Hat Tip to Thomas Wolfe
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood…back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time…” — Thomas Wolfe
First, let me go on record that as a memoir writer and someone who writes about family, relationships, and the mundane moments of everyday life — you can return home by remembering. I’ve learned though as a reminiscence writer that memory is malleable and can play tricks on you, sometimes sanding off the rough edges of some memories, while sharpening others. The nation has witnessed this phenomenon the past couple of weeks during the Supreme Court Justice nomination hearings.
Growing up in the 1950s
Full Disclosure: I started pre-writing this essay a month ago, the weekend following Labor Day. It was intended to be a piece about why I cancelled my trip to Racine, Wisconsin, my hometown. I was to spend a three-day weekend there which included my 50th High School Reunion from J. I. Case High School, a visit with my elderly father who lives alone and my sister Cindy who is living with Stage IV cancer. I never made it. Things change.
As most of my Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! readers know from my virtual life, and those that know me in real life, I’ve been working a lot lately on my Hotel Bar web series in production. Prior to September we spent the last three weekends in August, full-days on Sunday, plus Monday evenings late, filming scenes at The Brink Lounge in Madison.
As an older, not-so-fit, obese woman (according to my doctor and my mirror), I overextended myself, slogging gear, plus coolers full of water to hydrate cast and production crew. I didn’t stretch before. I pretended that I was a youthful roadie; I didn’t lift properly and bend at my arthritic knees. The outcome, strained muscles and sciatic leg pain.
You Can’t Go Back to High School Again (or Choose Not To)
Highlights of the trip home and the class reunion had included a bus tour of Racine on Friday to see all its changes over the years, and on Saturday another bus ride, the destination a tour of our alma mater. Because I was in so much pain, I couldn’t climb stairs and I imagined what I’d look like asking one of my former classmates to push my butt up as I tried to get on the bus. That clinched it, I couldn’t attend my class reunion in that condition.
I was experiencing trouble driving due to my back and leg pain. I had a difficult time getting in and out of my car, plus transitioning my leg and foot from accelerator pedal to brake. Clearly, a 100-mile, two-hour trip each way, driving Wisconsin’s road construction season was out of the question.
When I took a look back, I was looking forward to the tour of the city and the school and I was curious to see how my classmates changed over the years and to hear their stories.
Then I realized three important factors: First, more than likely, I would be reuniting with classmates on a relatively superficial level, interacting with their “known” selves, how they appear externally in the world, rather than engaging their “true” selves, their internal, authentic ways of being in the world.
Yearbook entries which included stories about drinking (sound familiar).
Second, though I was active in high school, held leadership roles, including first editor of our high school newspaper as a junior (J. I. Case H.S. opened 52 years ago, the fall of 1966; I graduated in 1968), and acted in theater productions and more, like many high school adolescents, then and now, I didn’t truly feel like I fit in. It wasn’t until years later when I came out as a lesbian and went in outpatient treatment for alcoholism and family issues, did I understand why.
A yearbook entry with a warning from a classmate who really cared.
Lastly, I graduated from a class of over 600 students, and have not kept in contact with any of my high school friends or classmates. Six years after graduating from high school, I moved to Madison, where I’ve remained the rest of my life.
You Can’t Go Home Again (It’s Too Painful)
What I was most disheartened and disappointed about was having to cancel my visit with Dad and Cindy. Since my mother’s death and my father living alone, I have a standing phone date with him once a week, and a visit for a day, once a month. Since my sister Cindy was diagnosed with cancer, I’ve been trying to piggyback a visit with her too. The high school reunion weekend was an opportunity for me to spend more time with each of them over the three-day-weekend.
The week before the trip to Racine and following the Labor Day holiday I went to Urgent Care and was prescribed a muscle relaxant and prescription strength dosage of Naproxen. I stopped taking both before the reunion weekend but still was in too much pain to drive. Once I made the decision I couldn’t travel, I called my father and sister to deliver the news. They were as disappointed as I was, but were grateful that I was taking care of myself and hoped I would recover soon.
What I realized when I reflected on the events that led up to the decision to cancel the trip, I began questioning how much of my injury and pain was physical/real (yes, 7 on the scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the most severe) and how much of my pain was emotional/psychosomatic (yes, also 7 on the scale of 0 to 10). What I’ve learned over the years is that body, mind, and spirit don’t function separately, but as an interdependent system.
Pain Scale
Though I am grateful for all the time I spend with family, which more than often fills my heart and spirit with love, there are challenging times too that test my character and requires me to take a fearless inventory of myself and my behavior and make amends when needed.
