The Persistence Of Memory, Part Two

Almost any memory, I suppose, can create an air of importance if it's intense enough. Even hard times can acquire a sort of mythos, the status of a personal legend.

It was four years ago now that I packed up my children, pets and anything I could carry, and drove away from my home. My partner stood on the brick walkway, holding one last box of his belongings. He was waiting for us to go before he began the walk to the place he'd live until some indefinite time in the future.

I felt for him. How lonely it must have been, that walk. I had a long drive ahead of me, and the children and pets to occupy my thoughts. He only had the sidewalks and the stars and the gibbous moon waxing overhead. I tried to keep this mental image at bay as I pulled onto the road. If there was regret, for the children's sake I kept it to myself. I would have loved to turn around, prolong the inevitable goodbye a little longer, but despite my tendency to get lost in the past, I don't like to turn back once a decision is made.

The sky had rapidly sunk from twilight into navy blue. Small details came into focus, the way they do at times like these. The little man on the crosswalk sign that never gave you quite enough time to cross; moths and June bugs flittering around the street lights. Through the windows at the Coastal mart, I could see Velma working the register. I thought that I should have said goodbye to her at least, but guessed my husband would probably stop in on his way. He'd buy a bottle of water and a pack of Malvita* biscuits, and maybe not mention that his whole family had just moved away, because who knows what to say to that. I'd be right, but wouldn't know that until later. At the moment, there was nothing to do but drive on.

We turned onto Rio Grande street, then Main. We searched for music to keep us cheerful. The kids rejected Stereolab as too gloomy and French, they would rather have The Pillows instead. We drove out of town, pretending like it was some great adventure when really we were just sad.

At the truck stop on highway 90, we took a break, unwinding ourselves from the boxes and crates to take the dog out. The kids bought snacks and I bought a coffee and a pack of spearmint gum. The coffee was the consistency of motor oil, but I'm not complaining. It was comforting, somehow.

We hung around for a while, watching the traffic pass. So many cars coming and going. I wondered who else was making a difficult journey. I wondered how they would cope with what was ahead of them. The parking lot was a sort of limbo, I suppose. The florescent lights marked out a sacred space where time didn't exist and all options are - theoretically, at least - still open. When you aren't looking forward to your future, spending eternity in a truck stop parking lot doesn't seem so bad.

...

Back on the road, I tried not to think about the line of falling dominoes that had lead to this point, but such things are easier said than done. There had been plenty of signs that things were going wrong. We'd watched with some trepidation, then outright anxiety, as prospects dimmed all over town. We told ourselves that things might get better, we'd keep hanging on, but I'd managed to put aside the thing that would eventually lead to this night drive - my mother's deteriorating mental state.

Well, she'd always been a piece of work, you know, even when she was younger. There was a good reason I'd hardly been back since I'd left home. Not my problem anymore, I'd said. Until the day came when it was. By then, there was no one left to deal with it but me. The least-favored, most ungolden child.

But isn't that always the way?

There was a storm brewing in the West as we wound our way through the countryside. We could see lightning in the distant clouds. Had I been better with metaphors, I might have seen this as symbolic, but instead it just seemed like Spring. Or more damned crappy luck.

The storm broke a couple of hours after we arrived. It was short-lived but the lightning was fierce, the likes of which we never saw in Victoria. Another thing I'd forgotten in all the years I'd been gone. Mother had forgotten things too. When she talked about her children, she seemed not to remember that I'd once been one of them. It was fitting enough, I suppose. My future was unclear. Now my past was in doubt, too.

...

Maybe it's because of this that I become obsessed with fixing all these details in my mind. Perhaps this post should be called the persistence of emotion instead. Memory fails, but emotions remain, attached to even the most hazy recollections of  color, temperature and light. It bothers me that I can't recall what shirt I was wearing the night I left. Everything else, yes - DKNY capri pants, black ballet flats, a forest green cardigan - but what shirt? It hardly matters, except it does. How did I let this detail get away from me? How many more will go when I'm not looking?

I can tell you what we did, the kids and me, as we tried to adjust to our circumstances. Navigating the new parts of town that had sprung up in my absence. Buying shoes and extension cords.Walking the dog. I can tell you what we did, but I can't make you feel how it felt. I'm not clever enough. I'm no Robert Coover or anything. The best I can do is try to anchor these emotions to a specific place in time, lest they escape and run amok.

There is no way to describe how at sea we were, doing those things. Who the heck remembers buying an extension cord at Home Depot? Oh, but I do, and also, since when is there a Home Depot here? And this street? Why is the sunlight so white** and who are all these people? What am I going to do about my mother? The most ordinary things return with a pang. Wandering the lonely aisles at Walgreen's. Rainwater swirling at the bottom of hills. And my son and me, in this sort of sleepless underwater haze at 5 AM, watching Popeye cartoons, because we knew his dad in back in Victoria was watching too, and for that hour at least we felt connected.

We drove a lot in those early days, while we tried to learn our way around. We searched through all the new radio stations. Victoria had always been short on radio. The song we liked the most was Miike Snow's Paddling Out.

 It seems somehow fitting now.

It was four months later that my husband and I finally came to understand that there was not going to be a simple solution for my mother, that Victoria was finished for both of us, and this splitting of the family was far harder than it was worth. He packed his bags, and I left before sunrise to bring him back. I bought a Kolache and a coffee on the way out of town, and for that moment -  a reverse of  what had gone before - I was happy.

I'll always feel a bit glum about our life in Victoria that skidded to a halt so suddenly, and the rapid changes that beset our family. That life can only live on in feeling and memory now. The brick walkway does not belong to us anymore. We are all together, though, and for that I am grateful.


* typo, and it stays.
**it's the limestone, we eventually figured out. The sun reflecting off the limestone. On cloudy days, it's gloomier than Victoria could ever dream of.