Travel Scribblings (part two)
I deplane into the calm of the San Diego Airport, a shocking contrast from Chicago's chaos, and am whisked into five hours in the car running errands with cousin Catie and her four children. I hear, "Hey Jessi!" more times than I can count, mostly to ask what my name is. We play "Who Am I?" and talk about Star Wars. Catie and I discuss her business, and my college plans, and arrangements for my trip. She apologizes many times for the crazy adventure, and I tell her what I'm telling myself--I need the adventure.
...
I will stay with Laura. On this one decision, I stand my ground.
Everyone offers to keep me, everyone has a clean spare bedroom. Everyone but Laura. Laura has four boys who always end up in her bed anyway, so all she has to offer is their lego-scattered room. There are children everywhere, not just her own, but next door neighbors' and the two from the family that lives with them. Her best friend is in from Alaska, which I wasn't aware of, and there are three big, loud dogs that bark at four in the morning. She runs a home business and her SWAT-team husband is rarely home. They stay up late and eat at random times in random places. As of this week, she also owns a horse. I can't articulate why I want so badly to stay with her, and a few times I almost go back on the decision.
But as I sit up eating ice cream with Laura and her best friend Brittany, who, by the way, moved to Alaska on a whim after a road trip there, and we talk about boys, and school, and living in community with others, I find the words for why I wanted to be here:
I could have easily stayed with the others. But Laura I could live with.
...
Just before six o' clock the next morning, someone opens my door. I roll over and see Jeffrey, Laura's second son. "Mom?" he says, tearful.
"Are you lookin' for your mommy?" I stand up, half asleep, and put a hand on his back, leading him to Laura's room. "C'mon, sweetie, lets go find her." I lean into her room to see her sleeping form, and I wonder what brought him all the way to me. He wanders in and I go back to bed.
In the morning Laura tells me he sleepwalks.
...
Laura's home comes with the most eclectic cast of characters. Laura herself is a loving, go-with-the-flow conversationalist with the generosity of God. In twenty-four hours, I can tell she wants to invest in me, and we sit down for snatches of conversation when the kids don't interrupt.
Her husband, Jason, who is my mother's cousin, is a sheriff's deputy and SWAT officer. He rarely comes home, and even more rarely sleeps, but somehow still makes time to play the keyboard in a band.
Their four boys are the sweetest children on the planet. Jacob is five, the responsible oldest. Jeffrey is four, a cheeky little redhead. Jon Jon is the cuddliest little blond three-year-old, and Jared is the smiley four-month-old.
Zach and Sydney live with Lauren's family for the sake of living in community. They have two children, Elba and Oden. Their parenting is as free as Laura and Jason's--all the children roam and entertain themselves.
Leilani, Savannah, and Zoe are the next door neighbors' kids who are always over. Joulane, their mother, is as nice as the rest of them. She and Laura compare mothering methods like sisters.
Brittany, Laura's best friend, accepts and welcomes me in as if it's her own home. She is an adventurer at heart, loves to throw big potlucks with all her Alaskan friends, and dreams and waits for true love.
They are all people with pasts, broken and poured out. But they are broken and poured out for each other, and that's what makes me feel so at home.
...
Today is beach day, and taking four boys and a girl to the beach is not for the faint of heart. I help Jon Jon slip into his swim trunks. He holds onto my shoulders, and steps with first one leg and then the other, and I notice for the first time that his belly button is an outtie. "Yo' p'etty," he says, so quietly I can hardly understand.
"What?" I lean in close.
"Yo' p'etty." He hardly looks me in the eye. I am touched.
...
We stay at the beach for three hours. I lay out on a towel and hope for a tan and we talk about life. I tell them I want to learn to surf. They tell me about shark sightings near shore. The kids and I dig for sand crabs in the waves, and I find an eight-legged crab small enough to hold. The boys warn me not to let him pinch.
...
Brittany reaches the beach as we are leaving and we say our goodbyes. She will stay in a hotel tonight and fly out tomorrow. I'm sad to see her go.
