I text her a video of her cat that I took mere days ago after taking my first bong rip in nearly a year, sitting on the same couch, looking at the same cat. Blender is sunning herself in front of the Heat Dish; the epitome of grace. The only cat I’ll ever love. Quality content.
“How’s home!? Does it feel like you went home or that you left home?”
“It feels like coming home”, I respond.
The honest truth? I have no idea.
My body is physically home but my soul is seven hours behind running to catch up. Please don’t leave me here. Still in grandma’s grasp, under dad’s embrace, and wrapped in my best friends warmth.
A xanax, trazodone, and a dramamine for good measure takes the edge off and clears four-and-some-change of the eight hour middle leg of the trip. On the final I tell him over the aisle to nudge me awake if he sees me slipping away. I open my book. Don’t Fear the Reaper. Oh, but Stephen I do, I DO. I make it 15 maybe 20 and my head starts nodding like a toddler falling asleep in the back seat. I’m the Final Girl in the slasher that is spending three straight weeks with my family and in-laws.
I feel his strong, warm palm against my shoulder. I give him a look and he knows. The next two hours to home and I’m out, mouth agape. An unexpected upside of the new world of masking up.
Night one I sleep like it’s my job. Which is good because I’m looking as my love for jewelry fades. Adds ‘Makes Jetlag Their Bitch’ to resume.
Day two, the stories and dramas of my old home start creeping in. Mom’s up to no good. I see her hollow, glazed-over eyes peering over the double blinds at Tutu’s whenever I close mine. I made it nearly the entire trip without a sighting, I should have known that’s when she shows.
Seeing her unhinges me a bit, not like it used to though. I’m grateful for this distance and the clarity it’s given me. But still. The shades were open and she knew it. A mother’s sense. Sauntered in and poured molten metal on the wound that was finally beginning to scab. I’ve been looking forward to the day I can pick it off, toss it in the trash. More than likely flick it like a semi-dry booger and vacuum it up later once its dried. I know it will scab over quicker this time though, and for this I am grateful too.
Sleep doesn’t come easily on night two in home two. TV is the only thing to drown it out. He heads to bed early and reappears an hour later plagued with similar torments. Asleep by 4.
Day three. Sleep till 11, feeling a little better. Mom is gone, for now.
I know I’m coming home, gaining the hours back when I look at my hands. The cold, dry climate of Idaho suckled itself to my new, supple, moist skin the moment I stepped off the plane. Once it’s clear, once the moisture fills the cracks I’ll be back. I’ll be home.
I focus on the good. Because it was so good. Seeing my family and hugging my beautiful friends was the medicine I didn’t know I needed. And the overwhelming understanding that leaving was the best thing I could have ever done.
Tutu coming up to me nearly every night;
“Can I get a rolly?”
I role two cigarettes and meet her outside. She talks and I listen. It’s how it goes and while it used to drive me up the walls I savor her words because I know soon I’ll miss them. I admire her silver bracelets over a dusk-time ciggy and she passes them down to me a few days later.
Papa with his perfectly timed snacks. We sit around the kitchen table laughing as he doles out Trader Joe’s bonbon ice cream morsels. “It’s that cookie bottom!” I say to Mike each night. The little box of pre-rolls and new lighter on the bedside table for me when we get in (hence the excitement over that cookie bottom). He teaches Mike the art of the Cereal Cocktail: four different cereals in one bowl, put your palm over the top, shake, add milk, enjoy.
And Daisy. Oh Daisy. Living the most perfect life of snacks, free weed smells, and all the pets a dog could ask for. The three of us melt into a puddle at 1:30 am before we even drop our bags. The best hello and still the hardest goodbye.
Still no sleep. 3 am though tonight. Four hours of meditation podcasts and LeVar Burton Reads and I finally doze off.
I wake up the next morning and take a look at my hands. Only a light dusting of flaking skin sits atop my knuckles, the redness from picking has gone down too. I’m nearly there.
I continue to meditate on the good.
Maybe it’s because I have always been a smelly kid, but the scents of others tantalizes me. A peek into another world I’ll never know but get to visit when I get close enough to those I know and don’t.
The sweet smell of my dearest friend as I embrace her body and caress her bouncy curls. I’ve tried to replicate this scent but there’s something in her skin that refuses to be bottled.
I watch my other dear friend from her couch, yes that couch. She fills empty bottles with lotions and elixirs to heal my cracking flesh. I don’t use them while I am there though. I will take them home with me so I can smell her from all these miles.
Catching up with the kids is the best part. They are the ones experiencing the most change over the course of this short year after all.
Willa is growing her bangs, Pyper and Lucy are nearly off to high school, Kyra is smiley and has a new baby brother, and Lou and I share a name now and it brings us a little closer. Some things never change. Sloane is still firing the Toot-Cannon and Stella is still playing pranks and I lock these images in and hope they never fade.
Flashes of these memories appear while I try to acclimate back to my life here. The slower pace hits me hard. I went from one social outing to another, all of a sudden being able to understand every word being spoken around me. Back to bending my ears as far as they’ll go in hopes I will catch something, anything and share a fleeting connection with someone on the street.
The language has come back a lot easier than I thought. A woman walks by on the phone and I know every word she says. A victory, a sign of home.
The sun is out minus a rainy day or two. Filling the cracks in the streets like the ones in my skin. Every corner turned is a symphony of floral scents so good I literally just say ‘Aaah!’ out loud to Mike and everyone in earshot as I breathe in deep.
I am changing. Being seen scares me a little less each day, and I guess I have the leaving of my old home and the coming to my new one to thank for that.
Feeling at home when I read your ramblings 😌