Tangible

My gypsy clan and I made a stop at the old family homestead in New York. Our last exit before we board the train to visit my mother. Our merry trio arrived late Monday night and didn’t have a chance to see the surroundings in the dark. When I woke up at 6:10 a.m., the clear at first light sunk in extra hard. My parents’ property is in desperate need of repair. Outside, the driveway needs gravel, fallen trees need to be cut and hauled off. Inside, soft spots in the floor boards need to be reinforced, ceiling needs to be patched, etc. I should be clear … this is not a grand estate from long ago that was meant to stand until the second coming. It’s a 1970 mobile home that sits on a basement my father built in the early 80’s. However, the crumbling abode is on a scenic twenty-two acres of land—land that would have inspired Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Robinson Jeffers to a blissful nirvana. While my dad was in good health, he—a handyman that I am not— was able to repair the place and keep it glowing.

So I was lying in bed staring out the window, my brow furrowed with thoughts spiraling like a gyroscope. After a while, I turned and looked at my charmer. I hadn’t realized she had been watching me, waiting for me to notice her as to not break my train of thought. She’s like that, which is one of the 782,432 reasons I love her. She quietly asked, “What’s wrong.”

“I know it’s silly, but I wanted this place to stand forever. I wanted to always return and see my mom and dad.” I pulled the curtain farther back to view the entire snow swept lawn. “My dad is always here … in the land, the trees and grass, and the creek that passes by. All him.  But mom … she lived for this home, and I can’t keep it up. The center can’t hold. And all that bullshit.”

She wisely let me stride down the ‘woe is me’ lane and listened intently. I waxed, on and on, about how we live in a disposable society and other mental crap, like, even memories don’t last … just look at my mom and the broken down merry-go-round that passes for a brain of hers. Nothing lasts forever.

I paused and contemplated what I just spat out. When I float back from my wounded spot, I found my charmer’s reassuring, green eyes. She said very simply, “Even the pyramids are crumbling, what do you expect?”

“Yeah. Nothing is tangible,” I replied. A few seconds passed, and we spontaneously laughed at the  direction our gravity-filled conversation lead us.

Our daughter woke up and looked at us. I saw my dad’s eyes and mom’s inquisitive nature. The past collided with the present in a whirlpool of emotions, and a thousand clichés could be inserted here, but I’ll spare you because there’s nothing new that you and an incalculable number of human beings from the dawn of time haven’t felt.  

My little girl asked me to read her a morning story, and so I do. I reach for one of her tiny books from the collection we piled on the nightstand. This dilapidated old trailer lasted long enough for me to read Biscuit Visits the Farm to my little coconut in the same room that my mother and father read Curious George to me. And, hell, that’s all I need to double down on life and keep pressing forward.