what leads to tea and advil?

hours on the plane and more in the car which lulls me with the slush and hum and my mother's constant chatter and the heat running she swerves from one topic to the next and asks so many questions the city of brotherly love shines magnificently in the afternoon light and we cross a bridge and motel motel motel strip mall strip mall motel and then into the little town where i grew up all the same houses all the same there's ours my father in his sweat pants hugs me some of the furniture is different and then i drop my bag in the room where my grandfather lived and died

later at the local bar i meet with old friends the people on this earth i have known the longest outside of my family every one of them a study: the one who just moved into the city the one who became a cop the one with a secret she whispers to me at the bar the one whose grandmother who raised her just died the one who knows she is sexy and the one i haven't seen in fifteen years who looks exactly the same and tells me she is unemployed all have big smiles and we drink into the night remembering how it was mostly when we were teenagers and what ever happened to? on the way home i discover a pack of marlboro ultra lights in the hidey-hole in my mother's car and smoke about a half of just one

in the catholic church i notice everyone there is white and mention this to my father who specualtes that the church would be much stronger if after slavery the catholics had and my mind drifts because i don't really understand what he's talking about and so i'm nodding but really thinking that as long as i am here i should be paying attention and try to remember what it was about this place that held so much for me as a young person and then drove me away with such force as a teenager i like the dirge quality of some of the songs that suggest otherworldiness i like statues of the saints the stained glass windows the smell of incense i like how ritualized everything is i like when we all turn to each other and wish each other peace how we shake hands with strangers smile and say peace be with you

there are three children eight six and two that make me smile as soon as we get in the door after a long drive up into the hills in the northern part of the state my ears pop every couple of minutes as we pull in the last stretch of the ride there is snow on the ground and it is gorgeous the house is cozy with sad sounding geese honking and flying in V-shapes overhead [my older sister yells up to them you! are going! the wrong! way!] and the kids beckon me to discover new things they've received from santa there's lots of chasing shouting spinning running my beautiful beautiful sisters are there and it is such a relief to see them instantly i feel giddy and the wine is poured and i hug them and i laugh like i haven't laughed in a long time and we break out into song at the top of our lungs and dance like crazy people and tease each other mercilessly so that the children are quiet for a second and look at us like maybe we were once children too that night i read the little boy the youngest five bedtime stories and he is very cute and small with big eyes a toothy smile and a runny nose the cutest part is that he has made up a word for when he cannot think of the word that he wants and that word is "heh-heh" as in "uncle, you? heh-heh." which means please run a comb through the tangled mess that is my hair

the rockettes if you've never seen them are like watching a kaleidoscope of women's bodies that fall into impossible shapes and patterns only to realign themselves straight across the stage in dazzling costumes in NYC we take the subway and hold the gloved-hands of the children radio city music hall is tremendous and nostalgic the crowds outside are impossible we all pack tightly back onto the subway afterwards and my niece the eight-year-old reports seeing a man with six fingers on one hand back at my younger sister's tiny little manhattan apartment we all eat roasted red pepper soup and salad and the best pizza i have ever eaten the kids and my parents leave and i spend the night drinking wine and talking with my sister and her husband until i curl up under a warm blanket and fall asleep

the drive from NYC back to my hometown is cold and grey and the NJTP is clogged with traffic once again i doze in between conversations and when we arrive back home my parents take naps while i read and do laundry i miss my friends and i miss my partner more sharply than i thought i would and i start to come down with a cold and i think about the apartment all drafty and by itself plus i discover that benazir bhutto has been killed and we turn on the television and watch until we realize that CNN is more interested in talking about what this means for the security of the united states than in bringing us news from the people of pakistan

that evening i roast a butternut squash in the oven and mash it with salt and pepper and my father makes fresh pasta it feels peaceful he teaches me how to spoon just a little of the squash into the middle of the pasta squares and then press and cut to make ravioli it is blessedly methodical and time consuming my mother makes a salad and declares that everything is hereditary which makes me cringe she and my father drink a manhattan each then we open a bottle of wine my parents ask me if i ever listen to opera and i say no the voices from the speakers are gorgeous but so melodramatic and a bit too loud but my parents love it get almost teary-eyed they tell me: this is the part of the story when! and o! then this is the part when! and o! then this part here is when

i wake up the next morning to pack everything back into my bag and think about how i have not written in my diary or in this blog for a long time or if i have written it has only been sporadically and i think about how i have had so many things that i have wanted to write but that i am tired of the formula sick of how witty and anecdotal i tend to be that i rely on a set of conventions and as i hug my father goodbye and get into the car with my mother i think about maybe getting rid of the blog since the stories rise and fall in my mind faster than i can keep up with them and then my mother gets lost on the way to the airport which seems impossible but really it is true we are off the highway and zigzagging through philly's center city streets looking for an exit and my mother's voice is loud and very anxious and she questions how? how could this possibly be happening? and she thunks the palm of her hand on the steering wheel to emphasize how exasperated she is and says over and again o! and christ! and jeee-sus! and alll-right! the clock is ticking for me to make my flight and suddenly we are back on the highway and she is elated and reflective and analytical about how it happened and what the other possibilites might have been if she had or had not turned here or there or doubled-back or continued on or crossed-over or pulled-out-into or if only there had been a sign that was posted or an exit that should have been built or an on-ramp that should get constructed or a new road that could get public works funding i mean really now when you think about it it could be

i hug my mother goodbye and thank her for such a wonderful time together she gets teary-eyed and tells me how much she loves me and we smile and i head into the terminal and think about that word TERMINAL and i get a little shiver but the good news is that the airport is not as crowded as you'd think and i get through security and think about that word SECURITY and i wait for the boarding call and remember that on the last flight i was on i was seated next to an older gentleman who slowly ripped every page out of a magazine and folded them into little squares and stuck them neatly into the barf-bag thingy on the seat-back in front of him for the entire three-and-a-half hours and i hoped that it wouldn't be him again and it wasn't it was a blonde girl with a lot of make-up on who slept the whole time i was so happy to be back in houston when we touched ground but seem to have picked up a cold which i am now nursing with tea and advil.