

I was used to life lived at the pace of a college kid on campus. Fast. Too fast. I was entrenched in routine; A to B and B to A as fast as humanly possible. Wake up, eat, class, workout, eat, class, sleep. Every day.

This ridiculous pace accompanied me down south and my grandpa didn’t hesitate to point it out. I can still hear him say “I’ma teach you how to mosey” after watching me speed walk down the gravel path to a waiting task, one covered in years of dust like soil resting atop a set of bones.

It wasn’t going anywhere, so what was the rush?

I brought an Appalachian pace back with me to Lincoln, Nebraska. It drove my friends crazy on our walks to class, but I didn’t care. I embraced it and told them “I’ma teach you how to mosey.”

So, About that Quote

Kurt Vonnegut isn’t someone I read too often. I see his quotes from time to time pop up on my social media feed.

He’s always intrigued me as a writer, but he sure hooked me with this: