Home

I am so very far from home, journeying across country to help my daughter establish a new home, if even temporary, but possibly longer than that.   We decided to make an adventure out of this, planning on a drive across and up and down to national parks, through a few of the remaining states, we have not seen in previous trips independent of each other. We are driving, miles and time passing behind us.  Pennsylvania the hardest state to traverse. It seemed endless.  Is this intentional, I wonder?  Long enough to make her think twice about it?  Look, we haven’t even gotten halfway across Pennsylvania, it’s not too late to change your mind…every pot hole and random exit seems to suggest….  OK maybe they aren’t random, but they seem so, to me, a New Yorker, proud, if not always near poor from paying taxes to cover the cost of well-lighted thruway rest stops and long stretches of smooth asphalt thruways, that I seem to appreciate now more than ever.  Home, a good place to have.

I find myself thinking of home and family and what it means, now. Here.  Faraway from it.  What it meant before, 5 years ago, ten, thirty, and more…home a series of varied locations, a series of different styled buildings.  A railroad flat in Queens, a cape cod on Long Island, a ranch in New Jersey, a dorm room, the apartment above the bodega back in Queens, a shared almost Victorian in Rochester, a farm house with farmland in Western New York, the tract home back in suburban Rochester, the modest contemporary in Rhinebeck, the eclectic make-shift home in Rhinecliff, and now a new one still.  Johnny Cash singing “I’ve Been Everywhere” comes to mind as I recall these homes while bringing my daughter to her new one.  

I've been everywhere, man.

I've been everywhere, man.

Crossed the desert's bare, man.

I've breathed the mountain air, man.

Of travel I've had my share, man.I've been everywhere.

I once dreamed of having only one.  That one that your children are born in, grow up in, bring their children to visit you in, and you eventually die in, content and happy.  Where sugar plum fairies live and visit each Christmas and every wall is filled with photos and mementos that tell your story for you.  That dream was dashed, and grieved over after the move from one and then another and a few more after that.  I have wanted that place, mythical seeming, where my aprons hung, my children hummed, relatives and friends gathered eagerly with ease and excited delight. I don’t even wear aprons and my children hum wherever they are. Home, where people feel welcome and walk right in.

As I’m driving so far from home, I suddenly feel I need to know what it is, a tangible definition.  Home - noun; the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.  OK, that makes sense, and the permanently part makes me... homeless?. Home – noun; a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates.  Hmmm.  My daughter and I have been driving in a minivan for a solid week now.  Shit is flourishing, all sorts of it, I’m sure.  So we must be home?  The stuff that is flourishing is flourishing because it’s 108 degrees in the shade in this vehicle.  The greenhouse effect is…rather affecting us.  And I will just throw this gem out to the Universe: my first and best ex-husband donated this vehicle to the cause.  He might have been a little giddy about throwing me into the bowels of hell as he proclaimed the air conditioning and the brakes were recently fixed.  I can’t help but feel I am doing my penance in this flourishing petri dish on wheels, but he has just doubled up his bonus points to bad karma and by now he should know….I survive.  It’s what I do.  Best.  With grace even.  Oh my gosh! Look! it’s true…I’m flourishing, I must be home!!! And if the brakes give out, after several full day visits to several Brakes Plus storefronts, I’ll surely make it to that other home in the sky.  Right?

In order to survive in this sweat lodge mobile, happily, I have been driving with a wet pair of old navy skivvies on my arm…hey, we are resourceful…if nothing else. But that’s kinda funny, because we are plenty more.  One especially brutal afternoon of driving from Omaha to Valentine with a pit stop in O’Neil, Nebraska I noticed my driver’s side arm, (that would be the left one, apparently I’ve been in the car too long) was starting to singe from the sun.  This is after all the Oregon Trail we are on, and once your skin starts to sizzle and bubble and spit like a good hunk of bacon, you’re fair game… so I thought it best to wet down said skivvies, apply compress to arm and drive like the wind… (Even with the wet skivvie I am starting to resemble a Nathan’s hot dog on the hot dog roller at Nathan’s Original Coney Island….which reminds me of home.  Home - adj. of or relating to the place where one lives: My father drove me to The Original Nathan’s hot dog stand in 1981, on my way to college to ensure I remembered where I came from…Since I was going to school in mid-town Manhattan, it would be impossible to forget.  I felt very much at home once I was back in the city, from whence I came, plus or minus a few subway stops…. (Incidentally, the skivvies are actually my daughter’s shorts, but skivvies allows for a little artistic license.)

In sports, home: noun; the goal or end point, something to aim towards.  Home in on… My daughter is making her way across country to reach a big goal.  To start fresh. To get healthy, as healthy as she can now become.  Maybe she is going there to live, or to stop worrying about dying.  Sometimes a place can feel like it’s killing you.  Sometimes it can feel like it saved you.  

The further along we drive, the more she questions her decision.  She just learned how to survive in New York, she says.  She had access to all the best hospitals and oncologists, she mourns.  She had a support system a hundred people strong, she continues.  Was she being selfish or irresponsible or making a mistake?  Because we are flourishing, even outside of the greenhouse on wheels, I can assure her, her fears are logical.  Her choice is still good, right.  She is aimed for home in Portland to pursue her MFA.  Sometimes we need to leave home to find ourselves.  I think of so many of my contemporaries that regret not taking chances, following their dreams, seeing the world.  I am happy for her, for her courage.  I know it comes at a cost, but I also know she is cautiously courageous and does not make choices impulsively or without careful consideration and intent.  We discuss her statement about learning how to survive versus being able to live with some ease.  She isn’t losing her support system.  She has made new contacts and connections along the way, working tirelessly on ensuring things go smoothly when she arrives, sending messages, e-mails, contacting friends of friends, alumni, professors.

I have been asked by caring loving friends and family: How can you let her go so far from home?  Why is she going now?  There are many answers to this;  I am letting her go, because she has never been mine to keep.  I could not make her stay any more than I can cure her of cancer, or keep her from feeling anxious, or make pigs fly from my ex’s personal digestive exhaust system.  I have been celebrating her desire to go.  Her determination to make cancer a very big, unappreciated inconvenience, but not a reason to stop living, or limiting her to a small life.  She has strong instincts.  She does what is best. She will always be at home in my heart, never too far from me.

When we make it to Portland, and we will, in spite of the 4 wheeled brake-less petri dish, that has actually helped us to grow and flourish and come together, she will be “home”.  And she will find her way back to me, to home.  I think of tales of long lost dogs that find their way back hundreds of miles away, of birds, homing.   Home- verb; (of an animal) return by instinct to its territory after leaving it. 

I had grieved that one concept of home for a long time.  And grieved some more.  And wondered why it was out of reach for me.  And then I moved again recently, and something happened.  Something good.  Reassuring. Loving.  I realized home was where I decided it was.  It was not what I left behind.  It was not a specific location.  It was not a great failing in me that I was not going to share one place with my children through time.  It was in fact all of those little quotes and messages that are hand embroidered onto pillows, and wall hangings.  Home is where you hang your hat.  Home is where your heart is.  Home is the nicest word there is, according to Laura Ingalls, and well, she had that little house on the prairie and survived all sorts of home style adventures.

Right now, so far away, I know  exactly what and where home is.   Home; where my love lies waiting silently for me.  OK.....he’s probably at work and he’s not the silent type, but he’s waiting and he’s loving and he’s good.  In that best way good can be.  Home is how he described feeling soon after we met, and went out and decided to set up camp to get to know each other.  In trying to describe the ease, and comfort, the familiarity, and yes; love.  Home, he said.  I feel like I’m home.  I can only smile widely, concurring, thinking back. Anticipating my return, home.

Tonight, somewhere east of Portland, and north of Boise, my daughter happily proclaims tomorrow is her one year anniversary. A year ago she received her diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer.  She wants to celebrate her survival. We talk about how or what... we decide she will be home.  How awesome that it coincides, she states, happily.  How awesome I am here with her on this journey, I think to myself, my smile revealing so much love and gratitude. 

Home is where your journey begins.  Home is where your journey continues.  And home is where your journey ends. 

Ahh Home. Let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you.... 

      - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Traveling Companions

I’m toolin’ along on my way to work one summer morning not too long ago, and I shouldn’t exactly be toolin’ as much as racing and speeding, or at this point Captain Kirking my way into the vaporator or vaporizer or what ever the hell he goes in so Scotty can beam him up.  I should be Captain Kirking my way so that I could already be there early or at least not within 999/1000 of a second of just about right on time.  Set up time wasn’t worked into the pay, nor is clean up time but that’s neither here nor there…. except that I don’t have much wiggle time even if I get there “on time”.  But it is summer so I’m toolin’ down the road and I’m listening to songs that are making me happy and seem to be hand picked to match my surroundings and that summery thing that’s going on in my mind just until I hit the 807/1000 of a second mark….when I decide…oh well…coulda woulda shoulda I’ll get there officially on time, let’s go!   And my day will begin.  And the fun will continue. And I will greatly enjoy this opportunity to bring Art and Science and Art and Math and Art and Technology and Engineering altogether with small bright-faced little ones, truly.  Everything will blend together in what appears at first to be chaos and disorder but will somehow gel, and even become almost seamless. Sort of.  Maybe. At least to a few, mad scientist types with globs of paint on their pants and hair sticking up at 73 degree angles and a penchant for plastic zip ties and scotch tape and bungee cords….

But before all that, during the toolin’ part of my day, Lucinda Williams is doing her thing.  And in my head I am giving it my all, a twangy, edgy rendition of Getting it Right With God….so off I go into my mind thinking and working and figuring stuff out, or lately just letting it land where it will and pausing momentarily before pouncing, and sometimes even a bit longer and not pouncing but just taking it all in.  A regular old Rube Goldberg machine, my brain, one thought rolling off to switch on another thought that bounds ahead and stops just long enough before something else is fired up or weighted down….

Lucinda, pure grit and Jack Daniels infused honey, is sanging her heart out.  Getting it Right with God.  This song always makes me stop and take stock. Or stop and wonder what might need a little tweeking or readjusting to get it right with God.  And just then I’m off and thinking that Lucinda’s god in this song can be the 12 step higher power version, it could be some in the flesh, living,  breathing mortal, maybe a loved one, or not quite loved enough one… that might be needing a little bit of compassion, or an apology or maybe just a wave hello.  It could be the Almighty God the Father version, Allah, Buddha, Krishna too (and/or?) you get the drift.  Getting it right with God is a good goal to pursue.

I start thinking of God at the stop light that’s slowing down my journey ever so slightly.  God, the father, God as in Who’s your Daddy?  I know it might seem sacrilege, but it’s my mind and that’s where it took me.  Father…Daddy….what can I say?  I think more on this as I gently release the break and move forward with the green light guidance of an early morning traffic light.  Maybe divine intervention to move my thoughts elsewhere and I just missed another cue?

Maybe we all could benefit from asking, “Who’s your Daddy, your God,  Who’s your higher power, your science and religion?  Who do you need to get it right with?  What’s in your shadow life that needs to see more light?” 

I love Lucinda Williams, that throaty, smoke-graveled voice, her lyrics always leading me to some light.  How can I Get it right with God? For starters, I can get out of the house earlier and make it to work with less stress, I can start practicing what I learned a few years ago at a diversity training workshop, Assuming Goodwill.  These words together have lead to so much openness and consideration.  (The chain reaction of putting them together would make Rube Goldberg happy I’m sure.)  Assume goodwill, when someone cuts you off in traffic or seems to refuse to say good morning for no apparent reason.  Assume goodwill when you start to feel slighted or take something personally.  Prosper. Be kind. Forgive. Assume the other person is preoccupied, stressed, in crisis, or just simply unaware.  No harm intended, no harm needs to be received, choose the good thoughts or work at switching over to better thoughts.  Let go. I can certainly do more to get it right in this life. Rolling down the windows and breathing in some real beauty and joy helps.