...
"You're pretty." Jeffrey says it in passing and I don't know if I heard right.
"What?"
"You're pretty!" He slips into the house. Twice in one day. My heart melts.
...
Jason comes home, in full uniform, looking worn. Laura meets him at the back door in her long pink dress, and they talk, the king and queen of their kingdom. The kids and dogs run around them, and I watch them struggle through the weariness and difficulty of marriage in a real, busy life. He leaves again, and she looks like something is missing.
...
She sifts through the mail.
"Mom!" Jeffrey comes in holding his swim trunks.
"Huh?" she keeps her eyes on the letter she's reading.
"Can I play in the mud?"
"Sure."
He leaves his trunks on the seat beside me, and runs out, his bare little bottom the only part of him that isn't sunburnt.
"Mom!" Jacob comes in as Laura finishes the letter. "Can Jeff go in the mud without his pants?"
"No, tell him to keep his pants on."
Jacob runs out without acknowledging this request.
"His pants are right here," I say, pointing to the seat.
"Oh," she says, finally fully aware. "Well, guess it's too late now."
...
I wake to Oden's crying across the hall, and a text from my roommate back home about her new tattoo. I text Camryn back, and Oden calms. The house, for once, is quiet. I had planned to get up early, but I see now there is no need. I stay in bed.
...
Today is pool day, but first I walk up to my aunt and uncle's house to grab a few things my mother and sister left behind. Jacob helps me open the gate.
"Be careful of cars, okay?" He is five and still guards me like a brother. "We'll pick you up."
I set off and stop on the way to enjoy the view. There are so many things to look at. My phone camera can't capture it all.
My uncle has been in the hospital, which is the reason I'm here, but he's home now, and the physical therapist is working with him when I walk in.
"Knock knock," I say.
"Hello." Aunt Debbie's voice is warm even in her grief and stress. Uncle Johnny almost died last week; I'm walking into the presence of a miracle.
"Granddaughter?" the therapist asks.
"Niece," Aunt Debbie says, then looks at me. "I have no idea what your mother left, do you know what you're looking for?"
"I do." I ascend the staircase slowly, reflective, wondering if I still remember the way from six years ago when I stayed here. It's like walking with my eyes closed, my memory stumbling into things I had forgotten...but I reach the room. The conversation downstairs is muffled, but I enjoy exploring alone and yet not alone. I gather the things I need and come back down.
"When do you go home?" Aunt Debbie asks after the therapist leaves.
"Tuesday."
"So you're missing Father's Day?"
"And my mom's birthday, it's so bad."
"When's your mom's birthday?"
"Tomorrow."
Aunt Debbie pulls out her iPad. "Well, what does she like that we could send her?" We discuss some things and she struggles through the ordering process. "You two talk," she says to me and Uncle Johnny. "I can't do two things at once."
I look at him, and he looks at her, and tells her to wait until later. They're tired, both of them, physically and emotionally. He complains that he doesn't have energy, and she reminds him what the doctor said: He almost died a couple times. All his energy is going to restoring his body.
I sit with them a few more minutes, until Laura comes and Johnny gets tired. There's not much we can do except be present. I'm learning the best way to live is just to show up.
...
I didn't bring a swimsuit.
I knew I'd regret it, but I was trying to pack light and my mom and sister hadn't needed theirs. A couple of times I almost threw it in the bag for such a time as this. Now I wish I listened to that wiser, impulsive self, but alas--no suit.
"You don't even have it?" Laura looks slightly aghast at me.
I shake my head, embarrassed.
"Well you can borrow one of mine!"
"Will it fit?"
"Yes, I have some from when I was younger, c'mon!" She leads me back inside, leaving all the kids who are finally ready to go in the running car, and pulls out a box from deep in her closet. "These are my pre-pregnancy bathing suits that I'm hoping to someday fit into again," she says with a coy smile, tossing them one by one onto her bed. "There's this one, and this one, and this one's cute, and this one..." Navy, aqua, salmon, black--and all one piece and all my size! It's a downright miracle!
