A missed day or two…
A Day in the Life – The Leap Day
My whole weekend has felt like a leap weekend. On Friday after hearing everything that was happening at home, I called my dad and booked a flight home. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I heard his voice.
There are so many things that have changed since I started this journal a year ago. Friday was supposed to be a huge celebration, at least in my head. A year of blogging, my first month of work, a week since life turned good again. A week of new friends and long phone calls, a week in which I got fed up with the rut I’ve been resenting since October.
Most of the little crises and coincidences won’t be on this page – most aren’t meant for anyone but me to understand. But I’m so glad I came home.
My grandparents are moving into The Gables. They got an offer on the house this weekend. The house that my cousins and I have lived at every summer. Lived, abused, run amok, swum, fought, laughed… I spent part of the weekend just saying goodbye. The next time I see it, it’ll be packed up and ready to move. All our memories will be in our heads or our photographs. I wonder if we’ll ever really be together again – we’ve all grown apart and on our separate paths. There are so many stories that we may never share with each other again.
Music last night with my dad at Zoey’s Cafe. Jonathan McEuen sang Jimmy’s Song, and the melody has been haunting me for the last twelve hours or more. I need to find the lyrics somewhere – maybe someone will email them to me. 🙂
I guess my mood for this weekend is hope mixed with a little regret and a lot of … not exactly mourning, but saying farewell. The next time I come home to Ojai things will be very different. The same pieces will be on the board, but the game will have continued while I’m gone. All the arrangements will be different and I’ll have to learn how to live in the new configuration. Change frightens me – not that I fear it with a mortal terror, but that I am afraid of losing the stories and memories. I don’t trust myself to remember everything. And so before it has even happened I am steeling myself against the loss of everything we lived in the old life. I suppose the loss has already begun, and that I only realize it now that the physical mementos are going. I suppose I am also afraid of losing that anchorstone – the place that we all could gather and relive our memories. Grammy and Papa moved there when I was four months old. I don’t remember them anyplace else. And the younger cousins don’t even know where they used to live – only this house. I feel as though I am the bard for our generation. I keep the memories and stories in my mind. And someday maybe I can retell them. Because I know that I’m the one who’ll remember. Megan and Chris won’t. And most likely won’t care all that much. But I do.
Ah well. I’ll live. And maybe someday we’ll all get together again and be friends. It’s been so long.
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