By the time I had reached the age of eighteen, I had moved at least fifteen times. Take a moment to think about the implications of that statement. The math would suggest I moved an average once a year. If only that was the case, it would have been easier. But the funny thing about averages, is they don't mean much. Some years I moved two or three times. The longest length between moves was about four years. It was the most stability I had - those four years.
A few years ago when I was writing for my local newspaper I would interview people working in the social work field. They all seemed to have big hearts and a desire to make peoples' lives better. They also all seem to have a lack of personal experience of what it means to live in less than middle class. But who attends college? The middle class. The upper class. Sometimes a person from the working class manages to bridge that gap. Or claw their way through the middle class language, vocabulary, and invisible barriers.
In my town they would hold seminars for the working professionals in social work in which they would pretend to be poor. They would be given cards that would give them scenarios to work through. Examples included your car broke down and you can't make your doctor's appointment or the food pantry is half a mile pass the last bus stop, how do you pick up food?
I was often asked when I conducted these interviews if I had a background in social work before journalism because I knew what they were talking about.
No, I don't have a background in social work.
I have a background in social class. In working class. In poverty.
It wasn't until later when I grew up and started experiencing other social classes, (If you don't think American has a class system, then you're not working class. Consider yourself lucky and just make sure your town puts a bus stop out to the damn food pantry.) that I began to realize that moving fifteen times in a childhood wasn't normal. Moving half way through a school year wasn't ideal.
Yes, I was always that kid. "Hello, class. This is so-so and she's new today. So everyone be nice to her." Do teachers realize how much a new kid loves to be told to stand up, have the entire class' attention on them and made to tell something interesting about themselves to the class? Yeah, I didn't think so, because if they realized how difficult it was to be the new kid, they might not make them the center of attention.
I tell you these details about me, not because I ever thought they were relevant to my life today or because I seek some kind of sympathy, but because my mom suddenly passed away on March 30. And if that connection doesn't make sense to you, don't worry. I have found that in my grief, I struggle with putting all kinds of thoughts together. Some of them click as they should, and some don't. But neurons don't care when they are being destroyed by grief. So weird things happen in the brain.
My Mom was only 59 years old and because of Covid, the hospital had strict restrictions about visitors. I wasn't even there to say goodbye or to be there for her. Hell, my dad wasn't even allowed to be with her. I was allowed to say goodbye through FaceTime, while she was sedated. But not completely, because her brow furrowed when I talked to her. When I said goodbye. And I couldn't make it better. I think the only thing she feared was dying without family by her side.
Since that time I have struggled immensely. with grief. with a sense of failure for not being there. for failing to give her a house at the end. My Mom grew up in broken down trailers, and in tiny rooms of the back of bars, and in conditions that were not suitable for a child. If I don't know what the meaning of home means because I never stayed long enough to figure it out and I've been searching ever since, than she wasn't even aware that she was looking for something.
My parents moved seven more times after I turned into an adult. They might have stayed in the farmhouse, but 9/11 destroyed her business, and took nearly everything they owned after that. They house surfed after that, driven by storms they had no buffers against except for the weak ones two of their children managed to provide. Their third child, had to run to Texas to escape her poverty made demons, and I would tell her, if she was talking to me, that there is never enough distance in the entire world to run away from our own personal demons.
My heart aches with the fact that my Mom died in a broken down trailer, with a leaky and moldy office room, windows that allowed the fierce Midwest winds in, and rats that crawled through her kitchen drawers. There were holes in the sub flooring which trips you on the way down the hallway, and the deck was falling apart. My brother had purchased them the trailer outright when they couldn't afford the rent on their last space. If he could have bought them something better, he would have.
For years they had lived in my basement, before Baby Blueberry came along and we needed more room. I gave them shelter for the cost of running the Cove heaters because damn, those are expensive.
I couldn't do more. I wanted to do more.
I wanted to give her what she had spent her hard and difficult life seeking and I failed.
But even had I provided a house for her. For my dad. Would they have finally found it? And what is it? I thought I knew. That's why I bought a house three days before I got married to Hero Hottie. And then my mom died and I find that I don't know what this idea of home means.
I thought my lack of decorating was because I believed I wasn't artistic enough to decorate. I thought it was because the only thing I ever saw growing up, was that my parents would get permission from the landlord to paint the walls a light blue. In every single house. I thought my lack of style was because my mom used cheap, garage sale knick knocks and passed down doilies to decorate our spaces and I didn't like that style, so I didn't do anything.
Then I had a realization as I spent hours thinking about my mom and my childhood, after she passed, I never took the time to decorate my houses, because even though Hero Hottie and I have been in our current house for over ten years, I expect to pack and move without a moment's notice. I'm always in waiting mode, ready to clear out. Ready to leave. Why decorate a space that you're going to leave? Heck, I have numerous dreams where I have to pack a bag and just leave. And in my dreams I'm always worried about taking the items that mean something to me.
My mom has left me lost. As Baby Blueberry said, the first week of quarantine we did okay, the second week we started getting grumpy with each other, the third week Grandma died. And then counting the weeks stopped.
Dorothy just clicked her heels and she found her way home. I lost the only stable point I ever had and I'm spinning like a tornado who might land in Oz or Kansas, or back in Oregon. And it doesn't matter, because no matter where I land, I've tried clicking my heels, and I still haven't found home.
