May 4, 2007
We stay overnight at the Comfort Inn in downtown Denver so I can attend the Regina Spektor concert with Amy and Ryan (a birthday present from them) before we leave for Idaho the next morning and Mom can ogle the room service waiters who she suspects are pinch-hitting for their lazy, pot-addicted sons who skip out on work as they look more like mountain climbers with wind-blown hair and sun-kissed cheeks, bearing chicken and andouille sausage quesadillas on fancy trays with tiny jars of condiments and linen-covered trays.
Upon my arrival to the Comfort Inn later that night after the concert, or the big fancy building the Comfort Inn sign appeared to be attached to, I am confused, as are Ryan and Amy who had kindly escorted me the block and a half from the Paramount Theatre. This is not the Comfort Inn of my childhood years: the scummy surfaced pool and sweaty night clerk wearing a wife-beater with yellow stains along the arm seams who, surely as a budding adolescent, I could have dated and started my drinking career early on. However, the Comfort Inn we were standing in, or should I say the marble floor we were standing on, was full of smarmy hipsters, a fireplace, ridiculous amounts of lily arrangements, carefully groomed valets (whom I immediately suspected were having anal sex in the back of the cars because I once knew a guy who was a valet and told me stories about the seamy side of the valet world which included such activities) and conveniently, an all-night room service menu which adjusted its offerings according to the time of day it was. 3 pm? Sandwiches with potato salad and an appetizer menu with dessert offerings at the bottom. 2 am? Burgers and appetizers. Lots of fried items. Coffee. Very perceptive. One item was consistenly available, though: the 1/3 pound American Kobe Beef Burger. Kobe Beef was a meat I had only encountered on the Japanese version of Iron Chef. I immediately ordered it, despite its $14.00 price tag. However, an assortment of nuts was priced at $8.00 so I felt justified. This was also American Kobe Beef and not knowing if that was a type of cow that lived primarily in Japan and maybe they imported just to this Comfort Inn and fed it lilies, I just went ahead and ordered it. Iron Chef! It was delicious and also came with little jars of condiments that must have just been born in a condiment nursery. They had a complimentary piece of tape across the lids, which I appreciated, much like I appreciate the strap of paper across the toilet in hotels. Yet, at 4 a.m. the Comfort Inn became "This Kobe Beef is coming out one of two ends" Inn and I was so tired I fell asleep in the bathroom, wakin gup a half hour feeling somewhat better, but I decide to take a Zantac to cover my bases anyway.
Cinco de Mayo
The alarm goes off and we get our wake up call. At the same time. This is possibly the most annoying thing I have ever heard aside from an air horn at a sporting event, which is one of the reasons I avoid sporting events. That, and sports.
And so it begins.
I load up on my sedatives per doctor's orders to prevent the panic attacks/stress freakouts that tend to cause seizures. I am travellng to a town, population 400 and change with no emergency medical service. No hospital. And, in the worst situation, no mortuary. Upon rearrangement of my carry-on tote bag with the clouds and crow (homemade and pinned on) on it I find that: a) I have neglected to pack my journal; b) the headphones I grabbed to replace my lost iPod earbuds do not fit what I thought was a universal headphone hole, but no, Apple makes their earphone hole slightly larger than others; and c) I have brilliantly left my camera's memory card stuck neatly in the side of my laptop, which is sitting neatly on my coffeetable, two fucking hours away. To top things off, when we arrive at the airport, we are informed we are four minutes late for check-in and to try the skycap who is a nice man who helps us out, but upon arrival in Boise we find our luggage has been lost anyway. However, some guy who got there an hour and a half early lost his luggage, too so it wasn't the skycap guy's fault. He really did try. We also almost miss our flight to Boise because, as skycap guy says, "the gate is about a mile down the concourse." No shit! We are hyperspeeding down the concourse and down into what appears to be Middle Earth. I do think I see a Hobbit running a Starbucks kiosk as we whiz by and I simultaneously shout over my shoulder to my Mom as I see her nemesis, the escalator with no stair option approaching, "Just run down it like stairs!" because we have zero, literally, zero time for her tendency to hold onto the handles and flatten out to a horizontal position, tapping her foot on the metal lip of the edge of the escalator for like an hour. I can actually hear our names being paged for final boarding as a final warning shot so I book it to the gate so they don't close the doors on us, breathlessly gasping, "THAT'S US! THAT'S US!" to the rotund woman in a skin-tight United uniform who does not look amused. My Mom finally catches up and the woman scans our tickets and we blaze down the jetway ramp of Arctic air, only to be greeted by our flight attendant who waves us through nonchalantly.
