Oh, The Places We Went

I’m not going to be able to see my mom on Mother’s Day, which bums me out. We have fun together, even in less than perfect conditions.

For example, one time she and my sister Erin came to visit me. Brandon and I had just moved to a place called Mt. Crawford, and I was not yet fully aware of the culture. I found a music festival and we all hopped in Erin’s little convertible. The festival was called “Home Grown.” A more discerning person might have gotten a clue what the festival was really all about from the title, but it was only after we parked the car amid a field of Jeeps and jacked-up pick-ups, and as we picked our way through the patchoulli-scented crowd—Mom carrying her white purse, Erin in a kicky floral print, me in dressy sandals—did I realize that I had taken my mom and sister to a big, rednecky pot party.

Or: When we went on vacation to the Outer Banks and attended a performance of the Lost Colony play. (Every vacation with me somehow turns into a social studies field trip.) We sat in the audience, rapt, as the players reenacted what might have happened to the lost colonists. At one point, a main character accuses the group of being willing to desert the colony. We had good seats. So good, in fact, that we could hear the murmurs of the bit actors. “I’D NEVER DESERT!” one piped up. Mom and I promptly lost our shit and started laughing loudly and inappropriately. The actors dispersed towards the outer edge of the stage. I had visions of them coming to scold me and stifled it. Mom did not get it back together, however.

Or last summer, when we went up to North Adams, Massachusetts. I was scheduled to give a reading with the awesome writers, Jenn Mattern and Catherine Newman. I did. But then I booked us in the hotel for an extra day for some mother-daughter hijinx. Guess what happens on Sunday in North Adams, Massachusetts? Nothing. NOTHING AT ALL. The big modern art museum was open, so we went and gawked at things like a video by a woman who claims she has two people living inside of her (not twins, but two separate and mentally healthy people inhabiting the same body) and some paintings of what an Italian hotel room wall looked like at various times of the day. For dinner, we had items from the hotel vending machine. We went back to the room and analyzed our own walls. We read the museum’s program notes. We were pretty happy not have noticed the installation made from used tampons.

I can’t wait until this summer. We’ll be taking on New York City.