Strange December

At dawn I drove the girls to school through a landscape covered in thick white frost. Everything still and glistening. The grass here remains green, and the kudzu, and there are green leaves on two trees in my backyard. It is a strange December. I don't know this place where I am. The bare winter woods, the mild afternoons, the humidity gathered every morning on my windows. I feel dull about Christmas and don't know what to blame--my total lack of shopping, our new home here in the semi-south, an artistic holdout between the deeper dixies of Georgia below and Virginia above. I haven't seen my husband since approximately December 5th and I miss him, and I'm so proud of him, and I'm just floating along. Brevard suffers a depressing lack of Christmas lights, almost nobody has bothered. Myself included. It had occurred to me the night before, as I sat ensconced in a knit blanket before my two lit trees and the Christmas special of Downton Abbey, that it's up to me to create Christmas this year, for the first time in my life. I can't arrive at my mother's or sister's house and find Christmas achieved (and it is an achievement, women know this) as I always have in the past. I have to achieve it myself. I dropped the girls at school and drove home as the sun hit the frosted hills around me, a dazzling winter white glittering in the near distance. It felt good to breath in the cold air. Inside, I sat by the living room window and watched the sun illumine spider webs still spinning in the trees and I thought about rib roasts and wine cakes and wondered what the hell I was going to do.

Then, distraction: a youtube video of Jimmy Fallon brings back a memory of summer. It was July, we were moving across the country. I was in the van with my children, alone with them as I would be for the next two months. We had stopped for gas in Overland Park, Kansas. Carly Rae Jeppsen was playing on the radio, it was our first day of driving. Evening was coming on, we were already road weary, we were shooting through the Midwest in search of St. Louis, in search of a new home. I was happy as I always am in a car headed somewhere new. Before I knew all the wonderful things Brevard held waiting for us, before I started saying "girl" and "y'all" and "for a hot minute" like a loathsome poseur, the maps app on my phone took us on a detour through a neighborhood and we rolled all the windows down and danced in our seats. It was free slurpee day at the 7-11 we gassed up at and we sucked down our circus-colored drinks and smiled as the snowy sugar soothed our aching bones. We rounded a corner and a hideous bug, a flying spider with a lobster shell, shot through the open window and Ayla began to scream. iPhone, Slurpee, steering wheel--which to release? "Kill it, Indy! Kill it! Take off your shoe and kill it!" I yelled. Screaming, Indy did. This girl who tells me she isn't brave beat the monster to death with the back of her sparkly jelly. The colossal skies of the west were still above me. It is amazing how much your life can change and still be exactly the same. In minutes we were back on the highway, speeding east across a curved and welcoming land. Before you came into my life I missed you so bad, I missed you so, so bad.

Have Bees Will Travel

The three girl cousins roamed the yard like fireflies in the dying light. We said goodbye. I cried myself to sleep at four in the morning and woke up seven hours later with my cheeks newly wet. We discovered Indy, who wants to change her name to Tinkerbell, had left her teddy bear at my parent's house. The teddy bear was a special gift for the road trip so we drove back to Denver to get it. The rain had passed. I stopped crying for a little while and the sky looked like this. No two things make beauty like prairie and storm. After hours of crying so vigorously that my eyes swelled like I'd been hit with a fist, I got a terrible case of the giggles. We watched TV in the dusk and after all those tearful goodbyes, the manufactured drama was hilarious. The polygamists on the television kissed their stepsons and had emotional breakdowns on live TV and plotted to kill their brothers and I laughed through it all. The wisdom of my body, seeking balance. 

Tomorrow night we'll sleep in St. Louis.

The bees will be in the back seat, screened and

draped in tulle like thirteen thousand little brides.

On The Road Part I: Holy Something

"What if all the girls on the whole earth said 'CHUM-chum. CHUM-chum. CHUM-chum,'" Indy intoned like a chant as we zipped through the endless Mojave desert, brown mile after brown flat mile. "And all the boys said 'Rocka-rocka. Rocka-rocka. Rocka-rocka'."

That's pretty much how the day went.

