They’re coming. You’re
going.
Doors locked. House
plants watered. Schemes in place for avoiding the worst of it.
America on wheels, in the
air.
A week of normal life
grinding down. And labor increasing.
Travelling with little
kids, stuffing them into snowsuits, packing shorts and sandals.
Or you, the oldsters,
dragging creaking bones and rolling suitcases down airport corridors, dodging
counterparts.
They’re all coming to
your house. Old and young. Red and Blue. Strangers in some sense, now, because
they’re living so far away. New York. Thailand. Dallas.
What will you talk about?
Or maybe it’s not your
house. Maybe it’s your apartment. Or your condo in a retirement facility.
Maybe it’s their house,
say your son’s. We have learned by now that sons are different from daughters.
If it’s your house, you
will control the food. That is, your expectations will control it. No?
Maybe it’s your vision of
their expectations—the pumpkin pie, the cornbread dressing, the green
bean casserole and candied “yams.” The inevitable turkey, gravy and canned
cranberry sauce.
They rely on this, the
scent of home, the memories.
Well, they must be
relying on something, wanting something, hoping, or they wouldn’t make this Herculean
effort. Enduring this stressful, maddening travel week, or part of it. Hazarded
by weather and crowds.
This is the price we pay
for breaking the bonds of family by living half a continent apart. Half a
world.
And so much time
unspooling between us.
Even if we’re just
driving from Houston or Austin to LaGrange, or from Katy to Round Top, the
holidays are the closest we have to time travel. With each mile we slip on the
skin of an earlier self, with all the insecurities we thought we were finished
with.
You present to your
parents their grandchildren, eight inches or a foot taller than the last time they
saw them, talking of characters from Pokemon Go. Chatting in newly acquired
Spanish vocabulary, ages 4 and 7. Wow. That’s some school they go to!
We used to drive less
than five minutes to Grand’mere’s house. We used to see each other for Sunday
dinner. We used to know each other, didn’t we—even though we might argue, or
think one cousin was a bit stuck on himself?
Now we go back home from
wherever we live, and it’s no wonder that people fall into their old roles. Their
present selves don’t have any other way to communicate. No one can see their
present selves, anyway, for the sluffed off skins they’ve reattached.
It’s tragic that Granny
and Opa aren’t a larger part of their lives. Continuity is lost, connection is
lost. Identity is blurred. They may not understand this, yet. They’re not old
enough.
Sure, divorce caused some
of this division, but the urgency of contemporary life bears a lot of blame.
Corporations move families without a second thought. Jobs in reliable
industries disappear abroad, leaving the formerly secure family scrambling.
Both parents work. Some want to. Most have to.
Technology keeps them connected
to one boss or another 24/7. No time for leisure. No time for reflection,
thought, creativity.
Even so, they’re scurrying
down holiday highways, across time zones, so everyone can gather around what still
pretends to be the family table for a meal no one really loves—except for the
bits that were their favorites. And—whatever kind of pie is on your
plate—dessert carries the flavor of our bittersweet mortality.
