a love affair

         “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

 

 

 

             Sometimes the comforts of home, the assurance of familiar roads and the friendly faces at the neighborhood store are not enough to quell the desire to travel. Sometimes the simple things are suffocatingly mundane. The woman behind the counter at the bakery knows your order too well. She has your coffee, two creams, one equal, ready when you walk in so you feel bad telling her you actually wanted an ice coffee with a shot of espresso. Your mailman knows the date your cable bill is due and the mountains across the still river seem so small.

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....