When
I was a kid, we spent several late-60s summers visiting
my mother's sister and her family in Los Angeles. After
school let out for summer vacation, my brothers and sister
and I would pile into the back of our Oldsmobile station
wagon with a stash of science fiction novels, comic books,
Spirographs, snack foods, pillows, and blankets to keep
us occupied over the long, three and a half day haul across
country from our home in Indiana to southern California.
The
best part of the trip was staying in small motels in remote
towns along Interstate 40 with exotic names like Tucumcari,
Amarillo, and Flagstaff. These motels had large, neon
signs and shimmering swimming pools that looked absolutely
enchanting after a long, hot day of staring at steaming,
never-ending blacktop. I don't remember ever actually swimming
in one of those pools, though; we usually ended the driving
day with just enough time to have a fast-food dinner and
watch a little TV before turning in early, so we could get
up before dawn to hit the road again.
Daybreak
was the very best time of day. We'd check out of the
motel before dawn and drive for a couple of hours, dad and
mom quiet in front, kids dozing in the back, stirring to
watch the sky gradually transition from inky to crimson
to pale blue. Then, just after sunup, we would pull over
for pancakes and hash browns at some greasy-spoon, truckstop
diner.
I
loved those trips, loved being on the road, jostling along
for days at a time; it was like being on a cruise. What
luxury, to be in a small contained space for days at a time
with nothing to do but munch Cheetos, read great literature
like "The Adventures of Tweety and Sylvester,"
and fight with your sister. When you're young you instinctively
feel safe with someone else, someone you trust, behind the
wheel. All you have to do is sit back and entertain
yourself while the world drifts by, filling you with a sense
of adventure and endless possibilities as wide as the big
desert sky.
*
* * *
It was only four years after my first trip to California
that we moved to Los Angeles permanently. Just before Memorial
Day, almost exactly one year after my father died in a car
accident, my mother, my sister, and I set out in a new station
wagon to leave the place where all of us were born and raised.
This time, Mom had to handle the driving chores alone, and
often grew tired; I remember one witheringly hot afternoon
nap under a freeway overpass in the middle of nowhere, when
mom miraculously woke up just as a creepy looking stranger
was approaching our car. The sense of adventure and wide
open spaces had given way to a creepy sense of being pursued,
and an awareness of our vulnerability.
In
California we moved in with my aunt's family, crowding their
small, three-bedroom ranch-style house. My cousin suddenly
had two roommates sharing her tiny, 10 x 10 bedroom,
but to the best of my memory, she never complained. Oh,
we fought, but in the way adolescent girls always fight
with each other, passionately but briefly, over trivial
things. I don't remember any particular edge to our disagreements,
the kind you might expect under the circumstances. I asked
her once, not long ago, how she had felt at the time about
being invaded by two near strangers, and her answer was
immediate, and uncharacteristically serious: "It
was the best thing that ever happened to me." She'd
never had sisters, had always had her own bedroom; but when
we arrived on the scene she not only accepted our arrival
as the new order of things, but embraced it.
Whether
it was a result of having her space pried open at an early
age, or whether it's just something extravagantly openhearted
in her nature, Kathy has always been more generous with
her space than either my sister or me. In the grand
tradition of her aunt - my mother - who never met a stranger,
my cousin has always cultivated a kind of entourage comprising
far-flung relatives no one else stays in touch with, people
she meets and immediately adopts, childhood friends, coworkers,
neighbors. She keeps her life full of people, while
I avoid others as much as possible. She and I have always
joked, in fact, that we were mixed up at birth, because
she is so much like my mother, and I so much like hers.
For
thirty-three years, my sister, my cousin and I have lived
as sisters. Except for my fifteen months in Santa Cruz and
my sister's even shorter stint a bit farther north in California,
the three of us have never lived farther from each other
than a two-hour drive. When we came to California it
was Kathy who taught us the ropes, instructing us in city
lore and California slang, teaching us how to be big city
girls. Since then, the three of us have shared four
weddings, the birth of three children, the deaths of three
parents and a brother/cousin, and innumerable calendar rituals
- Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas Eves, graduations, birthdays.
Next
week, though, Kathy's leaving California to be with her
brother and sister-in-law in Pennsylvania. It's a sudden
move, and none of us have quite adjusted, yet, to the idea.
In my mind, Kathy and my life in California have been
inextricably intertwined. In fact, were it not for her
family, mine never would have come here.The joke is on my
siblings and me, who are seemingly permanently transplanted
to this once-alien place: Since the death of her parents,
Kathy was the last of the people who were the reason
we moved to California in the first place, all those years
ago. Now, there will be nothing of family left to keep
us here.
Maybe
it's no coincidence, then, that I've been yearning so
much these past couple of weeks to hit the open highway,
heading east this time, grabbing some onion rings in Roswell,
staying in a crummy motel in Gallup, watching the sunrise
over the desert, rich with vibrant color and possibilities.
But unlike when I was a small girl, I don't feel so safe
out on the open highway, and I find reasons to stay put
- work, cats, money. The truth is, everybody keeps leaving,
and the more they leave, the more desperately I want to
stay rooted in place.
At
the summer solstice, the sun appears to stand still for
a moment in its path across the sky. Likewise, the astrological
fourth house, symbolically aligned with the solstice, is
where we stand still and put down roots. When I was
a kid, rooted firmly in the Indiana soil, I was eager to
hurtle out into the world; these days, when so much soil
has eroded around me, I rarely leave my city.
My
cousin will leave town and step out on her big adventure
just after the solstice, as the Sun begins to move again
and the days begin their slow, gradual wane into fall and
winter. Like my mother when we moved West, my cousin
is moving East at a time of trouble and sadness in her life;
she plans to fly to Pennsylvania, to get there as quickly
as possible. But I know she hates to fly, and so I prefer
to imagine her nestled, safe and snug, in the backseat of
an old station wagon, fighting with her brother, watching
the thrilling desert landscape unfold over a number of days;
filled with a sense of possibility, as secure as a child
who knows that someone she loves and trusts is behind the
wheel.
