I've been listening to a local station that's playing only Christmas music this week--it's okay, the reception in the office isn't great, and I'm really freaking tired of Mariah Carey, but it's kind of nice.
This morning, James Taylor's version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came on, and...well, I didn't really hear that song. As soon as I heard his voice, a different song was going through my head: Carolina In My Mind. It's on his Greatest Hits CD, and I can't tell you how many times I heard it while I was growing up.
In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moon shinin'
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind
I don't know what it was, but I couldn't get around it--all of a sudden, my mind was flooded with the last Christmas I'd spent there, in 1990. My grandma's last Christmas, though we didn't know it at the time. She wasn't doing well, though, which is the whole reason I flew out there for it, rather than staying at home in Salt Lake City.
The weather in Raleigh was balmy by comparison to the bitter cold and snow I'd left behind; I remember sitting at the kitchen table in that house I'd always secretly hoped to inherit someday, with the sliding glass door open and a warm (for me, then) breeze blowing through. I could hear the sounds of the horses in the barn carried to me on the wind, and remember shaking my head a lot over the fact that my dad and stepmom's only tree was a tiny little Norfolk Island Pine that they'd put a few lights on.
Karen she's a silver sun
You best walk her way and watch it shinin'
Watch her watch the mornin' come
A silver tear appearing now I'm cryin'
Ain't I goin' to Carolina in my mind
Nothing makes me more homesick for that place than thinking about my grandparents and spending time in their house, or spending time on the farm--what my stepmom called it, even though all they had were some really lovely Morgan horses and a barn full of polydactyl kittens.
Grandma's house was always decorated well for the holiday, even then. A huge tree that was covered in lights--more lights than ornaments. Garland, sometimes, and an angel on top. And maybe it's that the Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas always makes me think of my grandma, that's why I started this little trip, I don't know. I'd give anything to be able to sit in that kitchen again, on one of those horribly uncomfortable wooden barstools, with a half full jar of dry-roasted peanuts sitting on the counter, and the mingled smells of bread, coffee, and fig newtons in the air. There was always a pot of coffee on, and always a pitcher of iced tea--southern style, of course, so sweet you could stand a fork up in it.
There ain't no doubt in no one's mind
That loves the finest thing around
Whisper something soft and kind
And hey babe the sky's on fire, I'm dyin'
Ain't I goin' to Carolina in my mind
Not that I didn't love the farm, too, because I did. Raleigh's suburban sprawl hadn't managed to claim it, the last time I was there--I'm hoping that it never manages. It's close enough to the city to still be urban, but far enough away that there's not a lot of light pollution. It's horse country up there--most of the families who live there have barns and horses, and when I was learning to drive the cart, it wasn't all that uncommon to see another person doing the same thing.
When he and my stepmom split up, they sold the house to some friends of hers, and she moved away. I've missed her ever since, I've always regretted not keeping in touch with her. (Break for picking jaw up off the floor--she's registered with Classmates.com...oh, please, let this be the right person. Please.)
(Edited 5:45pm 12/22 to add: It is her. I feel like I've been whacked upside the head with a board.)
In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moon shinin'
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind
It's always my grandparents that I go back to, though, especially now. The need to go back and pay my respects is always there--sometimes more pressing than others, but never truly gone. It's always in the back of my mind. I want to just sit there and tell them about all the things that have happened to me, all the good things going on in my life, even though I'm sure they know already. I want to apologize to my grandpa that I never got a chance to say goodbye. But most of all, I want to tell them both how much I love and miss them, how I think about them every day, and how the strangest things can spark a memory of them that's strong enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Dark and silent late last night
I think I might have heard the highway calling
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
Signs that might be omens say I going, going
I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind
But inevitably, when I think about my grandparents, I also think about my birth father, too, and those...those are always the bittersweet memories, because it's not that there aren't a few good memories here and there, it's just that there are so many bad ones. There's so much anger and bitterness, even now.
And yet...in spite of all that, there's a part of me that would like nothing better than some sort of reconciliation. I think that's the little girl in me, the idealist, the one who thinks that everything will be okay. The one who desperately wants a dad, chronological age be damned.
With a holy host of others standing 'round me
Still I'm on the dark side of the moon
And it seems like it goes on like this forever
You must forgive me
If I'm up and gone to Carolina in my mind
It's what my grandma would've wanted, if he's to be believed, but that's where the cynic in me kicks in--he isn't. He can't.
But that doesn't help me to want it any less, sometimes.
In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moon shinin'
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind
I'm so disappointed that I didn't get any of the pictures I asked for, after my grandpa died. They took a picture of me with my uncle Gary, their youngest son, standing in front of the huge oak tree in their backyard. I'm maybe three or four years old, standing in front of him--his arms on my shoulders. We're both giving the camera big, cheesy grins, because we've just managed to feed one of the squirrels in the tree. The birdbath is in the background, and even in black and white, it's so easy to tell how green it is there, how lush.
But when I put my mind to it, when I sit back and forget about the distractions--the phone, the computer, the TV, the chaos and clutter and hectic pace that my life can take sometimes...I can almost smell it. I can feel the filtered sun on my face and the breeze that rustled my hair as I sit on one of the lounge chairs in the shade of that tree. The screen door opens and my grandma steps out, with that smile on her face that she only ever had for me, the first grandchild, the first girl. I can smell the tea in the pitcher she's carrying, I can hear grandpa still in the house, telling her to wait for him already, goddammit, he's only getting his beer.
And right then, though I miss them so much it hurts, I'm at peace.
And gone to Carolina in my mind.
Posted by Liz at December 22, 2004 11:03 AM