A few days ago my mom bought a container of pre-cut watermelon.
She sat in the passenger seat of the car beside me, a place either she or I have sat interchangeably for almost a month, chewing on the watermelon pieces, one at a time.
There was nothing different about the way she was chewing these particular pieces of watermelon from any of the many other things in many different states that we have chewed together.
But I heard it in state of the art, surround sound HD. “I realize this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me,” I said. “But you need to stop eating that watermelon. Immediately.”
Hello from 22 days, four hours and nine minutes into our cross country mother daughter road trip extravaganza. For those keeping track, it’s officially over the halfway mark.
During the past 22 days my mom has asked me a range of questions there is no way I would know the answers to. Just now, for example, the doorbell rang at our AirBnB.
“Was that the doorbell?” she asked me. “Who is it?”
In Arkansas, we stopped for lunch. We were on a schedule to get to our next destination when I turned around and saw her leaning on the back of a vintage truck, talking cars with the owner. In Louisville, she befriended the staff at a Liquor Barn and made me take a photo of her with them, moments before she cracked an entire bottle of bourbon in the parking lot.
Actually, come to think of it, I have taken photos of my mom with too many people, statues and objects to keep count.
I have snapped at her repeatedly, criticized her driving skills, recently considered how to create a world in which watermelon didn’t exist.
And she, it seems, still likes me. “I want to go wherever you want to go,” she has said repeatedly after I have made — and changed — our plans. She has been my designated driver, tagged along while I’ve spent time with friends, split the cost of a pair of new Birkenstocks with me, unprompted! She has not once stopped being nice to me, finds the fun in every situation, shines her flashlight on the ground to show me where Joni’s poop is on our nightly walk.
So, sometimes she stops for 30 minutes on the street in Venice to prove to a random guy we met that yes, he does look exactly like Tan France from “Queer Eye.” (“Doesn’t he, Jame???”) ((“No, he does not, mom.”))
This is what it’s like to have a mom, or at least how it is to have my mom. Complicated. Funny. Messy. Frustrating. So fun. Our relationship is far from perfect, of course, but over the past 22 days I have felt so lucky to experience the world (and more literally the country) through her eyes. Eyes that are less stressed out about LA traffic, less stressed out about time, less stressed out about pretty much anything.
It helps to be in a beautiful place, with loads of access to nature, a dog who requires daily walks and exercise. A car and noise canceling headphones for when my mom is blasting “Family Affair” reruns from her bedroom down the hall.
We head back to New York in two days and start the long journey back east. I’m a little anxious about the hours of driving, sure, but whatever fears I had about spending this much time alone with my mom have dissipated. It’s taken me years of therapy to realize that you’re allowed to have more than one feeling at a time, about a trip, about a family member, about anything — I feel so lucky to feel them all on this adventure of a lifetime.
Love and lots of watermelon,
Jamie AF
OMG! You just don’t know how much I adore you!
xoxo
YF#1F
Please drive through Morristown, or within a 10 mile radius, before you hit the bridge or tunnels.