“Something changes in us when we travel,” so says Volume 20 of Kinfolk magazine.
“…it’s what we do with those memories once we’ve unpacked our suitcases that really makes a difference in the long run.”
I ate the last of the Florida oranges this morning, its skin was thin and flecks of brown covered the orange so that it seemed more native then the kind we get at the grocery store. The fruit is like candy, and I remembered visiting my friend Alison in Ft. Myers and she asked if I wanted orange juice for breakfast. “Sure,” I said, and she went outside to pick brown flecked oranges from her tree just like the one I was holding this morning. Everyone has a pool, and everyone has an orange tree in Florida.
The first day taking Hadley and Harper to school, I scraped ice off the car and swiped snow from its roof. Winter in the Midwest these days is nostalgic for me, and I don’t know if I have the good sense to appreciate it’s harshness and murkiness and down right icy manner. Right now, I have a crush on Winter and I remember with laughter my mom smearing Ponds Cold Cream on our faces before we wrapped our feet in plastic grocery bags and shoved them into our moon boots, and walked to school. I remember sledding at Berry Park, down the mother of all hills. The kids on the North side would say it was the Ridgeland hill that was the beast, but us South side kids knew better. Even climbing that thing was treacherous. You’d be lucky to get to the top without a bloody nose and no, I’m not looking out for you when I go down. Get out of the way. Don’t sit there and celebrate the fact you made it down without falling off your saucer. I’ll knock your head off with my moon boots. I remember the day I drove to high school without gloves and my hands froze to the steering wheel. I remember stopping at the 7-11 for hot chocolate on the way home from school and it spilled on my brand new white Keds I was supposed to perform in that night. I remember thinking, “Crap. My mom is gonna be so mad,” but also, “my toes are so warm right now. Thank you, hot chocolate.” I remember sitting on frozen waves on Good Friday. Right now, Winter is an amusement park.
There’s a large pumpkin outside of Hadley’s school. It’s bright orange and it’s the perfect Charlie Brown pumpkin, and I don’t know what it’s doing there in the middle of January sitting all lopsided and heading back into the dirt from where it came.
The crossing guard at Harper’s school holds a mug of coffee and dances to the music she’s listening to on headphones. It is impossible not to think of my crossing guard when I look at her. They look almost the same, but my crossing guard didn’t move like this woman. Taking kids across Ridgeland and Jackson was slow, careful work. We had to stand behind a thick, yellow line and her long arm and mittened hand. She saved us from cars, sure, but also puddles and that March snow that’s grey and wants to melt but can’t. She was all business with her pink lipstick and her thin smile. She knew my name. Said good morning to me every day from Kindergarten to Sixth grade, and I liked her steady walk and her pink lipstick.
The last of the laundry from our trip is put away. Shorts and flip flops are now deep in our closets, waiting. “I wore these to Disney World,” Harper might say in June when the sun is shining. “That was the day we went on Thunder Mountain and I put my hands up for the first time on a roller coaster!”
“I wore this the day I got my wand at Ollivander’s, and drank butter beer at the Leaky Cauldron,” Hadley might say, shaking out a t-shirt.
We will talk about the trip we took together. We’ll laugh about the spaceship ride Hadley turned green on and we’ll remember the dinner we had with all the princesses and Harper said, “I better put my Light Saber away before Cinderella comes over.” The girls will make fun of me for insisting we go on the Gringotts ride twice despite the 45 minute wait, and I’ll tell them that I cried a little when I got to go on the Escape from Hogwarts ride because it was everything I’d ever dreamed Hogwarts would be. We’ll thank Jesse for all the “fast passes” he scheduled so we didn’t have to stand in line.
I’m betting the infatuation I have with Winter will be gone when it’s March and I know the Cherry Blossoms will be blooming and all the Type A-ers will slide their windows open as they drive around the Beltway and towards the Tidal Basin, and Georgetown, and Le Pain Quotidian in Bethesda to work on their writing. I’m sure I’ll say, “Damn you, Winter! It’s about to be PROM season, don’t you know?”
I’ll remember it’s not like this everywhere. I’ll remember there’s a place where an escaped dragon sits on top of a bank, breathing fire, and princesses with big hoop skirts that put smiles on little girls’ faces. I’ll remember the giraffes we saw at Animal Kingdom, and that I learned each of their prints is unique to them, like a fingerprint.
I’ll remember that magic and it’ll remind me to smile at Harper’s crossing guard and remember my own. It’ll make me wonder about that pumpkin in front of Hadley’s school and whether squirrels got to it before it sunk into the ground. When Winter is old and crotchety and refusing to move himself from his icy Lazy Boy, I’ll take his hand and say, “Fine. You can stay. But show me to the sledding hill. Just look out for my moon boots on the way down.”
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