"Okay," I say, shyly pulling a few from the stack. "I'll try these on, I'll go quick!"
"It's no problem!" she calls as I scamper to the bathroom. I slip into the one closest to my size and look in the mirror. It's perfect. Navy blue with white stripes, ties around the neck, highlights all the right features. I tug on jean shorts over it and meet Laura and Sydney in the kitchen.
"This one's perfect," I say.
"It looks so good!" Laura says, studying me.
"Oh my gosh, look at your boobs," Sydney says, and I laugh at her blunt compliment. I am learning Sydney says what she thinks, all and only that. "You have such a cute little body."
I duck my head. "Thanks."
"You can have that one," Laura says as we get in the car. "It's yours."
...
We reach the pool at Catie's house and it looks like heaven. Crystal blue water with palm trees overhanging, green grass, a cart of food and drinks waiting for us on the veranda, and chairs beneath a large umbrella by the poolside. I exhale and let down my guard a bit.
A friend sends me a picture of her view by the lake. It is the most perfect day in the Midwest--the bluest of skies, puffy clouds floating harmlessly by, and the stillness of the water reflecting it all. Most other times, that would be exactly my request for a perfect day. Today, I have found a new ideal.
"Bet my view is better," I type out.
"Haha," she replies.
I snap a picture and send it to her.
She agrees with me.
...
"Michelle's coming to drop off the car for you," Catie says while looking at her phone. I groan. This car. It has given me endless trouble. They offered, and I did not firmly turn them down, because truly, I wanted to drive in California...I was just afraid. Now I was apprehensive and didn't want to bring my pregnant cousin all the way out from Temecula in the heat just to drop off a car I might not use. "She's just doing it. If you don't use it, they'll take it back."
"Okay." I shrugged. At least the decision was made.
...
Michelle comes to drop off the car and we talk about plans, and family, and what I'm doing for the rest of my stay. And then Laura leaves with the boys to go take care of her mustang, and Michelle follows, and I am left to wait for my night to begin.
I text a few friends, send my travel notes to one of them. She responds, "How do you do that? You just make life not boring."
"Life isn't boring," I say, pondering. "It's just no one pays enough attention."
...
As soon as I was with her, Catie invited me to a girls' night with her small group from church. They were going to see Wonder Woman, which intrigued me, and so I said yes.
Now, I am nervous. All of these women are strangers, and in completely different stages of life. I dread feeling out of place. Why I agreed to this, I'm completely sure.
Catie comes to pick me up and we drive to the theatre and just talk. It is these moments I treasure the most, intimate conversations with my faraway family. I've never before had the opportunity to spend this much quality time with them; I soak it in.
We arrive and I meet the women and immediately their names start falling out of my head. I used to be good with names. I am entering the strange chapter of my life in which I am very aware that I am young, and yet also waking to the reality of my own aging. I don't think I'm losing my memory or getting old; I have simply reached a capacity of relationships where new names and faces become more easily filtered. Only the truly important ones stay.
Nonetheless, the women capture me. They have a lightness and wit about them that only comes from knowing Christ, good friends, and large amounts of chocolate--and a whole lot of personal history. As we talk over dinner before the movie, I glimpse enough of their stories to wonder just how impactful their testimonies might be. Perhaps I will never know, this side of heaven. But C. S. Lewis said it--"The Present is the moment in which time touches eternity." So I show up to this moment. I pay attention.
...
At some point after the movie, one of the women starts talking about her friend who always has a word for the year. "She requires nothing of herself except that word," the woman says, and all the others nod in agreement.
I listen, and remember: I have a word for this year. I haven't thought of it in a while.
My word is "savor."
...
We come home at midnight. I happen to look up and smile at God's surprise.
We never see that many stars where I come from.
...
Laura meets me at the door. "Sorry we're so late," I say.
"No worries! I've been up cleaning! Your room finally looks the way I wanted it to look when you got here."
I laugh. "Well, thank you."
"Do you need anything?"
"I think I'm good."
