We're stubborn. We flirtatious. We're smart asses. We love Neil Young and k.d. lang. We have knobby knees and wide fingernails. We like stupid jokes and giggle a lot.
But our priorities are organized differently. I censor myself from time to time. She tends to let it all out. She has a hard time taking care of herself because she's always had someone coddle when her bad decisions led to a helpless, broke, "Why me?" kind of adult.
But whatever our differences, she's great. She's crazy by a lot of people's standards, but I think she's great because I've only known one Mom.
On August 3rd, we're setting out on an expedition into our relationship and into the American West. I love calling it the American West. I can't really describe it, but it's so...American. Vast. Glowing all the time. It's snow white or sunset orange every day. Carbondale, Colorado.
Mom has never gone anywhere. She flew to Houston in '76 to spend a few days with her sister. She experienced terrible turbulence and has refused airplanes for 33 years. She drove up to New Jersey once with Doug, my ex-stepfather who will certainly get a blog entry all to himself one day. She's been to most southeastern states. But she's never boarded a big ass airliner and gone somewhere with a totally different landscape. She's certainly never left the country.
I, on the other hand, like to think that I'm somewhat well-traveled for a 21 year old. I've been to 12 states, three countries on three different continents and all over the southeast in a single-engine, 4-seater.
Mom is always eager to learn. She doesn't come off that way all the time, but deep down, she loves to learn new crafts, new words, new jokes and new faces. But she's always learned these things in the Southeast where we all know the culture is less extensive than my (and probably yorus, too) knowledge of physics.
She asked me to take this trip with her about a year ago. Between my two brothers and me, I have the most experience traveling. She also adores my boyfriend who is a pilot. She's scared of planes and thinks I can help her through it. She also needs someone to hang out with when my brother and sister are at work.
I'm ready to see her experience a new setting. Where the landscape is different and she can be Fain-- not the kids' Mom, the preacher's daughter, the nursing home nurse assistant, the alcoholic's ex-wife.
She's going to have a great time. She's going to smile. She's going to hug my brother a lot. She's going to wake up early to drink coffee and gaze at the seams that join the desert and the Rockies Western Slope. She's going to regret every cigarette she's ever smoked as she fights her way to the Delicate Arch. She'll bitch the whole way but yack about God's wonder as soon as she reaches the top of that hill overlooking the place where Mother Nature shows her resilient, strong side. She'll cry when we land at the airport, cry when leave the airport, cry some in between, drink wine and clean my brother's house.
She's Mom and it's fun to be a kid watching your greatest teacher learn a thing or two from you. It makes them proud and it makes me...it makes me just smile.
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