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Remember the other day when I was hoping that the person I found on Classmates was the person that I wanted it to be?
It was.
I spent an hour on Thursday night talking to my stepmom, catching up, and we've been exchanging emails rather frequently since then as well. It makes me so happy that we're back in touch again--words can't even describe. It was a great Christmas present.
Even though I had a lovely holiday, I'm also rather glad that it's over for another year. There wasn't even a lot of stress involved--everyone's gifts arrived with no problem, there were no shipping mishaps, everyone loved what they received, I love what I received, but...I'm just glad it's over for another year.
This week brings New Year's Eve, and more dinner and good conversation with friends, and closure on yet another year. In looking back on it, 2004 was really pretty good to me, all things considered. I made some new friends, I got in touch with two people I've really been missing, I've learned a new skill, and I've put myself back into college for what's probably the fifth or sixth time, but hey, who's counting?
Here's hoping that 2005 is even better.
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.
My mom turned 50 earlier this week. I didn't really give it a lot of thought--I sent her a birthday card, of course, and I knew it was her birthday, and while I knew, somewhere in my mind, that it was her 50th, it didn't really hit me until last night. I'm not sure why it happened then, either, why it didn't happen earlier, or why it happened at all.
I've never been a good judge of age. It's never really been part of how I identify myself, but not only that...well. I've mentioned before, people were mistaking me for being in my late twenties/early thirties when I was 18 years old, so I'm sure that didn't really help any. For me, it's easier to just assume everyone is my age, but the funny part is, a lot of times, I have to remind myself that I'm 31 and not 21.
It was even stranger to think about my mom, though. It doesn't help that I think she acts younger than she really is, but in my mind's eye, she's just my mom. Ageless isn't the right word for it, but the vision I have of her is a younger picture than the one she presents now. It's...I'm sure most people think of their parents as ageless--or maybe not even ageless, but that they'll live forever, that they'll always be there, that it's always Mom, just Mom.
Add to that the fact that I remember when my grandparents turned fifty, or thereabouts, at least (no, my parents weren't young when they had me, why do you ask?), it's just strange.
It reminds me, sometimes, that time really does pass, even though it doesn't always seem to.
No, the entry's not about mushrooms, but today...well. Let me backtrack a little bit. In the Las Vegas airport, we met a wonderful couple named Troy and Margot Brown. They're husband and wife, were in town for the Big Smoke, and live in Boulder Creek. Troy is the author of the Portabella Mushroom cookbook, as well as owner/creater of Califa Foods, which makes some very delicious sauces, several of which he sent Matt and Mom home with (which Matt then ordered for us). They spent a good hour and a half or so talking with us, and during that conversation, I remember Troy telling us how the word for the mushroom has changed from portobello to...portabella. The way he said it just doesn't translate in text, but it just sticks with me, and it occurs to me that Italian is a beautiful language. Porrrtabellllla. "Big and beautiful," he said.
This morning, it was foggy when I left for work, which was a bit unexpected. It's not as dense as it could be, but then, the dark probably mutes that somewhat, so I can't tell the true extent of it. Sharp edges are now soft and fuzzy--life through refracted light, almost, and it occured to me that I would hate life if my vision ever started to deteriorate, because I imagine that the fuzzy halo surrounding the traffic lights is probably what it's like to have blurred vision. In spite of the weird vision thoughts, but most of all, in spite of the dark, it was beautiful.
It still is, as I sit here at my desk. Across the street, the lights atop the buildings are surrounded in that same halo. The outlines of the trees behind them, usually revealed in sharp relief by the glow, are distant shadows instead.
Beautiful.
My commute is short, I was in the car for ten minutes, at most. Creed's Higher came on while I was in the last fraction of that--I got through the first verse and first chorus before pulling into my parking space at work. But the opening guitar riff was what caught me. I couldn't explain the tears in my eyes, the huge smile on my face, all I knew--all I *know* is that today...today is good, and it's not just the bonus I got from work, today is just *good*.
I am blessed. I have a wonderful husband and amazing friends. I have a business that appears as though it will do very well, once I finally get my ducks in a row. I am content, I am happy...I am blessed.
Life...life is beautiful. Big and beautiful. Portabella.