"Okay." She smiles. "There's a candle in your room so it doesn't smell like boy anymore. Just blow it out when you're ready."
"Thank you." I smile back at her. "Goodnight. Love you."
I slip into my room, change into pajamas, and blow out the candle.
...
I will stay with Laura. On this one decision, I stand my ground.
Everyone offers to keep me, everyone has a clean spare bedroom. Everyone but Laura. Laura has four boys who always end up in her bed anyway, so all she has to offer is their lego-scattered room. There are children everywhere, not just her own, but next door neighbors' and the two from the family that lives with them. Her best friend is in from Alaska, which I wasn't aware of, and there are three big, loud dogs that bark at four in the morning. She runs a home business and her SWAT-team husband is rarely home. They stay up late and eat at random times in random places. As of this week, she also owns a horse. I can't articulate why I want so badly to stay with her, and a few times I almost go back on the decision.
But as I sit up eating ice cream with Laura and her best friend Brittany, who, by the way, moved to Alaska on a whim after a road trip there, and we talk about boys, and school, and living in community with others, I find the words for why I wanted to be here:
I could have easily stayed with the others. But Laura I could live with.
...
Just before six o' clock the next morning, someone opens my door. I roll over and see Jeffrey, Laura's second son. "Mom?" he says, tearful.
"Are you lookin' for your mommy?" I stand up, half asleep, and put a hand on his back, leading him to Laura's room. "C'mon, sweetie, lets go find her." I lean into her room to see her sleeping form, and I wonder what brought him all the way to me. He wanders in and I go back to bed.
In the morning Laura tells me he sleepwalks.
...
Laura's home comes with the most eclectic cast of characters. Laura herself is a loving, go-with-the-flow conversationalist with the generosity of God. In twenty-four hours, I can tell she wants to invest in me, and we sit down for snatches of conversation when the kids don't interrupt.
Her husband, Jason, who is my mother's cousin, is a sheriff's deputy and SWAT officer. He rarely comes home, and even more rarely sleeps, but somehow still makes time to play the keyboard in a band.
Their four boys are the sweetest children on the planet. Jacob is five, the responsible oldest. Jeffrey is four, a cheeky little redhead. Jon Jon is the cuddliest little blond three-year-old, and Jared is the smiley four-month-old.
Zach and Sydney live with Lauren's family for the sake of living in community. They have two children, Elba and Oden. Their parenting is as free as Laura and Jason's--all the children roam and entertain themselves.
Leilani, Savannah, and Zoe are the next door neighbors' kids who are always over. Joulane, their mother, is as nice as the rest of them. She and Laura compare mothering methods like sisters.
Brittany, Laura's best friend, accepts and welcomes me in as if it's her own home. She is an adventurer at heart, loves to throw big potlucks with all her Alaskan friends, and dreams and waits for true love.
They are all people with pasts, broken and poured out. But they are broken and poured out for each other, and that's what makes me feel so at home.
...
Today is beach day, and taking four boys and a girl to the beach is not for the faint of heart. I help Jon Jon slip into his swim trunks. He holds onto my shoulders, and steps with first one leg and then the other, and I notice for the first time that his belly button is an outtie. "Yo' p'etty," he says, so quietly I can hardly understand.
"What?" I lean in close.
"Yo' p'etty." He hardly looks me in the eye. I am touched.
...
We stay at the beach for three hours. I lay out on a towel and hope for a tan and we talk about life. I tell them I want to learn to surf. They tell me about shark sightings near shore. The kids and I dig for sand crabs in the waves, and I find an eight-legged crab small enough to hold. The boys warn me not to let him pinch.
...
Brittany reaches the beach as we are leaving and we say our goodbyes. She will stay in a hotel tonight and fly out tomorrow. I'm sad to see her go.
...
"You're pretty." Jeffrey says it in passing and I don't know if I heard right.
"What?"
"You're pretty!" He slips into the house. Twice in one day. My heart melts.
...
