I remember

We travel to another time and place, slowly.

Being a child, standing in the creek—the never-ending things we could come up with to do there in the creek. I remember, vaguely, our trip across the country, from Tennessee to California in our brown Volkswagen Bus with the orange stripe. The bed in the back, which we laid on all day. The puzzle of packed supplies beneath the bed. Waving at passing trucks, arm crooked—pull, pull—to get them to honk. Moments of delight and huge expanses of boredom. The pressed flowers that I still have somewhere from the top of Mt. McKinley, and the exclamation of a fellow top-of-the-mountain explorer: “They’re picking flowers!” The first time I realized we weren’t supposed to pick them. Embarrassment, and no way of reattaching the poor flowers. No take-backs.

We were orphans in fact, not in name but felt that we didn’t have a right to that trauma. So easy to blame my mom at the time because she was supposed to hold it together and she didn’t. We ran the home poorly, and lived chaotically, and fell into our adulthoods trippingly and by happenstance, not plan.

The second trip, from Pennsylvania to Southern California in the early 90s—one-way this time. All the animals packed into the car. So many cats, so many dogs. An absolutely huge truck—semi-truck—full of belongings that my folks just couldn’t sell or give away. Why didn’t we rehome some pets and lots of the furniture? I don’t know. It makes no sense to me now as a fellow adult. My parents were crazy.

Landing in California and, within a month, my father dead from a failed heart. Clogged arteries and past warnings he ignored. The loss and confusion. A loss of both parents, because my mom couldn’t do more than survive during that time. We were orphans in fact—not in name—but we felt that we didn’t have a right to that trauma.

So easy to blame my mom at the time, because she was supposed to hold it together, and she didn’t. We ran the home poorly, and lived chaotically, and fell into our adulthoods trippingly and by happenstance, not plan.