Disease On a Silver Platter

Ever since I was infected by the cancer of wanderlust, I knew that the biggest contributor to its tumorous growth was my mum.  She feeds this terminal disease in the same way she fed her three children during the years we ran amuck through the neighborhood and other local, harmless cities surrounding our California hill-billy town: with a simple but delicious touch.  There was no escaping the moment your muscles softened reflexively as you opened the door of your car after 45 minutes in traffic and heard whispers of latin music and smelled small drifts of food that you could not decipher but didn’t really care to anyway.  There was inevitably the “home” smell of garlic and onion being briefly sauteed and your first stop once in the door and removed from the outside world was the kitchen.

My mum is brilliant in the kitchen.  She’s one of those mothers that can make a finger-licking meal out of absolutely nothing.  She is also a very practiced fertilizer of discovery.  While she may not have traveled extensively while growing up, she perfected her craft when I was very young by deciding she was going to learn Spanish and was then slightly nudged into this affliction of the soul when my dad sent her to Guatemala for a Spanish-immersion program.  After that, part of her was lost into this other world that seems to linger over everyone’s head, taunting them and poking at them, but the minute someone replies to this hazy mist he or she is sucked in to the vacuum.  It is the most wanted but most easily avoided terminal disease.  My mum chose not to avoid it and travels as effortlessly and happily as she cooks.  There certainly is a pleasure in both and she accepts her whims of wandering as she does a plate of lobster-based prawn risotto - with ease and excitement.  Readiness and anticipation.

Maybe I breathed her air for too long or when I kissed her goodbye I contracted these germs.  Maybe she slipped something in to my bloated plate of steaming chile verde that was masked by the musty smell of tortillas she always stored in the handmade basket.  Whatever it was, I obtained a lot of it and she kept feeding it to me - feeding me the elixir of travel and discovery and significantly contributing to my acquiescence of being this way.

When I was 16 she thought it was a great idea to send me to Spain to learn Spanish and be admitted to European society by way of madrileños.  When I was 18 she told me that I should do something for myself with all of the money I had saved and was not surprised in the slightest when I bought one ticket to Rome.  Around her, I had no choice but to study abroad...it was a way of life.  If I had considered not studying in another country I...well, that just doesn’t happen between us.  She took me to Mexico as a college graduation present and we spat on the opinions that it was too dangerous for us.  We are already planning our World Cup 2014 extravaganza because who wouldn’t want to sit on the beach all day and watch soccer every night?

Even though we both will eventually die having lost a life-long battle with wanderlust, we share the ways in which we cope.  She admits maybe being a bit too cautious and I admit that I am probably a bit too trusting.  In Mexico, she often chose where we were going and I would do the navigating.  We both have our strengths and weaknesses and we admit that they will lead to the demise of our souls.  Our coping mechanisms are the most interesting part of our travels, though.  I collect small cards depicting art galleries or local musicians’ shows from every city and town I visit.  She keeps ticket stubs or menus.  But if there is one thing that I have stolen from her, it is the “here’s to” list.

She has poisoned me over and over with this passion, this madness, that has turned into a way of life for me.  Her slow, delicate dropping of this seed and pinch of spices morphed into whatever I made it.  The “here’s to” list is probably the one thing that she deliberately placed on my plate and told me to eat without the blindfold.  Simply put, she told me about it, suggested I do it, so I did.  I started doing it after my stint at university in Madrid and have done it after every trip since then.  The end of a trip doesn’t seem the same without it.

It’s simple.  After you let your trip settle, you compile a list of all of the best parts of your journey.  You don’t really need to talk about how you saw such-and-such monument and the castle of whatever.  You want to mention the small parts.  The parts where you really were living your discovery.  The parts you are actually going to remember vividly.

So this is, in part, a tribute to my dear mama.  It is me admitting that I have a serious disease and accepting the fact that she gave it to me as comfort food for years.  In a way, this is also me admitting that a big part of my journey is over and another is starting.  I’m stuck in limbo but it seems like a good place for the moment.  

Without further ado...

Here’s to:

-  Jo’s fabulously random cartwheels on the street and beach in San Diego.

-  The Mission’s banana-blackberry pancakes and mimosas.

-  The mountains made of pebbles which then morph into a sand desert between San Diego and Yuma, AZ.

-  Getting stuck with the “Creative Workshop” people at a Chinese restaurant.

-  Cody, the tourist information officer, that I saw every day in a different booth in a different part of the town.

-  Playing a game of “Where’s Waldo?” with postcards because they’re harder to find than you think.

-  Being greeted with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of orange juice, and being told, “You don’t need a cup,” by my host’s friend in Albuquerque.

-  Red and green sauce slathered all over enchiladas at El Patio in Albuquerque.
-  Tent Rocks and the hike that has given me my summer tan line.

-  Indian outposts.

-  The gas station somewhere between Albuquerque and Amarillo, TX, and feeling like I was in a horror film.

-  The couch that ate me in OKC.

-  The Spanish feast in Little Rock.

-  Stopping on the Mississippi for lunch and being able to watch the turtles under my feet.

-  Trying to determine whether “sippy cups” were allowed on street cars in New Orleans.

-  Using frozen fruit as ice.

-  Getting stuck under a bridge on the freeway and jammed between two trucks during a hail storm while leaving New Orleans.

-  Being ditched in the middle of the country.

-  Ordering all of the same food as Jon everywhere we went.

-  Waiting for the rain to stop and then going swimming even though it was overcast in Birmingham.

-  Jon and Beau singing “Bringing Me Down” on the couch.

-  Not really being a big fan of the couch in Birmingham.

-  Flaming belly dancers.

-  The man that asked my and Beau’s opinion on wine and then bought ours for us before we could pay for it (we should’ve bought two bottles!).

-  The lightning storm on my drive back to Birmingham after trying to escape.

-  Getting trapped talking to people about electrons and the collective unconscious in Asheville, NC.

-  Carrot cake pancakes in Asheville, NC.

-  Being too freaked out in Virginia to get out of the car.

-  Being surprised at the carpool lane in DC because I hadn’t seen one for over three weeks.

-  The pimp couch.

-  Being assigned an Alabama U-haul.

-  Opening the U-haul to unload it and the lady that drove by and yelled at us: “This only started happening after Obama was elected.”