We are seats 7A and 7B. That means window for me so I don't puke monster everywhere and as we huff and puff up to them, we find some laze bag stretched out across them. I suppose he thought it was safe to make himself a little napping site but he must have seen the look in my eye that said, "Look, man, I don't have much left to lose but my teeth. So if you want to fuck with me then fucking do it or move." Now," because he scampered back to 9B and immediately sat upright and began flipping through a Skymall magazine.
I should mention we have not had time to eat yet and I was ready to eat the laze bag alive. Our flight traded the snack service for a few extra rounds of trash collection because we apparently caught the Hobo Roundabout Flight to Idaho. You also cannot have souvenir plastic wing pins with weakling fasteners. The FAA banned them after the whole 9/11 debacle because apparently some hobo might make a weapon out of a can of Snap-E-Tom and said wing pin, splashing the tomato juice in laze bag's eyes, causing partial temporary blindness, allowing him or her time to jan the bendy wind fastener pin into his fatty man boob and cause a slight sting, rendering the flight...inconvenient. Thinking about how I tried to get one of these pins on another trip, I decide to see if this is indeed the case. The flight attendant seems amiable. She is youngish, my age or so and maybe a mother or could want children some day.
So I invent a child. Her name is Mabel. She is bi-lingual. I base her father off a friend of mine because I can't think of a fake guy. My Mom is wondering why I have to have all these details. I tell her women like to talk about children and I have to know these things in case she wants to chat me up. So Mabel is five years old. Her father manages a restaurant and plays on two travelling soccer teams and speaks fluent Spanish as a second language. He majors in International Studies at CSU and has been teaching her both languages since she was born. Mabel also adores kites. Thus, she has decided she wants to be a pilot and travel all over the world and I promised I would try and get a wing pin for her. Her favorite color is blue. Like a pilot's hat. She attends a.m. kindergarten and enjoys show and tell because I take her to thrift stores on Saturdays and let her pick two things with her allowance. She is taking cello lessons. Right now, she only likes to wear overalls, shorts and pants types. Her favorite bird is the sparrow. Mabel's middle name is Annie because both her father and I love that name. That is my mother's name and that is his favorite sister's name.
I enjoyed having a daughter for five minutes. The duration of the beverage service. That was really all I had the attention span for. The flight attendant did not have the wings but the daughter scam got me some inside info, which I intend to use in the future. Thanks Mabel Annie...whatever your last name is.
I decide to remember how Ben tries to end things on a good note. My flight has been interspersed with a few of those rainfall tear leakings. So I think in my head I am grateful for the book "Catcher in the Rye" and that I am finally reading it. It's amazing. I love Holden Caulfield's name. My uncle plays the mandolin, the guitar, the piano and the fiddle. I will get to hear one of those during my trip or more. Maybe while saying hello to my grandparents where they sleep in the mountains with the trees growing over them while sipping on one of my aunt's ever present Diet Cokes.
After my uncle Marshall, aka Marshall, picks us up, he thoughtfully whizzes us over to Best Buy so I can get ear phones for the iPod and a camera memory card. There is paper to be had at the Market Basket in Fairfield, where we are going. We stop at a Burger King and I am so hungry I actually eat there. I have a chicken sandwich and a Coke or something like that. My Mom gets a kid's meal and an awesome Spiderman toy which she hands over to me because she doesn't get who Sandman is or why it's so funny that he is a spinning top.
May 6, 2007
I have been dreaming so vividly during this trip. I think people have been visiting me in my dreams. Although the only person I can remember is Ben, though there have been others. I think my friend Andrea has been there, too. I dreamed Ben was describing Egrets for hours to me and I was fascinated and puzzled as well. There is a dream for each night. I wish I could remember them all. I think my grandparents are coming to me as well. They are like a second life or a second part of the day and so real and intense and they mean things.