I continue on, Patti Griffin is next on my shuffled playlist.  You can feel how large LIFE has happened to both of these women.  They have each lived and loved, traveled far, lost and tried again…and again…and still….a few more times to come.  Haven’t we all?  Some more than others it seems, but we can’t know what goes on with everyone, or even most others, even those we believe to know so closely, can we? Patti has gotten me through some trying times.  No Bad News had been my rally cry for weeks on end, months and a couple of especially grizzly years.   Occasionally a song seems to resonate so directly and personally on so many levels, you wonder how the singer/songwriter could have possibly known…Patti Griffin is one of these artists that connects deeply with life, hers, and yours too, or certainly mine. She just places it all out there in a way we can see, and recognize and own the messes we create or quietly support, until we can’t look past without attempting to take what is ours and want to make a small piece of the world better, by attempting our best.

Tift Merritt brings me around the final bends, and back roads with early morning sunlight sparkling through.  Lilting. Soulful. She can hold on to a note and subsequently whistle it out in a hope-filled coo, or hold it in a moment of tense silence that makes you hear every sad sound ever made onto the world.   As if the world and you and Tift Merritt are joined in holy trinity, understanding each other completely, all offering some different part to a mechanism.  Gears and switches interdependent and symbiotic.  This morning she’s singing Travelin’ Alone. This song has carried me across the country, into sleep, slowly out of a relationship, or at least through to the other side, and into an inner peace still in it’s long-in-the-making-developing stage.   Which unlike the new teacher’s scoring rubric, seeking inner peace should remain in the developing stages until you get it ALL right with God and have ring side seats and VP passes to the banquet.  Inner peace doesn’t come quickly no matter what is being peddled by Dr. Oz or one of his magic pill products that enhance sex and love and weight-loss and reduce wrinkles at the moment.  (Can I have an Amen to that?)

I love to travel alone.  I love those moments of solitude, of going at my own pace, at times too fast, or slowly toolin’ down a back highway toward some new discovery.  I love the freedom to listen to the same song twice, or even a third time because it sounded that incredible at that particular moment.  I especially love the opportunity to decide without discussion or input if I’m going to change course, push on, or stop at one section of the journey just because something caught my eye and I want a closer look, to sketch or photograph or call that friend, now, because I miss them or I’m twirling at some four corners of the Earth and feeling particularly blessed or excited, or maybe just so that I can hear someone else’s voice and take a break from only my own inner one.  I wonder if Tift has seen all the great places I have?  I’m finding me out there on these roads.  And I’m liking what I’m finding, and giving myself the chance to change the stuff I don’t like quite so much. 

Laura Marling, Brandi Carlisle, Ricki Lee Jones, so many, many more…  All these strong, hard living, tenacious women have been filling my car and leading me on.  Next week I am going to make room for a travel partner.  I am looking forward to this opportunity to bend, and turn without breaking.  To carefully consider, to camp, to craft, to create and embark on a journey and find so much more.  My strong and beautiful daughter and I are reinventing the Oregon Trail, to get her out to Portland, for a new life, the start of her MFA pursuit, the start of a health filled, cancer at least contained, bright new future. I can’t wait to see what happens next in her life, and I am overjoyed to share this part of the journey toward whatever lies ahead. 

Maybe we’ll see the collared peccary, otherwise known as the javelina, which has been in my mind, a mythical beast…(I’ve looked for it before.) Maybe we’ll watch a few consecutive sunsets over the “soaring pinnacles, massive fins and giant balanced rocks” in Arches National Park.  See that giant ball of string? A UFO shaped diner? So many wild fricking things just right out there! We’ll keep it right with God.  We’ll get it even better.  We’ll test it and tweak it and emerge knowing…we are living life large with gusto and sometimes an overwhelming fear, that always passes. We love each other deeply, and are able to have a better understanding of the value that comes with knowing that, well past the obligation.  We will have this beautiful opportunity to get to know each other as the women we are becoming, growing into, finding our way toward.  We will be creating this moment in time that leads to the next and brings us across the country in a non-linear, but interdependent path of spiraling connectivity.  (I love Rube Goldberg!) We will be singing, or trying to, and laughing, and crying, and talking, for long stretches of time.  We will be quiet and we will get it right with God from sea to shining sea with the help of many a strong women and the support of a couple of loving, good men.

Godspeed my little girl grown.