We had some good friends from graduate school come and visit a couple of weeks ago. In our tiny house, we have a spare bedroom that's practically connected to our own room and there's a futon in it for guests to sleep on. My parents recently gave us the futon, and before that our guests slept on the floor in sleeping bags because we're too poor to buy a futon ourselves. When our friends left to drive back to Spokane, they folded the sheets and pillowcases and put the futon back to its original shape. I washed the sheets, but left the pillow there with its case and I haven't been able to move it. It's our one extra pillow and it's the most uncomfortable pillow in the world. We tell our guests to bring their own pillows, but we leave that one there for them because it looks like something a little extra. That pillow has stayed put for two weeks.
It has something to do with the fact that our friends are moving to China and I am attached to them. The way it plays out in my mind is they move to China to teach for a year or ten months or however long they're bound, and then they move to Thailand or somewhere equally as unobtainable to me and forgo coming back to the U.S. because they will have gotten rid of most of their things. It has something to do with the fact that my family moved from Northern California to Washington when I was ten years old and my mother tells stories of how my grandparents would come to visit for a week and the night before they'd leave to go home I would cry and cry because it was just too sad.
I had a conversation with my sister-in-law recently and she hit the nail on the head. She was talking about how she and my brother are people of the future, and how they are always planning their next vacation and the next step in their lives. They are thinking ahead to when they will buy a house, when they will have a kid. They map things out for themselves and I've noticed they rarely look back. There is something admirable about their forward sense of motion, especially since life has a way of barreling into the days ahead and there's nothing we can do about it.
I have always been a person of the past. I have a floral tin in one of my dresser drawers with a piece of masking tape on it baring my grandmother's handwriting that says "decorations small tree." I open the drawer and look at it when I am missing her. It's hard for me to throw away cards and letters. This thing between me and the past has a lot to do with the second-hand clothing I wear, the music I listen to, and the antiques that pile in my house. I look at the things I own and replay the stories of when I bought them, who I was with, which vacation we were on. I hunt consignment shops for things that have been owned by people before. Things that are made now don't seem to compare to things that were made then. I am intrigued by old diners that have passed hands and the architecture of buildings that have been standing for a long time, and I'm sure all of this has something to do with the way I sobbed when my parents sold the house I grew up in, and how I still can't go to that side of town. It has something to do with the fact that it's been four years since graduate school, and Idaho has remained a major part of me. I haven't since experienced the kind of wind that hits your face like an Idaho October, the early snows, the way the trees grew close together in East City Park, the walk that covered those few blocks from my apartment to Robert's when we first started spending time together, and I think often about that first hot summer when my parents drove me over the mountains with all of my things and Elizabeth came and stayed with me for a week to help me get settled. We slept in my daybed from childhood which pulled into a trundle bed, and read Lucy Grealy to each other at night before falling asleep. I sold that bed for twenty bucks before moving back to Bellingham. I am not naive enough to expect things to stay the same, I've lived too long for that, but I certainly wouldn't mind turning back for one last look.
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It has something to do with the fact that our friends are moving to China and I am attached to them. The way it plays out in my mind is they move to China to teach for a year or ten months or however long they're bound, and then they move to Thailand or somewhere equally as unobtainable to me and forgo coming back to the U.S. because they will have gotten rid of most of their things. It has something to do with the fact that my family moved from Northern California to Washington when I was ten years old and my mother tells stories of how my grandparents would come to visit for a week and the night before they'd leave to go home I would cry and cry because it was just too sad.
I had a conversation with my sister-in-law recently and she hit the nail on the head. She was talking about how she and my brother are people of the future, and how they are always planning their next vacation and the next step in their lives. They are thinking ahead to when they will buy a house, when they will have a kid. They map things out for themselves and I've noticed they rarely look back. There is something admirable about their forward sense of motion, especially since life has a way of barreling into the days ahead and there's nothing we can do about it.
I have always been a person of the past. I have a floral tin in one of my dresser drawers with a piece of masking tape on it baring my grandmother's handwriting that says "decorations small tree." I open the drawer and look at it when I am missing her. It's hard for me to throw away cards and letters. This thing between me and the past has a lot to do with the second-hand clothing I wear, the music I listen to, and the antiques that pile in my house. I look at the things I own and replay the stories of when I bought them, who I was with, which vacation we were on. I hunt consignment shops for things that have been owned by people before. Things that are made now don't seem to compare to things that were made then. I am intrigued by old diners that have passed hands and the architecture of buildings that have been standing for a long time, and I'm sure all of this has something to do with the way I sobbed when my parents sold the house I grew up in, and how I still can't go to that side of town. It has something to do with the fact that it's been four years since graduate school, and Idaho has remained a major part of me. I haven't since experienced the kind of wind that hits your face like an Idaho October, the early snows, the way the trees grew close together in East City Park, the walk that covered those few blocks from my apartment to Robert's when we first started spending time together, and I think often about that first hot summer when my parents drove me over the mountains with all of my things and Elizabeth came and stayed with me for a week to help me get settled. We slept in my daybed from childhood which pulled into a trundle bed, and read Lucy Grealy to each other at night before falling asleep. I sold that bed for twenty bucks before moving back to Bellingham. I am not naive enough to expect things to stay the same, I've lived too long for that, but I certainly wouldn't mind turning back for one last look.
