introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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back home again

freezing dry - third of december, 2003

"smoke and mirrors...lockdown.i>~r.e.m.

i'm back from Nash-Vegas. that's Nashville, to everyone that doesn't live there.

we followed a snowfront all the way home and waited for brian to come pick us up at the bus station in pittsburgh. he was stuck two minutes away from us while he waited on the other side of a christmas parade that split us up. the bus was late getting in....a two hour delay on top of the hour long layover in columbus. even though there is a certain pain to riding in greyhound coach busses, there is a certain keroac-ian romance to it, as well. even though we were miserable sitting on the cold white tile in the lonely bustling bus station of columbus at three in the morning, anxious to be on our way, there was a certain beauty to the flourescent light that spilled on to all of us, travellers one and all, in for the long ride...in it together, regardless of their destination. with our respective backpacks, we waited in the cold, aware of how much time we might have saved if only we'd opted to fly; fully aware that we might be sleeping in our own warm beds instead of upright in barely reclineable seats on an overhot bus...hot like africa on the first of december morning.

our trip was eventful: frightfully so. thanksgiving heralded tears and turkey. and even though my family doesn't really celebrate holidays, i found myself thinking of the thanksgivings before there was toby...before i was like i am now...when i was maybe ten or eleven and my extended family would pack up our house in new york and the steam would mist the windows and roll downn the glass in drippy streaks...where my mother would cook for days ahead of time to have everything ready only to have us all gorge on the food in a fast twenty minutes or so..second helpings vanishing in less than an hour from the initial blessing of our thanksgiving feast....days worth of work and cooking devoured and indigested in moments. and then they'd sit there, the old people..aunts and uncles and grandmothers...arguing and laughing and telling stories and talking about people that died years before. and then, hours later, when the turkey had run its course, we'd sleepily cut the pies..pumpkin, pecan, tollhouse cookie, my grandmother's dutch apple. and after that, there would be turkey sandwiches....and cold cranberries and cold green bean casserole. cold leftovers. and we'd have strange dreams that night for the food left in our bellies from all of the eating. i remembered this as the four of us sat around the kitchen table, passing store bought rolls and casseroles, and talking about nothing very much. and i wished for my family...my own family instead of this other family that i love because i am supposed to and because of their own quirks...but a family that is not my own, nonetheless.

and after that long bus trip home, we went to my mother's house for a small rendition of thanksgiving dinner on saturday night, all turkey breast and relishes and homemade bread and fruit salad with amaretto and grand mariner...all tablecloths and beautiful dishes and candlelight.

(its time to go home, now...but one more thing: my boyfriend makes the best gravy. just ask my mother. she even put it on her cranberries.)