Earth Experiences #8: Letting Go

Thomas Wolfe says, "You can never go home again."

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Today’s Earth Experiences post had me all befuddled. Usually, I know exactly what I want to write about. Something hits me square in the face, and I know it’s the subject of my next post. Spiders! Dogs! Kamala! But this week, I’ve struggled. I considered writing about the election because it’s always on my mind. I thought about sharing our Tuesday night tradition of drinking margaritas and eating copious amounts of queso with our friend, Gail. I thought maybe I’d share the story of playing my first games of pickleball this week, just 5.5 weeks after my total knee replacement. But nothing stuck. Nothing really seemed to matter.

And then I realized why.

I was in the early stages of writing a 500-word piece for a new literary magazine when a song from the 1970s that had seared itself into my brain played in my head again, the needle scratching against the spinning LP.

And it took me right back.

It took me home. It took me to the small, second floor apartment I was raised in; the tiny bedroom my sister and I shared. It took me to our silly childhood squabbles and my mom rolling her eyes in exasperation. It took me to a time when we all loved and cherished and depended on each other, the three of us. It took me back to weekends at Granny’s and road trips in the Chevette, Carrie and I sucking Jolly Rancher sticks into a sharp point and poking each other with them on the drive. It took me back to when it was us three against the world: Mom, Carrie, and me.

It took me back to Greenfield, the small town I both loved and loathed. The one that gave me so much and also took its fair share, too. I remember my high school best friend, Beth, saying that once she left, she never needed to return to Greenfield again. I didn’t understand it at the time. I do now. Greenfield, for me, is a battleground of memories, both good and bad. It is where I was made. It is where I was broken. It is where I married my high school boyfriend and subsequently lost myself. It is where three of my children were born, and just minutes away from where the fourth made his entrance into the world.

It is where my mom and my sister each drew their final breaths.

It’s mid-September in Indiana which means the leaves are changing and a chill creeps into the air now and then and everyone is pulling out their favorite sweaters and boots and scarves in anticipation of a cozy campfire on a cold night.

But the temperature is on its way to 90 degrees here in Central Florida, and fall feels no different than summer here, one season blending seamlessly into the next. The air conditioner is cranking out the cold, and I sit here in a tank top as I write this post. My patience with Florida and its oppressive heat and its even more oppressive political climate is growing thin.

And I am sad.

I miss my home today. I miss my cousins. I miss my aunts and my uncles and my niece and nephew and brother-in-law. I miss my friends. I miss walking through the woods in Brown County, the crunch of crisp, colored leaves beneath my feet. I miss going to the pumpkin patch with Andi. I miss shopping for pumpkin patch clothes with Andi. I miss walking through Riley Days with Carrie, picking out handmade items we can’t live without. I miss the sun glowing on my mom’s cloud-colored hair as she sits on a hayride, my kids on her lap and gathered all around her. I miss carving pumpkins with my littles, newspapers strewn across the kitchen table. I miss my grown and flown kids—who are doing exactly what they should be doing—but doing it so very far away.

Indiana state park candles were advertised on one of my favorite shopping sites today, and I cried when I saw the candle called Brown County.

Most acutely, I miss my mom and my sister with every ounce of my being. Today, I miss them with an ache in my bones that I can hardly describe. It’s just there, roiling within me. I’m thinking about all the ways I disappointed my mom over the years. I’m thinking about all the things I wish I’d said to my sister instead of some of the things I actually did say. I think about the things she said to me—things I’m sure she would take back if she could.

But there are no take-backs now.

I’m thinking about how glorious it would be to sit with them on a cool night, sipping Keoke coffees and mending all of our broken fences and walking through the rest of our lives together, hand in hand. Understanding. Respecting. Loving unconditionally. Laughing until our sides hurt. A second chance to do things better.

But there is no second chance for us.

Autumn is here, though, arriving with its predictable, precise timing. Every year it comes, this season that reminds us of the beauty and necessity of letting go. I wish I could let go of my regrets and my sad memories, but instead, I had to let go of my mom and my sister instead. Autumn has long been my favorite season, but it is also a brutal one—the precursor to a season of bitter cold darkness. The beauty in the trees shadowed by the death that inevitably awaits, and then the long-awaited rebirth in the spring.

But there is no rebirth for my mom or my sister.

There are only memories, carried on the winds of time like the crisp reds, oranges, and yellows of this season.

This cruel and beautiful season of letting go.