Jason comes home, in full uniform, looking worn. Laura meets him at the back door in her long pink dress, and they talk, the king and queen of their kingdom. The kids and dogs run around them, and I watch them struggle through the weariness and difficulty of marriage in a real, busy life. He leaves again, and she looks like something is missing.
...
She sifts through the mail.
"Mom!" Jeffrey comes in holding his swim trunks.
"Huh?" she keeps her eyes on the letter she's reading.
"Can I play in the mud?"
"Sure."
He leaves his trunks on the seat beside me, and runs out, his bare little bottom the only part of him that isn't sunburnt.
"Mom!" Jacob comes in as Laura finishes the letter. "Can Jeff go in the mud without his pants?"
"No, tell him to keep his pants on."
Jacob runs out without acknowledging this request.
"His pants are right here," I say, pointing to the seat.
"Oh," she says, finally fully aware. "Well, guess it's too late now."
...
I wake to Oden's crying across the hall, and a text from my roommate back home about her new tattoo. I text Camryn back, and Oden calms. The house, for once, is quiet. I had planned to get up early, but I see now there is no need. I stay in bed.
...
Today is pool day, but first I walk up to my aunt and uncle's house to grab a few things my mother and sister left behind. Jacob helps me open the gate.
"Be careful of cars, okay?" He is five and still guards me like a brother. "We'll pick you up."
I set off and stop on the way to enjoy the view. There are so many things to look at. My phone camera can't capture it all.
My uncle has been in the hospital, which is the reason I'm here, but he's home now, and the physical therapist is working with him when I walk in.
"Knock knock," I say.
"Hello." Aunt Debbie's voice is warm even in her grief and stress. Uncle Johnny almost died last week; I'm walking into the presence of a miracle.
"Granddaughter?" the therapist asks.
"Niece," Aunt Debbie says, then looks at me. "I have no idea what your mother left, do you know what you're looking for?"
"I do." I ascend the staircase slowly, reflective, wondering if I still remember the way from six years ago when I stayed here. It's like walking with my eyes closed, my memory stumbling into things I had forgotten...but I reach the room. The conversation downstairs is muffled, but I enjoy exploring alone and yet not alone. I gather the things I need and come back down.
"When do you go home?" Aunt Debbie asks after the therapist leaves.
"Tuesday."
"So you're missing Father's Day?"
"And my mom's birthday, it's so bad."
"When's your mom's birthday?"
"Tomorrow."
Aunt Debbie pulls out her iPad. "Well, what does she like that we could send her?" We discuss some things and she struggles through the ordering process. "You two talk," she says to me and Uncle Johnny. "I can't do two things at once."
I look at him, and he looks at her, and tells her to wait until later. They're tired, both of them, physically and emotionally. He complains that he doesn't have energy, and she reminds him what the doctor said: He almost died a couple times. All his energy is going to restoring his body.
I sit with them a few more minutes, until Laura comes and Johnny gets tired. There's not much we can do except be present. I'm learning the best way to live is just to show up.
...
I didn't bring a swimsuit.
I knew I'd regret it, but I was trying to pack light and my mom and sister hadn't needed theirs. A couple of times I almost threw it in the bag for such a time as this. Now I wish I listened to that wiser, impulsive self, but alas--no suit.
"You don't even have it?" Laura looks slightly aghast at me.
I shake my head, embarrassed.
"Well you can borrow one of mine!"
"Will it fit?"
"Yes, I have some from when I was younger, c'mon!" She leads me back inside, leaving all the kids who are finally ready to go in the running car, and pulls out a box from deep in her closet. "These are my pre-pregnancy bathing suits that I'm hoping to someday fit into again," she says with a coy smile, tossing them one by one onto her bed. "There's this one, and this one, and this one's cute, and this one..." Navy, aqua, salmon, black--and all one piece and all my size! It's a downright miracle!
"Okay," I say, shyly pulling a few from the stack. "I'll try these on, I'll go quick!"
