Leaving Texas (Again)

Big Texas Rock

What with the imminent departure to Long Island, some five and a bit weeks away now, we're trying to see all the sights we feel sentimental about. For me, such a list has to include a visit to Enchanted Rock, a great mound of red granite the size of a small moon, parked out in the hills some 70 miles or so west of Austin.

Fortunately, Jesse wanted to visit the Rock, too, because, she insisted, she'd never seen it. I insisted that she had seen it, as recently as four years ago. We waited for a day when the academic load would be light and played hooky. We did not have to wait long. Towards the end of the year, Texas schools run their march of standardized tests, the tests that schools live and die by. Unable to field all the tests at the same time, the schools stagger the exams, cycling between the grades. That means while some kids have their heads down, supposedly saving their teachers' jobs, the other kids are out in the halls, creating the usual noisy distractions. In the mad scramble to scrape every point out of the examinees' meager stores of knowledge, the school arranges field trips to get the kids not being tested out of the school for the day. Some of these field trips are not well thought out. So on the day we called in sick and went to the rock, Jesse was supposed to go on a walking tour of the state of Texas' capitol, a building which she's seen a million times already, starting with the first visit in pre-kindergarten. Jesse would have rather spent a day at the doctor's than see that wretched place again.

The sick call made, breakfast obtained at Elsi's, a Salvadoran/Mexican hybrid we shall miss terribly once we're on Long Island, we got into the car and spent a couple of hours driving through the hill country. We listened to CDs Jesse had packed for the trip. I am now more familiar with Death Cab's oeuvre than I ever really wanted to be.


You don't need much in the way of hiking gear at Enchanted Rock. A truly fit person could be up and back down inside an hour. So I couldn't really overrule Jesse's choice of back-country jodhpur. Clearly, she was conceived during my brief career in the circus.

As we climbed the rock -- or rather, walked up it -- I thought about my half-crazy mum and the news of the H1N1 flu virus. Mother had called me the night before, just to let me know that we were all going to die. But there was still hope if we listened to her: "You can't let that child go to school tomorrow! You just can't. My momma said that in 1917 . . . "

And off she went, into a paranoid tirade that began with the flu and ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs, while taking in a detour at the Great Depression (always included in any conversation, free of charge). And besides, my mother added, Jesse's an only child. For a brief moment, I thought mother had heard something about singletons being particularly vulnerable to the virus. I know enough biochemistry to find such an idea preposterous, but I couldn't stop myself from asking the obvious question: "Mom,what does being an only child have to do with getting the flu?"

"Well, if you had two kids and one died, you'd still have one."

A chasm opened up at my feet. I've known for some time that I don't, really don't, understand my mother. And here was more evidence. If I had been blessed with two kids, I can't imagine that putting one of them in the ground would be any easier because I had a child remaining. For me, the grief would be indivisible and all consuming. It would empty my mind and vanquish my soul. In some ways, having just the one child would be easier, because I would be able to follow my despair down the drain, and not have to worry about the other child who still needed me.

But, hey, that's me. Of course, I can't be sure how I'd react if every parent's worst nightmare happened to me, but I can imagine this much: after an agony so intense I'd have all but gnawed off a limb to stop the pain, I might, might give a thought to my own sense of abandonment. Somehow, I have to forgive my mother for being the kind of parent for whom the abandonment is almost as terrifying as the loss itself.

Of course the move to Long Island means that Mother feels abandoned all over again, despite the fact that we'll fly her up from time to time and despite the fact that I have two siblings still living in central Texas. I've pretty much been her social secretary for 20 years now, managing where she (and formerly, she and my dad) spent the holidays, took ski vacations, and parked their motor home (and didn't I get sick of seeing that monstrosity parked in the driveway? the neighbors certainly got tired of it). The role of Mom's Social Organizer I now surrender to my siblings. I wish them well. They can comfort Mother by telling her that if I die in New York, as she is convinced will happen because global warming is going to drown Long Island some time next year, she'll still have them.

Or maybe I'm kidding myself that mere distance could ever really mean separation. For the second time in 53 years, I'm about to put more than 200 miles between myself and my mom and I don't really believe it's going to happen this time around. My parents made sure it was hard enough the first time, staging a spectacular crack-up in their marriage one week before my flight to London. I went anyway, hoping they'd grow up while I was gone. But they never quite grew up. And now there's just my reclusive mum left, determined to have no friends but her adult children. I wonder what disaster looms to keep me from leaving. The swine flu, maybe. Or perhaps mother will break a hip. "She better not, or I'll fly back to Texas and break her other hip," Mike said grumpily. He's lived alone for a year now, away from the family he loves and the house we built together. He's understandably short of sympathy for Mother's paranoias.

I hope Mike doesn't have to endure the separation much longer, but it's a foal-sized hope, teetering about on unsteady legs. Despite all the boxes we've packed and loaded, despite the months of effort selling our house and placating a heart-broken teenager, I still don't have a lot of faith that I'm really going to achieve what is a simple fact for millions of adults: living in a different timezone from Mom.