home again, home again- jiggity jag

Living in our little corner of Espania had its ups and downs. The upside was everybody had kids- you had to in order to live in base housing, so that was great. My two best friends lived 20 feet on either side of me.

The downside was..........well, huh?

Oh yea, my mother and the drinking, and my dad and the drinking, and my mom and my dad and the drinking ...............and the fighting. Yep, that would be the downside. Big, huge, giant ass downside.

It was always the same routine:

drink drink drink

fight fight fight.

Here's the way I remember a typical night at home.........

nice family dinner, talking civilly around the dinner table, go outside and play in my hole, watch an episode of Greatest American Hero, pretend to take a bath, rearrange room.........bed time

good nights from parents, lights out........tick, tock.....tick, tock..... and about 10 minutes later......

"YOU *&%$(*^^$$%" slammmmm "YOUR THE %#$$^*%$$" SLAMM ETC.......

Lots of door slamming, lots of name calling, lots and lots of screaming.

I do find a morsel of comfort in the idea that they waited until we were in bed to do battle. However, I do wonder..............there is a stage in an infants life called "object permanence" where they begin to understand that just because they can no longer "see" the rattle, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. These two, apparently never reached this milestone in their development.

Why in sitcoms and in movies is it always so funny when the parents fight? In reality it is the single most disturbing thing a child can hear. I can't explain why? I didn't even really like my step dad that much. But to hear the two of them scream like that was gut wrenching.

As if that wasn't bad enough, there were nights I actually chose to have friends spend the night.

I would lie there after we turned off the lights and I would pray.
"Please not tonight, please not tonight, please not tonight" and just as if I were a spoiled brat asking for a second helping of pie- God would laugh in my face and the screaming would ensue

I would convince myself that my friend was asleep and she couldn't hear them. That was my coping strategy, otherwise I could not bear the humiliation.

I was always rearranging my room as a kid. Rearranging, and I moved rooms a lot. I would switch rooms with my brother for a month or two. These houses all had maids rooms and bathrooms. They were tiny little rooms, big enough for a twin bed and not much more. The bathrooms were a toilet and a sink. I suppose the personal hygiene of the maid was of little concern to the home builder. This was Europe after all. But, I loved the maid's room. I moved in there for awhile. Simplifying my life, downsizing.

If I wasn't moving from room to room I was making rooms inside my room. I always had an office and from time to time I would open a library. Always searching. Always trying to make my world a little bit different, or better.

It was while I was residing in the maid's quarters that my mom woke me in the middle of the night and said

"Crystal, get up. We are going to the States"

This is a wake up call I shall never forget.

My grandmother, her mother, was dying of cancer.

The Air Force offered what were called "hops". Flights for really cheap, like in case of emergency.

Great idea right. Super nice...... thoughtful.

The catch?

It was a cargo plane.

We were loaded on like cattle. We sat in hammock-like seat of the sides on the plane , while our luggage was in the middle. We were served box lunches and it was insanely cold. To this day when I receive a package from Fed Ex, my ears hurt for an hour and I crave pudding cups.

As a grown up with children I try and imagine having to take that flight. And usually, I can't. I cannot wrap my brain around having to take a 12 hour flight on a cargo plane with two kids, to visit my dying mother. My mother hated flying. Hated it.

I, on the other hand, loved flying but hated changing schools. Not so good for a military brat. I literally remember crying at the door of every new classroom until at least 5th grade.

While my grandmother was sick ,we had to stay in Louisiana. So, for about a month I had to go to school in Tallulah, I was in the 6th grade. As if this age were not awkward enough, I was a new girl coming to small town Louisiana from Spain, only to stay a month......basically they stuck me in a trailer, put up a sign and charged admission.

I got questions like "Do they have shampoo over there?" and "How do you shower?"

I asked questions like "So, you've really never left this town?" and "How is it you haven't killed yourself yet?"

While I was there I developed a serious crush on a boy I later found out was my 2nd cousin. It was the worst situation imaginable.

I longed for the drinking and the fighting, I missed my hole, I missed the sheep and their sheppard. I missed the castles, and I even missed the thieving Gypsies. I wanted to go home.

We were in my mother's home. This is where her family was, my family. This, I knew, could never be where I hung my hat. I felt suffocated in the small Mississippi delta town. Everyone was the same, a carbon copy of each other. As awful as things sometimes got, it was always better than this.

My grandmother passed away and we flew home. I don't recall if the drinking and the fighting got worse after that. For a while, I didn't mind though. This was my home. I didn't much care anymore about the flat Earth. For now, I didn't really want to sail off the edge in a grand farewell. I had seen the end of the Earth, and I didn't ever want to go back. Once I was home I slept like a baby. The shouting and name calling were as sweet as a lullaby to me.

I was home.