Today there has been a lot of sleeping. We are just very relaxed as though we are calming down. For me, I think I am resting up for the next day when I know I am going to Granddad's house for the last time. When I am not sleeping, I am trying to keep busy. There is a lot of talk about the new house my Mom is building and I want to keep on the perimeter of that, which of course, I feel guilty about, but I can only make peace with one thing at a time. It is a hard thing to hear when I am dealing with the destruction of my tangible childhood. Thinking about all the textures, smells, sights, cold tiles on my toes, everything I could count on coming "home" to becoming a pile of dirt and rubble. I equate the job of bulldozing this house over to the job of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. I can't imagine who would climb in the seat of that machine in that town. I went to the Market Basket to get ingredients for hummus. It was a bit difficult as I believe it is mainly run by local teenagers who don't know what pitas are. I had to use dried minced garlic which didn't ruin it too much. I located some original flavored Sun Chips that would suffice. This is a place that has Trapper Keepers but no garlic. They have "Elk Heat" for attracting sexy elk but no chammomile tea. I tried to go to the coffee shop very early in the morning to get some writing done because I knew my family would be meeting up there but I underestimated my Mom and Aunt's getting up early abilities. I had five minutes of alone time in the coffee shop before they came in. This is a great coffee shop and I sat in the same chair, I realized, that I had when I wrote my Granddad's eulogy the morning of his funeral.
After coffee, we went back up to my aunt and uncle's house, officially known as the Red Ant Rancho. I showed my cousin Jeff some of my pictures and discovered he had a Myspace, which delighted me because now I can keep in better touch with him. Plus I saw him curse on here, so I feel comfortable in keeping in my normal course of existence on Myspace. Which is stupid that I wouldn't feel comfortable, but you know, it's my first family "friend."
May 7, 2007
My trip now seems like a dream. Surreal. It seems alternately magical and nightmarish. I have discovered the rest of the family still thinks I am moving to Idaho when my Mom does. This is all my fault. I guess, being sort of selfish and living in my bit of independence where it is hard for me to let people in on my thoughts and I forget to tell them things I think "I need to tell so and so this" and then just assume I told them. So, then, just being so anxious, afraid, sad, teary, full of dread and mourning concerning this trip, I just projected the idea that I suppose they just knew. Maybe my Mom was talking to my aunt and it came up. I don't know. I just thought they knew. They didn't. So, as a result, several awkward moments came up where I was forced into revealing not only that fact, but also that I was not returning until the new house was built. I had a quiet conversation later with my aunt Barbara, my uncle's wife, as opposed to his sister Barb, about why I could not stand to see any sort of rubble or blank spot or skeleton of the new house in the place where 209 Camas Avenue once stood with the name O.M. Ralph was burned into a wooden plaque on the front of the house. As I was gathering things I wanted, my last chance to peruse what I might want from the estate, like my Grandmother's chenille blanket I slept under as a child and my Granddad's director's chair, amongst other things, my Mom was in the kitchen cleaning for some fucking reason, what they were going to turn into a pile of dirt anyway. Yes, it makes me angry because it's ridiculous because they are pre-wiping away my first and favorite kitchen. They took away the exploding peaches, the frozen, unwrapped peaches. All these things my Granddad was keeping for memories. It was like they were his refrigerated scrapbook. They cleaned out the fridge which we are throwing out anyway. I stood outside taking pictures of everything, including the white clapboard church next door that no one ever used and I was always fascinated by, and I thought, "Why don't they just take what they want out of it, the furniture, the cabinets, etc. and when they're done, just control burn it?" At least there would be some ceremony to it. I would return for that. Not for a pile of memory rubble. As they continue cleaning the kitchen, I am in and out asking if anyone has claimed the records or this or that and no one is listening to me and if they are, my Mom is admonishing me that I cannot take this on the plane and that everytime we come I do this. I take all these things. This breaks my heart because she is so caught up in her building that she has forgotten that this is my breaking down, my undoing of the only home sweet home I have ever known. This is the last chance I have to gather. That, there are mailboxes and kind relatives who will store things for me. Jeff must have heard this and seen the look on my face when I came back in the living room because he said, seamlessly, "Hey, put aside the records you want and I'll make sure they get where they need to." I thank him and turn back quietly to stacking some pillows my tiny child head slept on ona chair I want eventually when I will sleep facing someone who will count as my adult family. I get a lump in my throat as I touch the pillows and the chenille blanket as I think to myself that even if I never get this and I never have this, because for certain I will never have children, that at least I will have the comfort of the chenille and the pillows. Then I cannot breathe and I picture the whole house caving in and I am still in it and it crumbles like carboard and glass is folding in and the Burpee's seed clock is falling toward me, along with the bookcase full of every documentation of my childhood, the only place where pictures of me as a child exist, displayed proudly. It is all falling to dust and the attic is falling in and the bats in the attic are flapping everywhere and I am screaming. I don't want them in my hair but they are flying away but the whole attic is filled with guano and it's coming down to me and everything is literally shit. All I can hear outside is cheers for the new house. I am crushed. So is the house and no one knows I am inside and those monkey masks are in the kitchen which they cleaned but all the beautiful bottles they never touched are broken and the cat magnets have been pressed into the Earth and the wood stove is bent and stooped like an old man.