Mr. V woke me at at 2:30 am and we hit the road. I wished for a valium because few terrors match that of barrelling down out of the Eisehhower Tunnel in the pitch black, in the dead of night.

I woke up in the middle of nowhere, Utah. Black Horse or Black Rock or Black Devil. So beautiful it breaks my heart, I'll say it twice. The rocks are draped like velvet curtains, lit up the colors of sunset. All through Utah, across the stretch of salt flats there was light, powdered sugar snow.

We stopped in Vegas, where the Goblins were finally baptized. By that I mean they had their first In 'n Out. I tend to think of everyone that lives in Vegas as a compulsive gambler. My only evidence this isn't true is that godawful movie, Pay It Forward. I'm pretty sure Haley Joel and Helen Hunt weren't compulsive gamblers, although now I wonder how a single mother got the money for all those lanterns? But look, I've been in the car for seventeen hours, you shouldn't listen to a thing I say.

"I'm smaller than God," says Indy. "But not smaller than baby God."

I think she's a genius.

In San Diego, this: billboards advertising "EZ-Baccarat: Tableside Dim Sum." From this I gather that Burt Baccarat wants to attend at my table and serve me steamed buns, and that he will be sexually promiscuous. We've been driving for fifteen hours and I can't tell if this is a good thing.

I think it might be.

I am disappointed with the number of light-strung palm trees in Southern California. I think my idea of California Christmas was irrevocably formed by my first Sunshine State Christmas in Palm Desert. In that land of milk and money, there is a silver dollar for every retired crevice and a light for every palm tree. Not true in Riverside or San Bernadino. God help me, listen to what I'm saying. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be writing this. I have been in a car for seventeen hours and I think I encountered the real Jesus--you know, not the flaxen haired, but the Middle Eastern one. He told me he is as indifferent to Tim Tebow as he is to sexual orientation. Then he shared our plan for taking Tebow down, but I can't tell you about that now.

Indy calls them Pom-Pom trees and you know:

She's right.

xoxo

No More Driving Ever

-V

Best Of Times

It is true that we drove 17 hours to Huntington Beach, California in one day, stayed there for one day, turned around and drove 15.5 hours (curious) home.

It is also true that every single hour in the car--hours with my parents, going on four hours sleep, legs and thighs cramping up, tummy growing most unhappy--every single one was worth it a billion times over.

We wound through the snowy mountains at 5 in the morning, and my dad couldn't let up about all the FedEx trucks.

It started like this. "FedEx." . . .(ten minutes pass). "FedEx." . . . (seven minutes). . . "FedEx!"

FedEx was in Golden. FedEx was in Idaho Springs. There were two FedExes on the road near Georgetown. At the Eisenhower Tunnel we hit the snow. Signs warned us ICY ROADS. WILDLIFE ON THE ROADS. SNOW REMOVAL VEHICLES ON THE ROADS. EVIL TROLLS WAITING TO EAT YOU ON THE ROADS. OSAMA BIN LADEN IS ON THE ROADS.

But all we saw was FedEx.

"There's another one! What are they DOING here? Look, another! It's five in the morning. What is with all these FedEx trucks? What are these bozos doing?" and I think at one point he even accused FedEx of trying to take over the world.

He went on and on. FedEx was in Avon, Vail, Glenwood Canyon, Parachute. "Where are they all coming from?" my dad said, like FedEx was some kind of alien enemy adept at hiding behind trees. Finally my mom threw up her arms and cried:

"Brad, what is the matter with you? They are delivery trucks. It's their job to be out on the road. It's their purpose. Are you going crazy??"

And my dad quietly said, "There's just so many of them". And we'd been in the car for five hours and Noah and I laughed until we cried.

It went on about like that for 17 hours.

We hadn't eaten breakfast and we wanted to stop for lunch and my mom was all disbelief and said, "How many times a day do you people EAT?"

And I told my parents I wanted to find a rest stop and they started the Rest Stop Chorus. It goes like this: "You have to find a sign that says rest stop. Usually they're marked with a sign. There will be a sign before the rest stop. The sign will say 'rest stop'. There should be a sign. You should look for the rest stop sign. It is the one with the words 'rest' and 'stop'--"

It's true.