Since the death of two family members, first, my sister Roz six years ago, and our mother over two years ago, the dynamics of our family have changed, including our individual family roles and statuses. Dad now lives alone. Sister Kelly is the primary caregiver and support for our father, with our brother Rick helping from a distance (he lives with his family in Colorado) and by periodic visits to Racine as Dad’s handyman, foreman coordinating maintenance projects, and as Dad’s financial advisor.
Sisters Kelly and Tami are primary caregivers and support for sister Cindy, and I function as a Tag Team Sister and assist when and where I’m able, keeping in touch and visiting Dad regularly, and as the lead chef, filling in for Mom at Thanksgiving and other holidays. I visit Cindy too now and help when and how I’m able.
Family home in Racine
I mention this background because it’s in fact a reminder that I can’t go home again. Home is different now — my family is different now — I’m different now.
My father is elderly, though for the most part he’s in good health, yet every time I see him, he’s lost more weight, he’s less balanced on his feet, he’s weaker, and he’s more afraid. Dad has always been a fearful and anxious person, now more than ever. Fortunately, in our mother’s absence, his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren keep in touch and support him, body, mind, and spirit.
Dad with some of his great grandchildren
Sister Cindy has always been a strong-willed, independent, rebellious woman. She’s been a fighter one way or the other her entire life, often fighting with the people she loves most (don’t we all, if we’re truly honest with ourselves?). Many of our family members are stubborn to the core and right-fighters, including Dad, Cindy and I.
Cindy and I have had our moments. We’ve done battle in our dysfunctional family roles as the eldest child (me) and rebel child (Cindy), yet I love her unconditionally. There were times in our lives when she required someone to stand up for her — and I did. I was the only family member at her high school graduation and Mom and I were her only immediate family members when we attended her wedding when she lived New Mexico.
Cindy & I before cancer.
I realized, that though I was experiencing debilitating physical pain, I was also experiencing debilitating spiritual and emotional pain anticipating Cindy’s death from cancer. Her prognosis is to live probably six months longer. Cindy likes to remind the family, with tongue-in-cheek, that we’re all going to die! When her cancer doctor delivered her the prognosis and answered Cindy’s question about how long she might live with cancer, her doctor also told her, “Live your life”. Cindy is doing just that to the best of her ability and with the help of friends, family, and her medical team. Cindy’s a fighter and she will fight cancer too, until cancer takes the fight out of her.
Cindy “living her life” with cancer.
When I finally made the decision that I couldn’t go home this trip, it was for a number of reasons, caused by the fact that my mind, body, and spirit conspired to strike me down and forced me to address some of the elements of H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). I didn’t have the spiritual and emotional energy to see my father and sister’s lives diminish and dissipate in my physically-weakened condition. I’m weaker than I thought, body, mind, and spirit.
Gratefully, after three weeks of recovery and physical therapy, I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually able to take that trip home to Racine and visit both Dad and Cindy. After lunch with Dad we watched the Green Bay Packers win a shut-out football game. With Cindy, we talked about the past, our family, and broke family “don’t talk” rules by sharing our memories and secrets from the past and beginning the process of making amends to each other. Cindy asked me, “What would you like to have of mine (from my material possessions)?” I responded, “Whatever you would like me to have to remember you by.” What I should have said is, “You’ve already given me the greatest gift, you’re my sister”.
You Can’t Go Home Again (Past, Present, & Future)
Sometimes when we travel, we take a circuitous route. This is true of memories too. Sometimes we encounter roadblocks, need to take detours, seek out rest stops, or require some fuel and maintenance to continue on our journey. Sometimes when we look back, the dangerous curves behind us have disappeared and the road ahead is straight and clear. Sometimes we need to HALT.
I often try to find the correlations between my personal life and how it connects to the larger community and the world. It became crystal clear this past month as my body, mind, and spirit determined that I couldn’t go home again.
The past two weeks (and more — years and years of more), I’ve witnessed how the bodies, minds, and spirits of women (and children and men) have been hurt by families or the people charged to protect us, from the priests and ministers where we worship, to coaches and teachers, judges, police officers, lawmakers, spouses and lovers, doctors, high school and college classmates, employers, to strangers on the street, from survivors who become predators, from the privileged who abuse others, to the untreated alcoholics, addicts, and mentally ill.
Sometimes we’re forced to go home again and remember. Christine Blasey Ford courageously and painfully did this week along with all the women, men, and children who have posted their own #MeToo stories.
When examined closely, our homes actually inhabit three realms, that of the past, present, and future. I guess in the end — we may be able to go home — depending in which realm and home we want to visit and how much courage and strength we can rally when we travel.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
1968: Flashback & Fast Forward
Life as a Barfly: Dispatch from the Hotel Bar
Finding the Light in Dark Times
Another Dispatch from the Hideout
Thank you for this, as always.