So here I am, two thousand miles from home, on what is turning out to be the most disorienting familiar trip I've ever been on.
Flying to Denver is old news. As is renting a car and driving across the strange contours of the West to arrive in a tiny town. Not a new destination to be found. But entirely different this time around.
I've headed west for my dad's memorial service on Saturday. A "time out of time" break from my regularly scheduled life, for which I've been preparing, with mad determination, for a few weeks now. Not a time of year that I usually travel, that's one thing. I certainly wouldn't choose to be gone for a week right at the end of a grading quarter again, that's for sure. Hence the mad desperation, fast grading, and complex sub plans I've left behind...
Yet with all the preparations it is still catching me by surprise, that I am here. Just now. And for this reason.
Rather how I feel about my dad's death as a whole. We knew it was coming. There was preparation. Yet still caught us by surprise. You always hope, right until the last moment, that bad things aren't true, right?
But here we are. Here I am, sitting at my dad's computer (another strange thing, because HE'S supposed to be here. His favorite spot, for years...), just returned back to a shockingly quiet house (Anna is at conferences tonight) after meeting with the Pastor to put finishing touches on the program for the memorial service (something I've never done before).
I think I'm doing a lot of processing right now. A part of me wants to get out my schoolwork folder and work on progress reports and hide behind the busy of it, because that's what I always do. But I think instead I will write down some random thoughts and noticings from this trip so far, and see where that takes me.
1. It has been raining since the plane touched down in Denver yesterday morning. It NEVER rains in Denver, at least not as far as I've been aware. The skies have been leaden and low, the mountains invisible, the air chill and wet. It has been, somehow, apropos.
2. It is exhausting, being a nomad. Two days by myself, driving and shopping and stopping and going, and I am already longing for home. I am not sure I am cut out for road trips anymore.
3. Then again, it has been kind of awesome to be by myself for these two days, with the liberty to shop and drive and stop and go when and where I wish. But, by midday today, I was longing for some structure...
4. Memory lane in Denver for me yesterday. I visited the neighborhood where our dear friends Leigh and Blaine lived, back when Nat and I visited them, pre-kids, for a spring break ski trip. At the time we didn't know that would be it for ski trips for us (at least for the forseeable future...), so its a good thing we made the most of it. What a wonderful week that was... The neighborhood has changed remarkably little in these intervening 9 years. Cute, tree lined streets of brick Victorian houses sidled up to a bustling business district too hip for its own good. Same sublime Thai restaurant (had some lunch there), many of the same businesses. Flashes of my younger self as I walked around in the drizzle. The fleeting nature of time and the way we are the same amidst the changes...
5. There are historic houses to tour everywhere and I think most of what I've learned about American History has come from visiting them. No better way to build a picture of our nation that by walking the rooms and hearing the stories of the people who lived and breathed and left their mark there...Visited the Byers-Evans house yesterday and enjoyed every single moment of it. Even on a surreal and somber trip I think I am owed a bit of enjoyment, no?
6. I love my friends, and do not for one moment take them for granted. My friend Leigh is such a gift. I mean, she is a gift to the world by her very being because she is so vibrant and inspiring and beautiful and brave. But her friendship is such a gift to me because I can drop in, any time, and feel at home in her home and slip back in to easy conversation, effortlessly, like we don't live a world apart. A wonderful respite to spend the evening with her.
7. I miss my furry things. This morning when I woke up very early at Leigh's house, neither dog nor bunny got underfoot as I walked through the kitchen. Sigh.
8. I am not sure what to do with myself without my family and house to think of and look after. This morning, with 2 hours to myself in someone else's space (silly time change!!) I had NO IDEA what to do. I should have been making lunches, doing dishes, moving something from one place to another... We depend so highly on our routines.
9. I miss my family for more than just the fact that they keep me busy. Don't worry.
10. It was strange to drive through Colorado and Wyoming and not see mountains. Between that and the clouds and the constant stream of Starbuck's that I stopped at, not to mention the deciduous trees all yellow and brown (I've never been here in October) and it almost felt like being in Ohio.
11. Almost. It still SMELLS like Wyoming. That juniper-sage smell, somehow dry even in the rain, like nowhere else on earth. I want to walk out across the hills, even in the rain, and just keep going till I hit the mountains. That's what this smell has always done for me.
12. It is strangely the same here at my dad's house. Eerily so. Like he's out for a walk, off golfing or something. Nothing out place, nothing missing. Except him. When I got to the house, empty and dark, I found myself going through each room, turning on the lights, opening cabinets. Ostensibly looking for a photo album I'd made a while ago, hoping to find a certain picture. But I think I was looking for my dad, you know. I still feel, just a little, like he's going to walk in at any moment. And we'll have a bit of somewhat awkward conversation and we won't quite know what to do with each other but we'll want to be together, just like normal.
13. I never did know what to do with my dad, nor he with me. But we were used to it, I think. And right now I am really missing not knowing what to do with him. I'd like to have that back, please.
