At the grand old age of 5-years-11-months, I made two
significant discoveries. The first of these was Grandma.
We had come up from Ecuador to visit family, of whom I had no prior memory. I walked into this house and people were hugging my parents and siblings and me and this brunette lady gave me a squeeze and someone said, “This is your grandma,” and I didn’t believe them. At 5-years-11-months old I was a very good reader and the grandmothers in my story books always had grey or white hair. Always. Therefore, this brown-haired woman was an Imposter. I proceeded to tell her so.
My mother was mortified but Grandma just laughed and told me to go get a cookie from the jar in the kitchen. “I always keep some in there for your cousins,” she said. It was the right thing to say. In my story books, grandmothers always had cookies.
But that led to the second discovery: while I was off living my normal life, there were other children who also called this woman Grandma and those children got to raid Grandma’s cookie jar often, while I - because my parents had chosen to move to Ecuador - did not.
Over the years and on subsequent visits, I found that this life of parallel tracks had a lot to offer. In the U.S., there were Saturday morning cartoons and root beer. In Ecuador, I got to throw water balloons at strangers with impunity just because Lent was around the corner.
I had no complaints. Except one.
Living life on one track created gaps on the other. Where others had cultural references, I had blanks.
But we all have those blanks.
It is the divergence of roads in Frost’s yellow wood. Taking one path always means not taking another. Every road means a choice both to do and to not do.
There will always be places we didn’t go, things we didn’t do. And we can’t go back to fill in the blanks.
At least, not usually.
I never went to a rock concert when I was a teen. Not a significant loss, perhaps, but a blank nonetheless. From Aerosmith to ZZ Top, the mega bands of my generation existed for me only in vinyl. I never stood in a large venue with thousands of fans and the heavy tattoo beat of a bass guitar.
Last week, my friend Arline invited me to a rock concert. When the noise level allowed, she described the missing pieces, filling in the smoky haze and ubiquitous vendors of another era. Sure, in today’s version when we all stood up, our knees popped in unison. The only pills being fished out of pockets were not only legal, many were necessary. But it was a bona fide rock concert and I was there, filling in a blank.
That leads me to rediscover something else. Sometimes, we get a second chance to catch a glimpse of that other road, the one we didn’t take, and we appreciate that glimpse precisely because it was not part of our chosen path.
Sometimes we get a little bonus.
We get to say “Been there.
"Done that”.
Sometimes we may even get to buy the t-shirt.
We had come up from Ecuador to visit family, of whom I had no prior memory. I walked into this house and people were hugging my parents and siblings and me and this brunette lady gave me a squeeze and someone said, “This is your grandma,” and I didn’t believe them. At 5-years-11-months old I was a very good reader and the grandmothers in my story books always had grey or white hair. Always. Therefore, this brown-haired woman was an Imposter. I proceeded to tell her so.
My mother was mortified but Grandma just laughed and told me to go get a cookie from the jar in the kitchen. “I always keep some in there for your cousins,” she said. It was the right thing to say. In my story books, grandmothers always had cookies.
But that led to the second discovery: while I was off living my normal life, there were other children who also called this woman Grandma and those children got to raid Grandma’s cookie jar often, while I - because my parents had chosen to move to Ecuador - did not.
Over the years and on subsequent visits, I found that this life of parallel tracks had a lot to offer. In the U.S., there were Saturday morning cartoons and root beer. In Ecuador, I got to throw water balloons at strangers with impunity just because Lent was around the corner.
I had no complaints. Except one.
Living life on one track created gaps on the other. Where others had cultural references, I had blanks.
But we all have those blanks.
It is the divergence of roads in Frost’s yellow wood. Taking one path always means not taking another. Every road means a choice both to do and to not do.
There will always be places we didn’t go, things we didn’t do. And we can’t go back to fill in the blanks.
At least, not usually.
I never went to a rock concert when I was a teen. Not a significant loss, perhaps, but a blank nonetheless. From Aerosmith to ZZ Top, the mega bands of my generation existed for me only in vinyl. I never stood in a large venue with thousands of fans and the heavy tattoo beat of a bass guitar.
Last week, my friend Arline invited me to a rock concert. When the noise level allowed, she described the missing pieces, filling in the smoky haze and ubiquitous vendors of another era. Sure, in today’s version when we all stood up, our knees popped in unison. The only pills being fished out of pockets were not only legal, many were necessary. But it was a bona fide rock concert and I was there, filling in a blank.
That leads me to rediscover something else. Sometimes, we get a second chance to catch a glimpse of that other road, the one we didn’t take, and we appreciate that glimpse precisely because it was not part of our chosen path.
Sometimes we get a little bonus.
We get to say “Been there.
"Done that”.
Sometimes we may even get to buy the t-shirt.
