FINDING HOME AGAIN

Childhood Comforts

I know now that I returned to my home state of North Carolina to seek (and perhaps wallow in) the comforts of my childhood. I was a child of the ’50s, on the surface at least a much simpler time. Simpler is what I needed.

Riding the school bus was expected. No one drove their child to school. There was 1 car – for dad to use to get to work. Mother was homemaker and choir director in my world. She’d actually had higher goals but no support to get there, so she married instead and immersed herself in music and the church. My brother often said that it was Mother who called Dad to the ministry. Not God. She was the one who actually wanted to be the preacher. But let’s not get buried in that issue right now.

We were children playing in the leaves Dad had just raked into flimsy piles, walking barefoot through the cool freshly mown grass in summer (I still love that smell!), kicking up the sand and the sherbert-colored ball at the family beaches. In those days the mailman delivered to the mailbox at the end of your driveway, or by your front door. Making Christmas cookies for him-in his official uniform – and the garbage man who picked up the metal trash cans himself (no fancy self-loading trucks in those days) was a highlight of our holiday. Country roads, boxy black telephones and fuzzy-screened TV’s. Train rides and station wagons. Roller rinks and pom-pom skates. Candlelight service and Christmas carols. Ed Sullivan and even Lawrence Welk. Eventually we graduated to Laugh-In and Hee Haw. My dad had a great sense of humor.

Encyclopedias, Webster dictionaries, and homemade brown paper bag textbook covers were the norm. Public libraries overflowing with a million books were part of life. My first childhood memory is of my mother leading me into the Asheville Public Library when I was 2 years old. I still love libraries. In my recent encounter with the Orange County Public Library here in Hillsborough, I felt like a little kid in a candy store with my new membership card and a couple of books from their library sale. I was home!

The move back to North Carolina has certainly been about familiarity. It has also been about community, the one I left behind here and the one I returned to to nurture. We need that more than ever now. Yes, I took a chance moving before the election but I’m here for a reason – to support and encourage. Not that I realized it at the time. Now, even after a devastating blow to democracy, a tenderness is slipping into my heart. A strong desire to listen to and comfort those taking it the hardest. I’ve taken a lot of blows in the last few years. I have a different perspective now. I am not naïve but I am hopeful. Our country is no longer what we have held it to be and it saddens me, but I believe our task now is to come together with love, roll up our sleeves, and search for opportunities to support, belong, and make changes where we can.

I’m not sure what that means yet, but for now, here’s my contribution:

Post positive thoughts on Facebook, Messenger, email, WhatsApp and encourage others to do the same, then share their thoughts, poems, etc.

Wear my beloved Mexican clothes and tell their stories whenever possible. Maybe I’ll even do some small presentations someday, sharing the stories surrounding each piece.

Chiapas treasures

Drive my fun green (peridot!) Subaru, named Dottie after my mother. It brings me enough joy to share! After México I couldn’t bear white, black or gray.

Have breakfast with friends. And not just breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Hang out together. Go to events together. We have become isolated in so many ways with our multiple devices. (They are both a blessing and a curse in my opinion.) Time to get out and about and share. Just do it!

Create a community of support. For good times and bad. Part of the reason I wanted to live in an apartment complex was to have people around me to help with a possible health emergency. But in reality it has become a place of casual and friendly interaction with kind neighbors and people – so many! – walking their dogs. For now it is my village.

I send a silly card – purchased but playfully altered – to my granddaughter every week. I’m sending greeting cards again – Thank You, Get Well, etc. My son and I used to enjoy searching for and sending the most appropriate and lovely greeting cards we could find for the occasion. I still have some of the ones he sent me. Treasures to this day.

I am beginning to call people sometimes now instead of emailing, etc. I want to hear the person’s voice and have them hear mine. We’re less likely to misinterpret that way. Yes, I’m retired and have time on my hands. But how long does it take really, to reach out? to stay connected?

Has the move been difficult? Oh, yes. It’s like starting over. I still don’t have all my energy back from my heart episode in April/May. But there’s alot to do and I am forging ahead. My house in Mexico is still waiting for a new owner and supporting two households is tough. I’ve had some unexpected medical issues that I’ve had to find providers for and I don’t see my primary care provider until January. On and on. But in the space in between I have surrounded myself with new and old friends, every one a joy! I am so grateful. Is it hard being here in Ben’s old stomping grounds? No. Because his friends are also my friends and he is always with me.

Tumi has lots of friends too

A week from today will be the anniversary of our move to Ajijic. November 27th, 2018. I remember sweet Ben saying to me the year before when we visited San Miguel de Allende: “When you see the colors of Mexico, it will change your life forever.” I doubt he had any idea just how right he was! Who would’ve guessed that I would be an old fashioned girl, finding my way in this new world.