Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Now for something completely different.

Next week, I face the first week-long vacation of my adult life where I have no plans.

I've never taken time off from work and done nothing.

By "nothing" I mean no cross-country trip, of course. My first dose of vacation time took to me my first solo trip, a long weekend in Chicago, and from then on it's been 1,000 miles or more. It's the only way I know how to operate.

But it's not like I have "nothing" to do. I've got an entire list of projects, errands, and favors I can attend to. In fact, I plan to use some of my time off to plan my next giant interstate (or inter-province) trip.

Through May, I'm using the last of my remaining vacation time. There's an entire week off next week, and then there's a five-day weekend for Memorial Day later this month. For that, I've had a few ideas. I've wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail, so I thought about heading down to the Tennessee/North Carolina border and roughing it. Yosemite National Park is also on my to-see list. Part of my big end-of-July trip involves me actually having money, however, and each of those trips seemed costly. What's a budget-minded person to do?

Here's the beauty of Facebook: I planned a long weekend in Los Angeles with Andrew thanks to a few wall postings. How's that for planning? All it will cost me is the plane ticket and money for food. And perhaps a Dodgers game.

All that's in the future. Next week, though, I plan on tying up any loose ends in my life. That includes thinking seriously and deeply about what I want to do with the next five years. Where do I want to work? Where do I want to live? What else do I want to do?

My mom's death left me introspective. It's not that I didn't see it coming, but I realized that I've been stuck in a rut. Mom dying woke me out of it. So from here on out, I'm not going to be so nervous about trying on new things, tasting new experiences, and quit living life day to day as I have been.

We get comfortable. You've probably felt it yourself.

Then we wake up 20 years down the road and have a lot of unchecked items off our big To-Do List. I don't want that to happen.

So that's what I'll do next week: work on the next big project. I'll have plenty of free time to think, do, and plan.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

On resting, and living, in peace.

Mom and me

My mother passed away last Wednesday. She left us peacefully, in her sleep.

Her death stands in stark contrast to the freewheeling life she led. Us kids, my oldest sister and me, were merely along for the ride.

Many that know me know that I cut off any relationship with my mom in high school. It wasn't due to any lack of love, but I had my own self-preservation to think about. A decent life could not co-exist with my mom.

I've reacted to the news the way anyone would react to the death of a long-lost aunt or distant cousin. There's that tickle in the brain when you lose someone you love but have no real relationship with: it hurts a little, but only a little.

I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath, and in the book the character of Ma Joad becomes the head of the family after instability rocks the ground underneath the Joad men. Through her steady hand and strong will, Ma Joad becomes the solid foundation of the Joad "fambly" - despite the move cross-country to a state full of unknowns.

My own life has lacked one continuous "Ma Joad" figure. When I was young, my Grandma Bonnie (my mother's mother) was there for me. As I grew up, my Grandma Maxine (my dad's mother) and my Grandpa Bill (my mother's grandfather) helped me along until I moved in with my dad right before high school. I needed the help because my own mother was the anti-Ma Joad: a constant source of chaos, instability, and high drama.

But all that is gone, now.

My sister gave me an old photo album Monday night, when her, my grandma, and me paid respects to my mom in our own, traditional way. Inside were pictures from when my parents were still together and I was a newborn. These pictures, combined with many others I have from my childhood, reveal the chimera that was my mother. Sweet, fun-loving, easy to laugh - this is what I remember and saw in those pictures. In fact, it's obvious that she cared about me as a baby. Then there was the ugly side.

Which is why looking through the pictures points out my mom's tragedy. A person so vibrant and so happy eventually ruined her own life with drugs and alcohol. Things could have been so much different.

As it was, I never had that sense of "fambly" or stability that I read about in Grapes. I attended 10 different elementary schools, three in the 5th grade, and four different junior highs. We lived in more houses and apartments that I can remember. We were homeless for a while. Life was a whirlwind, and that kind of living has a tremendous effect on kids.

So there are other things, besides pictures, that my mother left us. For myself, I've learned over the years that I have a neurotic attachment to stability. I have my schedule, and my routine, and I hate it when things don't go "according to plan." I show up early, and I fucking hate moving. The direct result of my mother's chaotic life was an aversion to chaos; I swung toward order and ritual, and I swung hard.

My sister - my poor, poor sister - is another story entirely. She bore the full brunt of my mother's behavior, and she deals with the consequences ever day. And because she never left my mother behind, my sister is having the most trouble dealing with my mom's death.

But even she said, at dinner the other night, "I kind of feel relieved."

This is the legacy of my mom. Being with her was like living in Florida, knowing there's a high possibility that a strong hurricane would come and blow your shit out to sea.

I chose to up and move to my dad's when I was 14, in search of a stable household and a parent who didn't abuse themself or those around them, but I'm sure in some ways my mom never left me. She was always outside the boarded-up windows I built for myself, howling away and wrecking havok.

It's sad that we all feel relieved now that she's dead, because we should be feeling something else. Not sadness, not peace, but that we lost something important to our lives.

That's not how it happened, and so I haven't felt much at all in the week since she's been gone. I did such a good job of keeping her out of my life for the past few years that I didn't really lose anything when she passed. She was gone to begin with, in my eyes.

Now she's finally at peace. And so am I.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Hit the road, Jack.

My life is renewed when tires meet the road.

It's always been that way, for as far back as I can remember. When I feel pressed down, or stressed, or worried, I hit the road and I'm made whole. Maybe it's the self-induced isolation, or maybe it's giving myself time to think and unwind and enjoy the scenery. I don't know enough to explain it, but I know that it works.

So it was this weekend, when I left town to see my good college friends Andrea and Keith. On the way to see Andrea in Harrisburg, PA, I took a small section of the old Lincoln Highway - what is now US-30. I've been to Pennsylvania twice, and driven through it twice, and have never seen much of the state because it was always dark when I drove through. It's a beautiful Commonwealth, full of hills and trees and old American farms, and traveling down an old highway reminded me of the Route 66 trip, if only briefly.

My visit to Keith's was an exploration in the truly unknown. Nobody thinks of Columbus, OH when they think of big American cities, but I do now. It's a fine town, complete with a fully-operational Apple Store and a (ahem) major American university. Keith made an excellent host and tour guide, and gave me a whole-day's respite from the road. I like driving, but I also like not moving for a while.

Monday, my birthday, had me hitting the road once again, knowing that when I got back home things would go back to normal. Sure, it's nice to return home from a long trip, but I dread the part of me that feels like I never left in the first place. The road's romance is short-lived, it seems, and I only get the benefit in the doing. And maybe the remembering, days and weeks and years later.

I drive to escape, mostly. To get out of town, to Go Somewhere, and leave the everyday behind. I surely can't drink and eat like I do when I'm on vacation. And I can't suspend life's rules like I do when I'm on the road. All I can do is take a little piece of the road home with me. See this big, beautiful country we live in. Perhaps take some pictures, too.