Yet our muscles were soothed knowing that at the end of that escalator was the waiting blue line train toward Forest Park, away from O'Hare, toward our lives at home. Seven years after moving here, I still feel something every time I come home. I remember a school librarian trying to instill patriotism in us by recalling her time as a military wife. As wonderful as those other countries are, she said wistfully, I was always so glad to land on American soil again. My only question was, Did Germany have Oreos? My allegiance ran thin. And, if Murakami on my reading list didn't say it loudly enough, it still does. I feel lucky to have been born here with certain freedoms, sure. But I feel pride in Chicago. Maybe because I chose it. Maybe because I came into my own here. Maybe because I met my husband here. Maybe because my dog is here. Whatever it is, I'm always filled with joy at the end of a sojourn.
Two days ago felt different, though. And perhaps it's because over the past year, I've become radically different.
My husband and I spent last week in Vermont. Right. I know. Why? Well, before I was even born, my parents bought a timeshare there. A timeshare is not a vacation home, but the illusion of one for the fading middle class, and terrible financial decision, as far as I can tell. Nevertheless, I've grown up going there at least every other year of my life, until about 6 years ago. That was the last time I'd gone. I was supposed to go last year, but life got in the way. My mom went this week last year.
And that was two weeks before she died.
As I round out the year without her, I've been reflecting. After a year of literal screaming mad grief, I currently find myself reflective. When I told her last year that I couldn't come with her, she said that she had booked it again for 2012 and that I could use it then. "We'll most likely go somewhere else. Hawaii, or Disney," she said.
"The best laid plans...," and all of that.
Right after her death, I didn't think I would be able to make the trip. Too many memories, and too specific to her, and my father, another painful loss in my history. But as the months wore on, I realized how badly I missed this place, this staple of my childhood. And, when I became engaged to my now-husband, I realized that if I was going to share my life with this man, part of my life laid in those mountains. I needed him to be there with me at least one time.
The last meeting I had with my therapist before this trip, I started off with saying, "Well the reason we can't meet next week is because I'm going to the site where I would have scattered my mother's ashes, had she been cremated." So with nothing tangible to take, nor prayers to say into the starry night sky as an atheist, what could I leave? My therapist asked this question, and I had been mulling this over myself. What can I take so I can leave it?
When I was a teenager, my mother and I traveled to Europe. One of our stops was Normandy Beach. She had never been, and her father had actually landed there on D-Day. After taking it in and snapping her photos, she collected a few items: rocks, a pine cone, some sand. She took them home with her. When I went to clean out her home months after her death, I found them all in plastic baggies. Now they are in my home.
On our third day in Vermont, we went on a hike and found an amazing waterfall. As I perched precariously on large boulders, making my way across the water, I looked down and noticed the beautiful stones below me. I plucked one from the millions without thinking too much about it. I didn't have a plan for that rock. I just liked it. It felt nice in my hand. And, when we returned to the guest house after our hike, my husband said, "Baby, I got this for you. We can put it on our shelf." He produced a smaller version of the stone I had selected.
My mother didn't leave anything at Normandy. Her father already had. He'd left literal sweat, actual blood, and a story for her to chase. She took a few simple reminders, reinforcement for a story that had swam around in her head unmoored for decades. And I, my story I mean, is unmoored right now. When my mother died, my last remaining blood relation died. The final tie to my childhood, someone who shared my last name, someone who remembered by father with me. I don't know that I have much left to leave anywhere. So I took. Two rocks. Bottles of wine. Stories about my family that could only be coaxed from my mind by that scenery. Content for plastic baggies that one day my children may find and recall, fondly, that though at one time all I could do was take, it was now mine to give.
1. Mom and I on our last trip to Vermont together:
2. My husband and I this year:
3. Things to take so that I may later give:
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