Stars without makeup.

You want my parents at your wedding because they dance with wild abandon. Usually my parents are the only ones at the wedding dancing a storm. They are actors in their blood, see? And they don't mind--really, they don't--being the center of attention.





But this wedding was different. Because theatre blood runs on both sides of the family. So, whereas usually meine Mutter und mein Vater are the only ones shimmy shaking with their arms in the air and their elbows pointed skyward, boogeying down without a care as to how they look or who's watching--actually kind of enjoying being the center of the frenzy--this time there were lots of show people out on the floor. I don't know if I've ever seen such dancing. Conga lines, twirling circles, the two rows with everyone getting their groove on down the middle. It was like being at a wedding with all the kids from Glee. Except they all got kinda toasted and forgot the choreography.





Seeing family, some of whom I hadn't seen in eighteen years, and some of whom I had never met, made me happy right to bursting.

I am not kidding. I was first in line for the--I thought they were calling it the honey dance, but it turns out they were calling it the MONEY dance. Which makes a lot more sense, looking back. And I was supposed to offer money to dance with the groom. Ha! Not I. I conned his best man into letting me dance with him for free, and then, when it was my Almost-Cousin-Big-Sarah's time to cut in--I tell you the truth--I pulled that poor groom's neck to my lips and kissed him. Kissed him! But I was not drunk on liquor, nay. I had only had one beer.

I was drunk on joy.

It was all so happy, and so poignant, that I find myself unable to talk about it here.



Everything fell apart, and we couldn't go.

And then everything came together. And we did.

I saw my cousin get married. And it was beautiful. And I was drunk on joy and accidentally flirted with the bartender and kissed that poor groom. (Sorry Corey. Sorry Sarah.) I got to see my Sort Of Uncle Eric, who I had such a crush on when I was ten that I could not speak in his presence. And there was a while there when I could have done the ugly cry.

Because it was just so unspeakably beautiful.

Don't Make Me Go To Vegas

We had cause to drive to Longmont to look for homes.

All the places we could afford were sad looking. Crummy is the word. Someone had bikes on their roof. All manner of trash and debris in the yard. Mr. Vesuvius looked at me and I wordlessly shook my head. I pretended I was on MTV True Life. I could imagine the camera following behind us. Close up on the peeling paint and threadbare love seats sitting on the tiny porches. Then it would close up on my face and all the world would know my pain.

(That was me being dramatic).

Then we made a terrible mistake. I spotted some tiny but promising houses tucked behind the restaurants and shops on the cute Old Town street. We drove back for a closer look.

Cheery homes, yellows and greens, a park, an abundance of flowers. Women with babies in bjorns and golden retrievers trot trot behind. Everything gleaming in the sun. Shoot. I began to cry.

Then I told myself I was being silly. Who is completely happy with their home? Who wouldn't trade up, if they could? Even the rich people there would probably trade up for a Villa in Italy. Which just shows you how ridiculous it all is.

And yet.

Mr. V steered us toward a little bungalow. "Is it yellow?" I said.

"I don't know if it's yellow. What does it matter if it's yellow?" said Mr. V

"I keep picturing a yellow house. I thought maybe if it was yellow it would be a sign. I believe in signs now. It's my new thing."

The bungalow was not yellow, but it was perfect. Sweet block with sweet little homes and massive storybook back yards.

No longer available.

There was nothing else to do. We hit the road. Took a spin through Lyons where everyone looked up to see if we were someone they knew. Kept going straight on to Estes.

Estes. There were elk in the park. We had a look. Walked to the river. I thought of my dad. The girls bounded about on the boulders. Such an excellent and satisfying exercise. Brain plus body. The mountains surrounding were all snowy and cloudy. All pre-Aslan Narnia.

We procured ice cream. We headed for home. The gas tank warning light ding-ding-dinged. I told Mr. V to stop for gas. Surely there will be a place along the way, he said. I raised my eyebrows.

There wasn't. But you know what?

We made it on empty, all the way down that mountain. Made it exactly as far as we needed to go.


--Over and out.