When people think of "Northern Virginia" (at least out here on the east coast), they usually think cookie-cutter, faceless developemnts, mini-mansions, strip malls, SUVs, cultureless suburbia... Or maybe that's just what those of us who grew up in NoVa think of Northern Virginia. (Even those of us who have grown up to buy our own SUVs and mini-mansions in suburban developments.) As a child, my neighborhood was all I knew... I dreamt of growing up and living in the Big City, running away to some urban paradise. As a teenager, my mind was fixated on all the changes taking place... the trees being cut down to make way for new housing developments, the houses of childhood friends being sold to new families, with new children. As a college student, I hardly recognized the place that I'd come from... I certainly didn't recognize myself in it.
So imagine my surprise when, one summer day, on just another trip home, just like all the other return trips I'd made since I left for college in 1999... I pulled into the driveway of my parents' house to discover...it was beautiful.
The branches of young saplings, overcome by their own green growth, bowed gracefully before me as I made my way to the front door. Chipmunks, cardinals and rabbits scampered across the backyard upon my approach. White flower petals from the dogwoods were strewn across the lawn as if to welcome me home. And I realized: nothing had changed. It was beautiful and it has always been like this. Or had it?
These days, one of T's & my favorite ways to welcome in the summer is to load the dog into the car, jump on 95 and drive until we pull up the hill and into my parents' driveway. We call it our summer home. We call it E's summer camp. It feels like a getaway. We make pots of coffee, sit on the back porch, watch the blue jays and the woodpeckers cautiously approach the branches above our heads. At night, we play cards, drink beers and watch hockey. Sometimes on Sundays it gets late and we postpone going to
our home, we start a fire in the firepit and listen to my dad tell stories about his brother.
This past weekend we were there. We stopped in on a Friday, spent the night and left the dog so we could attend a friend's commitment ceremony near Charlottesville. Saturday night, we danced in the humid Virginia summer air until our clothes were drenched with sweat and the ice we used to cool ourselves down, until our feet no longer supported our legs. Then we drove back, to my parents' and our dog, where we tumbled into the bed, conked out like little children. In the morning, we slept until the dog woke us up, ready to play.
*
I was recalling to my mom how I used to refuse to kiss my Tio goodbye as a child. How I used to be petulant and sulky and stubborn, and how he used to act like his feelings were hurt, and I hated it. How I was probably very difficult.
"You little brat!" my mom said, laughing.
It stung.
When she said those words my face fell in the way it tends to do sometimes, because I get stern with my parents. I always have. She knew I was upset. She rolled her eyes. "I was just joking!" she said. I told her that now, even as an adult, it hurt to hear her say those words. Because we had just been talking about how she called me some names: Brat. Pill. Bitch. Sadist. (As a 10 year old, I thought she meant "satanist," which I took to be a grave insult, since it was coming from my fundamentalist Christian mother). "Fiiiine," she groans. "When you have kids, I won't call them names."
It's ironic. She has often recalled this one incident from when I was little where we were in the car and Iwas sassing her and she just slapped me. I have no recollection of it whatsoever. Not because it was traumatic, but because I was really little, like 4 or 5. Whenever we get to talking about my childhood (read: whenever I start bringing up unpleasantries from my childhood), she remembers the slapping incident and talks about how sorry she is, how bad she felt. She asks, "Did I scar you for life?" And I say, "No, Mom. I don't even remember it!" and I groan like she did. But when she jokingly refers to me as a brat... that's when it hurts.
Kids hear messages about themselves enough and they begin to believe them. Like if you're told you're mean, you're rude, you're too sensitive enough, you start to believe it. If you get angry and your parent always acts disgusted with you for it, you start to believe you are disgusting when you feel angry. But then, I know that one day I'll have my own kids to whom I can be a terrifically imperfect parent. And I'll screw up a lot, and I can only learn and feel and then let go. As my mom says to me, when I remind her of X, Y or Z thing I wish she'd done differently, and as her mother said to her, I'm sure one day I'll be saying to my own kids: "Jeez, did I do anything right?"
*
I'm sitting on the couch at home with T sitting in the little green chair I inherited from my grandparents' apartment, and we are both on our computers, typing, surfing silently. Sometimes I think it's these peaceful interludes, just being together in the same room, that I'm sure I'll remember most vividly. Remembering them from some future house, some future present day, remembering when.
