YOU DON'T SAY
5/17/01 8:05am EST
The bus hasn't left the station and my mind races as I leave the town I grew up in, headed west, in the early morning.
Mom and I spent the night chatting about boys, playing "You Don't Say*", trying to rest. I have exactly two hours of sleep to help me through, what I thought then, would be the hardest of a three-day journey. Or so I might have thought at the time.
I will find everything I packed within 3 seconds of wanting it, because 4 duffels is not much space to pack your life away. I forgot my face wash, along with probably a million other things. But they have face wash in Portland and I'm sure I'll find plenty of things.
I developed this attitude about travel when I was young, probably 7 or 8, when we went out on one of many family camping trips. I remember my father, perfectly anal and "like a boy scout" perfectly prepared, asking 3,000 questions. "Did we pack the toothbrushes?" "Did we pack the tent?" Us kids never dare respond, our mother always saying, "Yes, dear". We all answer our own questions. After he'd asked those three thousand some-odd questions, he’d always say, "You know what, we're behind schedule. If we forgot something, we'll buy it along the way."
This phrase has never left me. "If we forgot something, we'll buy it along the way." I once didn't have time to pack due to a hectic work/commute/class schedule for my first trip to San Francisco and bought underwear at a Target in Oak Ridge, instead of doing laundry. In that occasion and since, this sentence has come in handy when traveling.
My momma always said, "Everything’s gonna to be okay." My mom said, "You wanted an adventure and that's what you'll get."
“When you're run down after the first twenty hours and still have forty more to go, just think -- that's how long I was in labor with you.”, she said. And I guess the moral (although I know it wasn't exactly the moral she wanted me to get) is good things are worth waiting for or as I told myself pre-shower, blurry-eyed in the mirror this morning, "nothing worth doing is easy." Is that the way the proverb goes? Am I INSANE? Is it: "the right thing to do isn't always easy"? or "something a little less throw-myself-into-the-fires-of-hell-and-see-what-kind-of-cinder-I-become ? Anyway, I was a little more self-righteous then, but no-less impulsive.
I wish she hadn't told me, as I waited for my bus, her plans of buying me a plane ticket. but as Jamie would interject, "Everything happens for a reason" and of course, he is right, unoriginal, but right.
Mom slipped me some cash and packed me a bagel. Oh, don't you worry, I'll be just fine, Momma.
The bus pulls away. Mom waves and blows a kiss. She probably saw that in a train station scene in an old country western and found it endearing and romantic. But nothing really seems that way this morning as I look out at my arbor of green wet leaves for the last time as my home.
Portland will be exactly like this, wet, gray sky, green, charming. Why am I moving again? "Change is good for the soul." Oh right, of course, Ben, thanks I forgot.
Ben had been living in San Francisco for almost a year (and hadn't made any real friends) when he told me "change is good...". When I arrived in Portland, the weather was nothing like that of Michigan's when I left. The comparison didn't strike me then, because those three days felt like an eternity and I was more concerned with getting a shower than what the outdoor conditions might be. The weather was sunny, in the 70s and blue skies with light fluffy white clouds . This beautiful weather would help me fall in love with Portland that entire first summer.
*"You Don't Say" is a game show that was popular in my mother's era. The way we have always played (not sure these are the T.V. rules), since I was a small child, two player game. player one layer chooses a famous person and then gives a hint about their name (i.e. Audrey Hepburn, hint: when you put your hand too close to a stove you get...?), second player gives a guess to the hint until they get what the first player is looking for (i.e. "scalding", "boiling", "hot", "BURN!"). As this happens the first player can give hints to help the second player get to the concept they are looking for (i.e. "not scalding, what does the scalding liquid do to your skin") Once the desired answer is given the first player says, "right" and continues on with the second hint (i.e. hint 2: a sexually transmitted disease). The second player guesses at the second, third, fourth (if needed) hint, until they arrive at all the words that sound like the famous persons name. Then the second player (or "guesser") strings these weird clues together to create a name (i.e. Burn, Hepatitis, Awe, Dry) and throws them around in different orientations until they guess the famous person in question (i.e. Burn, Awe, Hepatitis, Dry. Awe, Burn, Hepatitis, Dry. Dry, Awe, Burn, Hepatitis, Hepatitis, Burn, Awe, Dry. Oh Hepburn...Audrey Hepburn!!!). Like this example, the hints often take a lot of reworking and are as far from the name as possible with out appearing to be a "cheater". It really is a fun game that will pass a lot of time. As the years have passed, my mother and I have created rules to bridge the generation gap (i.e. you can only use famous people you think or know that I would recognize.). My mother and I must have played 1,000,000 games of "You Don't Say" in our short time on Earth. It is something that always brings us back to square one, just saying those words, "Let's play a game of You Don't Say." Try it with your friends, parents or kids. It really never should have been taken off the air.
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