I spent my last night at home driving home slowly, taking all the back roads. The radio volume was up 10 notches higher than my mother likes it and I was singing along, tapping the heel of my hand on the steering wheel. The noise and brightness of the restaurant were fading into the snowbanks on either side of me. I’ve been having a hard time figuring out time lately. Somehow the stillness and the dark made it less irrelevant. The songs on the radio sounded like they had a direct wire to my brain. I kept switching back and forth between stations–some songs hurt enough you can’t listen to more than a few bars. I fishtailed going up the hospital hill, swore, caught my breath and control, and went a little slower. Leaving always has been such a tragedy for me. It always means turning down another road before I go home, doing another loop before I turn off the radio and resign myself to pulling in the driveway. The lights at the gym shone a bright square as I came down the hill towards my house. This might be my last Christmas at this house; we have potential buyers coming on Wednesday. Part of me tries to not think about it too much. Part of me is already reaching out to the change.
I had just come from a small restaurant in my hometown, surrounded by my aunt and five cousins. Tomorrow I’d be back at college and in two weeks, they’d be flying back to Australia. I hadn’t seen them in two years. My fifteen-year old cousin is taller than I am, by a good six inches. He’s into surfing and good music and a sweetheart of a kid. My thirteen year old cousin is turning into the kind of young woman who’s going to turn heads, with a kind soul, and starry gray eyes. It’s been fun to hang out with her, to have chats, like big sister to little sister. My eleven year old cousin is the sensitive one of the family, content to curl up in the corner with a National Geographic, and an avid outdoorsman. The nine year old is a terror, with a penchant for blowing stories wildly out of proportion and a completely innocent look that swears they’re 100% true. And my five year old godson is feisty and independent. His lack of one arm doesn’t hinder him in the least and he’s the craziest of the bunch. I feel like I’ve just got back into knowing them and now they’re leaving again. I don’t know when they’re coming back.
Tonight, I banged around the kitchen, on the phone with various people, trying not to wallow in my empty house like I did last night, tucked up under blankets with How I Met Your Mother and tea. It’s all about keeping your hands busy, trying not to listen for the rhythm in the shrieking wind, turning on the porch light to say “Welcome home.” So I stirred cheese sauce for homemade macaroni and shouted on the phone and forgot to preheat the oven before everything was done, and there was a pause between conversations. I turned Anna Nalick off, turned on Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Threw my phone onto the couch and made tuna salad. Worried about all the things I had to do that I couldn’t face just yet. Drained the pasta, answered the cheerful ringtone and paced the floor. Being home alone is not always the best thing for an unquiet mind. I washed the dishes, dragged out the blanket my mother made in the 1970’s, and looked at the list of movies I had to watch. Settled on Lost in Translation, with a quieter, more melancholy Scarlett Johannson and a serious Bill Murray. My mother called as I was dialing my home phone. It’s like she has a sixth sense. I was on my second bowl of macaroni. Trying to eat a 9 x 13 pan of comfort food by yourself is also lonely. I like to cook for other people, communal meals, and I forget how to cook for just me. I forget how to do a lot of things for just me. In the last two days by myself, I’ve been talking a lot more on the phone. The house is too quiet on winter nights. I think I could live by myself in the summer, with long-fingered days and balmy nights. But winter nights are too harsh and solitary to spend alone.
It’s like everywhere I look, I see pieces of people. Of a person. Like everything in my life is linked to some common experience, some shared memory, tied to some person. Maybe that’s why leaving is so hard for me–you can’t just snip people out of your life as easily as you’d like to. Four years later, there’s still songs that reminds me of someone I used to love. And there’s scents tied up in there too. What do you do with a great boundless love that can’t help but spread from your fingertips, make new constellations in your eyes, and squeeze your heart so hard it runs dry? And what you do with the ghosts in your closet, moaning through your silken scarves, and histories you’ve buried underneath mismatched pairs of socks, and all the songs you can’t listen to anymore? And what happens on a Monday night when you’re listening to “Sweet Winter Songs” on Spotify (which is a great playlist, by the way), and watching the candles you lit three hours ago burn down to nubs, and trying to make sense of the roaring chaos fire in your head?
Well I guess my solution was to write. And have a melancholy night, huddled up against the -15 degrees outside, wrapped in something my mother made. To make tea, just for myself. To reclaim all the cluttered space in my mind, just for myself. I guess it’s just a day of “having the mean reds”, because I’m in my 20’s and I feel like that’s common, but also because I’m human, and we’re all scared of something–even if we don’t know what it is yet.
I’m trying to be better at watching movies. Trying to get lost in other people’s stories to maybe find a little insight in mine.
The Wanderer 