Ramble On
A flood of memories
Ramble on by Led Zeppelin is blasting on the radio. We are on Route 9 going to Stop & Shop in Framingham Massachusetts in my Dad’s Chevrolet Blazer, where Rich will park in the far left corner of the parking lot, up against a slanted wall of rocks - firstly to avoid door dings and be away from everyone else, secondly so I can climb the boulders before we go inside. The windows are down and the air is warm. Worn in cloth seats hold scents and stains from physical labor and years before me. It smells of his Ralph Lauren cologne, coffee, jolly ranchers, and leftover cigar smoke, paired with tools, cardboard, money, and metal, like a mechanics garage. Plugged into the cigarette lighter is a speeding detector - I observed early on the daredevilish ways of my father. We will go to BJ’s wholesale club next to get things like cartons of cigarettes and gum in bulk for his convenience store in Brookline. Rich wears a gun on his hip, hidden slightly inside his Levi’s denim jacket. On the back, his prized Looney Tunes patch wears thin. We watch Bugs Bunny and other cartoon classics on Sunday mornings together… on the weekdays, he leaves for work when it is still dark out, and I lay in bed listening to every second of him getting ready, walking down the stairs, drinking a glass of OJ, and the garage door closing… I know his routine by heart. Some mornings, I sneak into my parents bed right before five AM (which sits underneath two of the front windows on the house, overlooking our hill), so I can watch his taillights leave the driveway, and disappear down the winding cul-de-sac. We live at the top. He will work until five PM, and come home not always in time for dinner. He’ll go to the couch after, but only to “rest my eyes”, and I’ll listen to the news while my mother cleans the kitchen. I am six years old or so. My brother is either on his way, or has just been born. It’s all a blur, these years - short before he gets sick.
I look over at him in awe, my Dad, protector, hard worker, safety. We will walk into Stop & Shop with his little booklet of coupons, and he’ll allow me to pick one sugary cereal (frowned upon and not included on the list from my mother). It’s either Reese’s Puffs or Cocoa Puffs, and I’ll get to eat it with the local farm milk we get delivered in glass jars.
Ramble On by Led Zepplin is blasting from shuffle on my Shopify app on my smartphone. I am on Highway 100, in Missouri, driving to the farm, with a carload of belongings. My three boys are with their dad for the week - my only long stretch of days without them each year, which is perhaps why I can hear my own thoughts now, driving, alone, awakened by a song that is also a time machine. Rich has been dead for well over a decade now - my youngest born on the ten year anniversary of his passing. I was leaving lunch during my freshman year of college in New York when my mother called me and said “I have some sad news to tell you, Dad passed away this morning.” I collapsed on the pavement and my friends carried me back to my dorm room where I hid and sobbed for days. I am happy to know that it happened in the morning and in his sleep, or shortly after waking. Living at his parents’ house in Cape Cod… he wasn’t moving around much then, anyways. Maybe that’s why I love mornings so much, or why Rowan decided to arrive exactly one decade later. I see Rich’s face in him the most.
I have forgotten everything I wrote about above, until just now… our minds devoured always with what is in front of us - good most of the time, blinding others. The ability to erase, dismiss, block, in order to carry on, focus, move forward, is an elegant demonstration of how deep our thinking breathes - stretched and tangled between segments of existence. Synchronicities that travel through scent and time, are not on accident, and arrive softly on the eve of the right foot forward.
I so enjoyed reading this and appreciate you sharing. When these childhood core memories reappear (seemingly out of nowhere but often when your brain is allowed to slow down for a skinny minute and noodle on things) they can hit you like a ton of bricks. I had one recently where I recalled being about 8 or 10 and there was a resin-handled yellow hairbrush we kept in the powder room of our house. I loved that brush and would walk around with it often -- sometimes brushing my hair, sometimes using it as an ad hoc microphone. My dad struggled with anger when I was growing up and I recalled one time he yelled at me for my attachment to that hair brush and told me how silly and frivolous I was being and why couldn't I be more serious sometimes. Again, I was only 8 or 10 at the time. But that admonishment was one of the first times I can recall being told that I was "too much"; that my personality was not pleasing to someone I loved; that I needed to temper who I was at my core, with how others expected me to be in the world. It is baggage I carry with me today. I was married to someone for 23 years who I have now realized was the exact same way. He used to tell me "it is like you go through life with tap shoes on" -- which I took as being 'too much'. I can certainly temper these traits as situations require (like business meetings, church, etc.) but this is just who I am -- teeming with love for life. That yellow hairbrush memory only resurfaced this week (I am now 54) but was an enlightening if not painful recollection. In THIS chapter of my life, I choose to embrace who I am and relish being surrounded by friends who accept and love me for me. I hope to once again have a partner in life, one who takes joy in my joy but for now, this is enough.