I take a deep breath and look at Jeff. He is reading a book on the shelf. I go outside. I turn the bell on the middle of the door as I always do as I leave and walk down the steps. One time someone carved me a duck, or that's what they said it was, as we all sat on the steps and watched the fireworks in the park.
Jeff and I both take what seems like thousands of photos of the hose and the endless textures of it. He finds a perfectly preserved squirrel in the wood stove in the living room and we pose it with an acorn and look into having the high school principle preserve it. Apparently, he has a background in taxidermy. We name it Andy, as in "Take your pal Andy with you!" We venture into the shed and I also find, literally, a 40 year old beer. It's top is bulging but it has somehow survived the elements and seasons all these years. I don't even think they make this beer anymore. The top is encrusted with dust and ant carcasses. I will bring it to my friend Ryan. It surives the airplane ride as well. That's a hearty beer.
Intermittently, there are heart-wrenchingly wonderful moments. My family surprises me with champagne, a cake with Clifford the Big Red Dog on it (who we bud the Hysterectomy Dog because I was on the peds ward at the hospital when I had the hysterectomy and received a stuffed Clifford dog from one of the nurses when they were donated to the unit by Kohl's. It sits on my bed to this day) and a present of a strange carbonated espresso drink called Bibicaffe in tribute to my brief stint as an employee of Starbucks. We then watched old home movies from my Mom and her siblings' childhood on the 8mm projector, which I took photos of, and I saw my Grandmother in color and in motion for the first time ever. I shot what seemed like a thousand photos from those three reels and, as the trip goes on I am finding more and more ways to hold onto and preserve my childhood home in small artifacts of my own making, including a small stuffed weiner dog you are supposed to autograph but I have drawn and written poetry on its every crevice regarding my goodbye. It is wearing the last of my Granddad's ties.
The first morning we were here I broke down in tears and explained to my Mom why I was having such a hard time. I told her I was trying to respect her space and her new era, her rebuilding but I feel very alone in my loss and so it' s terrifying. Although I know she has not forgotten this, she is understandably caught up in all the building and planning ideas and the strange sniping pattern we have temporarily developed and has been popping up more and more frequently. I refuse to fight in front of my family but I am sure I will eventually put my foot down and we will have to rock the boat. That's the way you do it.
I hate this.
I am leaving tomorrow. Leaving this town indefinitely. Leaving my family indefinitely. I cannot bear to come until something is in the old house's place with good energy. Still, though, I feel on the outside. My Mom goes back and forth from "This room will always be your room" to making a comment one day to "This isn't YOUR room." Where do I belong then? My home, my only real home base will be gone soon. As I sit and finish this up, I look at the suitcase still sitting in my living room, mostly packed. After all, who really cares if it sits there until I wear all the clothes in it? I had a place to go in my life where ultimately things mattered. People made ham and cheese eggs in the morning. Scrabble tournaments broke out.
Nut bread was made.
Not anymore.
I have to make all that on my own now. As Granddad would have said, "Tie on your apron strings." While incredibly sexist, it says a lot about my life right now. How do I do this though? I'm not a round peg that fits in the round hole.
I suppose I need to know how to open the door Ryan made for me. The hardest door ever. As he says, "It's not always the most obvious way in." This door does not even have a knob and it's roughed up. At least it's tangerine colored. But how the fuck do I get in?
May 8, 2007
I'm home. I'm tired.
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