Red State Notes

The grass is greener in Red State--iridescent green, to be precise. The leaves are bigger and my favorite redbuds are out. There are decks and patios to sit on and watch the children play in the big backyards. The adults are charming and witty, and the children frolic conflict-free. The world's most demonic toddler is an angel with five adults and five children to bend to her will. The gin and tonics are strong, except for those who need them weak, and the food is delicious.

***

In Red State Capital City Suburb I hear of two divorces, one affair, one stroke-ridden parent, an autism diagnosis, and three new restaurants. As I drive into town, my soul starts to constrict.

***

E begins to sniffle the evening we arrive. E spent the first four years of her life sniffling and sneezing and rashing and itching. Her old babysitter asks if she still gets sick all the time. No, I say, she doesn't.

***

When we moved to Red State, my uncle was dying in East Coast Big City. I got the news on a payphone in a beautiful desolate state somewhere between California and Red State. We'd been driving and camping and hiking and swimming and admiring the scenery, easing our way into our new life, but after that we pretty much hightailed it to Red State. In our first six weeks there, I flew to East Coast Big City three times: a few days after we arrived, I went by myself to visit my uncle (he was single and much older than my father; he lived with my grandmother all her life, and after my parents, my husband, and my children, he is probably the person who has loved me the most); a few weeks later, we went for a long-planned family event (when I left his hospital room that evening, I knew I wouldn't see him again, and I wailed in my father's arms in the hall, surrounded by hospital equipment); then we came for his funeral, leaving M behind in our new home, though I can't imagine with whom.*

Of the six flights that comprised those three trips, four were delayed, cancelled, or otherwise disastrous.

Yesterday, we almost missed a flight that was then delayed, got on our second flight and then were told ten minutes later to get off and wait two hours, and finally had to sit in front of the dude dad from hell, after we told him to get out of our seats.

It is not an auspicious route.


*I remember! C, you were visiting, and you took care of her, right?