“We are torn between nostalgia
for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not we
are homesick most for the places we have never known.” Carson McCullers
My mother, born and raised in
Massachusetts, has never been able to appreciate where she is. She’s fascinated
by the endless fields in Nebraska and Montana’s blue sky. She buys books
about Alaska and looks for homes to buy in Kansas. She’d rather be anywhere
than here, even places she’s never been.
When I was a kid, she was obsessed
with Florida. It was all she talked about. “Someday….” she’d say wistfully and
I could tell she thought if we were there everything would be different. In her
alternate reality Florida was the magic potion that would fix her problems.
I was nine the first time we took a
vacation to Orlando. We drove the East coast in Bessie, my Mom’s old Chevy. My
brother and I fought nonstop. He hogged the backseat and the Gameboy,
laughed when I got carsick. Our grandmother, sitting comfortably in the front
seat, ignored us as she read her Danielle Steele romance and my mother
occasionally yelled “shut up” when our bickering got out of hand. Most of the time she ignored us, turning the radio up and belting out Bruce Springsteen tunes.
Two days and too many stops at the McDonald's drive-thru later we arrived at our
hotel and checked in. My mother was relaxed. She couldn’t get enough of the
warm air and the palm trees softly blowing in the air. Lizards winded across the concrete path to the
pool and when it rained in the afternoon she said it smelled like heaven. I had
never seen her smile more or heard her laugh so hard. She was happy.
The ride home wasn’t nearly as fun.
My brother and I argued and my mother’s patience disappeared along with her
smile. The radio stayed on whatever country music station was available and she
cried when a sad song came on. Florida’s magic waned before we even
saw the sign that said “Welcome to Georgia,” and my brother and I settled in for the long
ride home.
As the years went by my mother’s Floridian
love affair grew deeper. She lived for that one week in April when
she could smell the afternoon rain again. Each year, at the end of the trip,
her and my stepfather would come home arguing, my mother miserable and
depressed because he didn’t want to move to Florida.
My mother forgets that Maine is Vacationland and millions of people
travel every summer to see its rocky coast. They come thousands of miles to
climb Mount Katahdin and eat fresh lobster. The coastal air is fresh and clean
and there is an incomparable charm to the small towns nestled along the ocean.
My mother, homesick for a place she barely knows, cannot see the Maine everybody
loves because she is mourning a life she’ll never have.
I am my mother’s daughter. I’m a traveler
too and I am in love with cities whose air I’ve never breathed. I adore the
shops in Paris and the beaches of Nice. I lust over the hills in Italy; my
mouth waters for tiramisu. Penguins are my favorite animal and I am in awe of
the ice-covered terrain they inhabit. I pretend to
know the culture of Manhattan like I’ve lived there my whole life though I’ve only
been to New York once….and stayed in Brooklyn. My love affair with travel is with the whole
world. Innocent and idealistic, it's open to anything and hopeful for it all. Crushingly romantic and curious, my passion comes from a craving for adventure, not a need to escape. I am half my mother's daughter....