"It's no problem!" she calls as I scamper to the bathroom. I slip into the one closest to my size and look in the mirror. It's perfect. Navy blue with white stripes, ties around the neck, highlights all the right features. I tug on jean shorts over it and meet Laura and Sydney in the kitchen.
"This one's perfect," I say.
"It looks so good!" Laura says, studying me.
"Oh my gosh, look at your boobs," Sydney says, and I laugh at her blunt compliment. I am learning Sydney says what she thinks, all and only that. "You have such a cute little body."
I duck my head. "Thanks."
"You can have that one," Laura says as we get in the car. "It's yours."
...
We reach the pool at Catie's house and it looks like heaven. Crystal blue water with palm trees overhanging, green grass, a cart of food and drinks waiting for us on the veranda, and chairs beneath a large umbrella by the poolside. I exhale and let down my guard a bit.
A friend sends me a picture of her view by the lake. It is the most perfect day in the Midwest--the bluest of skies, puffy clouds floating harmlessly by, and the stillness of the water reflecting it all. Most other times, that would be exactly my request for a perfect day. Today, I have found a new ideal.
"Bet my view is better," I type out.
"Haha," she replies.
I snap a picture and send it to her.
She agrees with me.
...
"Michelle's coming to drop off the car for you," Catie says while looking at her phone. I groan. This car. It has given me endless trouble. They offered, and I did not firmly turn them down, because truly, I wanted to drive in California...I was just afraid. Now I was apprehensive and didn't want to bring my pregnant cousin all the way out from Temecula in the heat just to drop off a car I might not use. "She's just doing it. If you don't use it, they'll take it back."
"Okay." I shrugged. At least the decision was made.
...
Michelle comes to drop off the car and we talk about plans, and family, and what I'm doing for the rest of my stay. And then Laura leaves with the boys to go take care of her mustang, and Michelle follows, and I am left to wait for my night to begin.
I text a few friends, send my travel notes to one of them. She responds, "How do you do that? You just make life not boring."
"Life isn't boring," I say, pondering. "It's just no one pays enough attention."
...
As soon as I was with her, Catie invited me to a girls' night with her small group from church. They were going to see Wonder Woman, which intrigued me, and so I said yes.
Now, I am nervous. All of these women are strangers, and in completely different stages of life. I dread feeling out of place. Why I agreed to this, I'm completely sure.
Catie comes to pick me up and we drive to the theatre and just talk. It is these moments I treasure the most, intimate conversations with my faraway family. I've never before had the opportunity to spend this much quality time with them; I soak it in.
We arrive and I meet the women and immediately their names start falling out of my head. I used to be good with names. I am entering the strange chapter of my life in which I am very aware that I am young, and yet also waking to the reality of my own aging. I don't think I'm losing my memory or getting old; I have simply reached a capacity of relationships where new names and faces become more easily filtered. Only the truly important ones stay.
Nonetheless, the women capture me. They have a lightness and wit about them that only comes from knowing Christ, good friends, and large amounts of chocolate--and a whole lot of personal history. As we talk over dinner before the movie, I glimpse enough of their stories to wonder just how impactful their testimonies might be. Perhaps I will never know, this side of heaven. But C. S. Lewis said it--"The Present is the moment in which time touches eternity." So I show up to this moment. I pay attention.
...
At some point after the movie, one of the women starts talking about her friend who always has a word for the year. "She requires nothing of herself except that word," the woman says, and all the others nod in agreement.
I listen, and remember: I have a word for this year. I haven't thought of it in a while.
My word is "savor."
...
We come home at midnight. I happen to look up and smile at God's surprise.
We never see that many stars where I come from.
...
Laura meets me at the door. "Sorry we're so late," I say.
"No worries! I've been up cleaning! Your room finally looks the way I wanted it to look when you got here."
I laugh. "Well, thank you."
"Do you need anything?"
"I think I'm good."
"Okay." She smiles. "There's a candle in your room so it doesn't smell like boy anymore. Just blow it out when you're ready."
"Thank you." I smile back at her. "Goodnight. Love you."
I slip into my room, change into pajamas, and blow out the candle.
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