They Told Me I Couldn't Go Home Again...And They Weren't Wrong

But at least I still have reason to go back every now and again

I’ve been back in the homeworld for three days. Thankfully, there’s no snow on the ground, and it looks like I’ll avoid that. I haven’t reverted to my Minnesota accent yet, at least as far as I can tell, but I can still speak the language. And, aside from the unbelievable aggravation of my trip here, it feels good (if a bit odd) to be here.

First things first. Mom’s doing OK. The pacemaker was just what the doctor ordered (pun intended), and she’s back up and running. Well, not literally, of course, but Mom’s moving much as she could before- slowly, deliberately, and with determination. Her left arm’s in a sling to remind her not to do anything to jeopardize scar tissue forming around the pacemaker’s leads, but she’s doing most of what she’s always done.

How do I know Mom’s in good form? Because she’s bitching about Donald Trump at every opportunity. Despite my efforts to remind her that she’s preaching to the choir, every lecture is as if she is enlightening me for the very first time. I let her run on because most of the time, she’s by herself and doesn’t have an outlet, but she’s not telling me anything I haven’t already known for some years now. Still, I think it makes her feel relevant and alive to get things off her chest, so I try not to get in the way of a perfectly good rant.

My brother asked me to come for a visit after Mom ended up in the ER last week, and while there’s not a lot for me to do here, I’m giving him and my sister-in-law a short break. They live four doors up the hill, so they’ve become the de facto caregivers for Mom. The other three brothers’ distance from her can be measured in hours or time zones.

(Graphic courtesy of Kathryn Johnson)

As for the aggravation part of the trip, I love Alaska Airlines…or at least I used to. I’ve flown Alaska for years and never had a problem with anything. Until the pandemic, there was a daily direct flight from Portland to Minneapolis. Then Alaska ash-canned that route, and I have to connect through Seattle.

I have an enduring disdain for Sea-Tac airport, which I won’t relate here but is well-earned. Waiting for a connecting flight at Sea-Tac is like listening to chalk scraped down a chalkboard. It’s loud, impersonal, lacking in amenities, the food options suck, and…well, you get the point. I’d rather be hung from a meat hook by my testicles, but my wife will accuse me of being overly dramatic.

Making matters worse was that I made it to Minneapolis from Seattle, but the duffel I checked in Portland didn’t. And no one in Alaska’s baggage office could tell me where it was for almost 48 hours. So you can imagine the inconvenience, which I could rant at some length about but won’t.

Even after decades of traveling, I learned a couple of good lessons through this episode, and they’re mistakes I won’t make again. I’m still trying to relax enough to bring my blood pressure down to a manageable level. Of course, this trip wasn’t supposed to be about me, was it?

(Graphic courtesy of Kathryn Johnson)

Autumn is a bit farther along here in Minnesota than in Portland. The color in the trees is more advanced, and the maples have lost more of their leaves. I love listening to the wind dance with dry leaves as they twirl excitedly about an asphalt dance floor. The scraping and whooshing are what signal autumn for me. There’s also the chill in the air, the need for a coat one moment and to strip it off the next, and the bright azure sky as the leaves curl about my ankles like lost children.

Before long, this canvas will be covered in white and the thermometers will register temperatures below freezing. And I’ll have long since left the Great White North in my rear-view mirror. Even so, there is magic in that process, just as there is in the regularity of the change of seasons and the rituals and celebrations that accompany them.

I miss those things sometimes. They were part and parcel of my childhood. It’s how Minnesotans mark the passage of time. Soon after the snow falls, the lakes will freeze, and some hardy souls will drag ice-fishing huts out onto ice thick enough for a full-size truck. There they’ll spend most of their weekends from late November until early March.

The ones who aren’t ice fishing will probably be enjoying the few weeks of deer hunting season. In the small town where I grew up, every weekend of deer season saw trucks driving through town with dead deer tied to the hoods and blood dripping down the fenders.

My father took me deer hunting when I was 12 or 13. I had a chance to shoot a deer when I came across a doe that was maybe 20 yards from me. I stopped, looked at her, and took the rounds from the chamber of my rifle. I couldn’t shoot Bambi. She was someone’s mother.

The process plays out in reverse and a few weeks later when the ice goes out on Minnesota’s lakes. Before you know it, the opening of fishing season comes around, and much of Minnesota comes to a halt.

Unlike where I live in Oregon, the seasons dictate life in Minnesota. I never minded spring, summer, or autumn, but by the time I graduated from college, I’d long since grown tired of the brutal winters. So I left Minnesota and have never regretted my decision.

At times I feel sad or something approaching guilty for living so far away from my family, but Portland is home in a way Minnesota never was. I’m proud of where I grew up (I have the zip and area codes of Walker, the small town where I grew up, tattooed on my left arm), but it’s not “home.” When I go back to Walker, it no longer feels special. It’s where I grew up.

Even our old house, which is still standing but has been vacant for many years, holds no special meaning for me. It’s the house where I spent much of my childhood, but nothing more.

My mother and youngest brother now live in Zumbrota, about 30 miles northwest of Rochester on Hwy. 52. It’s a nice enough small town, probably a four-hour drive from Walker, but I have no emotional connection with Zumbrota. I come here to visit my mother, brother, and sister-in-law. If not for that, it would be just a meaningless wide spot on Hwy. 52 I’d have no reason to notice.

My mother’s 81 now, so we all know there’s not a lot of sand remaining in the hourglass. The pacemaker seems to have made a difference in her heart rhythm and perhaps bought her some time, and for that I’m grateful. She’s showing her age, of course. (Who among us isn’t?) She moves slowly and deliberately, struggles with technology, and is somewhat hard of hearing. In other words, she’s like a lot of her peers.

The good news is that Mom still has her wits about her, her heart’s rhythm has returned to a good state, and she’s able to live independently with few difficulties.

There isn’t much for me to do for her on this trip, which certainly is a best-case scenario. I’ve been providing companionship and driving Miss Daisy on a few errands; infinitely preferable to what I thought I might have to do. I’m enjoying it because at this stage in her life I can never know when a visit might be the last time I see her alive.

On Saturday morning, I’ll head home knowing that Mom’s in a good place, which will leave me in a good state of mind. She’s still with us, and she says she wants to live to be 100. And who’s going to say she can’t do it?

In the meantime, maybe I’ll try to find a good meat raffle, eh?