Going home

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I´m doing my usual A.D.D. activity. Moving from intended activity - to booty poppin practice in the mirror - to intended activity - to cleaning house. The cycle then repeats itself. Over and over again.

Today my intended activity is packing. After one year and a glorious hot summer I plan a big trip. I leave Buenos Aires on the first day of fall and the day after walk off the plane in Indiana...stepping into Spring. Two seasons...12 hours.

A moment ago I was hanging out my window, pulling out my line dried clothes, and realized for the first time I will be visiting my mom as a guest of her home.

I tell my students I am going home. Excitedly they ask if I´m going to Washington....but sadly I am not going home-home. Instead I am going to the idea of home. To my mom´s soft arms and laughing eyes. I am going to a place where people have known me for longer than I have known myself.

So today as I was trying to pack I thought about visiting my mom´s house. And at the same time I realized I wasn´t packing certain things. I wasnt packing shampoo, or face wash. A toothbrush was thrown into my bag but no toothpaste. I realized that although I will be a guest there are certain advantages of being a guest in your Mom´s house. Yesterday I told her I was bringing some dirty clothes. I asked her...is this weird? No she said...still I couldnt help but laugh. Bringing dirty clothes home is a normal thing. How about when I am crossing a hemisphere to do it?

I remember coming home from almost 6 months in Spain. The first time I was away from home for so long and the first time I was out of the United States for so long. I wasn´t very happy. I had struggled with a new language and culture. With unhappiness, and dependency issues. I had met a boy that I was crazy about and made some wonderful friends (fortunely one of them was from the same city as I and our new found friendship, in Spain, would grow into a strong friendship that still holds and grows sweeter almost 5 years later) I remember being in Barcelona, the night before I left. I called the boy, Carlos, and cried. I didn´t know what to expect. Entering Spain had been filled with fresh and lovely uncertainties. Returning to the States to my home and friends and family was stepping into the unknown and being tied down with a past and history of how things were 6 months before. I now face a trip loaded with the same heavy baggage.

This trip to Indiana will be wonderful. I get to see my mom and her family. My Uncle Jim who never fails to make me laugh and my cousin Oscar who meets lifes challanges with a biting wit and perhaps a glass of beer with his friends. I get to see my Auntie San who has encouraged me to travel and fall in love with the world. For certain some of my Grandma Butch´s recipes will be prepared and hopefuly I will be able to sneak in some soap opera watching with her (although I am 26 and don´t watch soap operas the thrill of being allowed to watch them, something I was only allowed to watch with my grandma, is still a delicious treat). And also, there will be the liberation and freedom of freely communicating with anyone I please, in a place where I am fully fluent in its language. These are the good things about going home.

However, in the past year the life of my family has quickly taken unexpected turns. Turns that deeply will affect my life yet realities that I have not had to face due to living in Buenos Aires. There is the move from Washington to Indiana that my Mom made. My grandmother´s diagnosis of cancer. And the real reason I am leaving. Saying goodbye to my Great Grandmother.

Grandma Bunny is 101. I remember her as being sweet and smelling good. I remember her quiet house, the most beautiful house I have ever seen, and the magical backyard she has that stretches out, in what seems to a 6 year old, a life time. There is her attic which really was a basement filled with old National Geographics, scary grasshoppers, and old dolls and baby carriages of my Grandmothers and coloring books neatly filled in by my mother when she was a child. Grandma Bunny is soft, always fragile, and a pilar that holds up 5 generations. As I grow older I am often reminded of the women in my life. I marvel at their strength and their infectious loud laughter. At the top of all this is Grandma Bunny.

I am scared about what I will find. I have been getting almost daily email updates but I feel that I am refusing to accept some of the obvious because it is too scary to face. I have never had to say goodbye to someone and this is a terrifying prospect.

Tonight I pack. Hopefully only bringing the essentials. Some underwear, socks, warm clothes, and the courage and open mind it takes to go home.

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Comments

[LEW]

Home
Lizz, Those memories are yours forever go to Indiana and enjoy the moment add them to your memories it's never really goodbye. By the way please give them all a big hug for me.

[Scott]

?
I take dirty laundry across 1.5 continents and an ocean when I go to visit my mom. Great grandmothers do seem to have magical backyards, don't they? Are you sure you speak fluent Indianan? I was born and raised in Ohio, and I don't think I speak fluent Indianan. Travel safe, but not so much so that you don't have any adventurous fun.

[Cali]

Wish I could be there
LizzZ, Wish I could be there with you all. Give and get extra hugs from me. love ya.

[Stayloose]

Good Luck
Good luck and take care. Home is simply a state of mind. If there is love and happiness anywhere can be home, no matter how temporary or impermanent. Returning with a positive mind is all you need. stayloose ben