California

I slept poorly and there’s no reason for me to be up this early. The day is gray, with a forecast of rain, and this house, although it has become very familiar to us, seems strange and still right now. I descended two narrow flights of stairs into the kitchen, brewed myself strong coffee, and I’m sitting here trying to sort out my thoughts.

Our hosts have become friends of ours and we have been staying here in their absence for the better part of a month, but sometimes I look at spaces with the detached eyes of an anthropologist and I wonder about the artifacts and decor people choose to personalize their environments. This kitchen has red cabinets, a painted ceramic bust of a black woman with bright lipstick and hoop earrings, a fancy urn of ruby-red cut glass, and various posters, paintings, and family snapshots on the walls and fridge. There’s a stack of accumulated mail, folded laundry, random dishes and utensils in abundance, and a double glass door that opens to a quirky backyard space with a pink shed, a clothesline, and a square shallow basin pooled with rain water where plump pigeons come often to splash. These things collectively set the mood, which is welcoming and casual and vaguely festive, never tidy, by our compulsive standards, but it invites relaxation, a give-yourself-a-break kind of feeling. It also makes me want to go home and get rid of stuff. 

And speaking of going home, that’s all I really want right now. Our grandson and his parents have gone to France, and our flight back to Los Angeles is not until Tuesday. We had hoped to visit our Welsh friends during this period, but that plan fell through, and although there are day trips and pleasant walks we can do, it suddenly feels weird and a little bit sad to be hanging around. We have overstayed in Oxford.  

I woke up in the night with anxiety, scrolling through a mental list of all the tasks that await us upon our return, but here we still are, biding our time, marching in place, telling ourselves it’s a refreshing little respite. Who are we kidding? We come here to see the kids, in particular our grandson, and now we’re wandering around on the abandoned stage of his world, which only intensifies the ache of missing him.

At least when we’re back in California, we’ll be on our own turf, and we can resume the usual posture of resignation and distraction. We get used to the geographical barrier, make do with stilted screen visits, and focus on the demands and comforts of our own lives.  It isn’t the arrangement I imagined, but it’s what we have. As my friend Diane writes, “I think you are destined to live with some degree of longing in your life, which is not ideal, but not categorically tragic. Sub-optimum, for sure.” 

Sub-optimum. And what right have I to expect more than that? I hereby resolve to optimize that verdict, and to remember that gratitude saves me every time. I’ve decided I am going to return to my California life with new vigor, and I can already hear Monte saying, “Oh…another new beginning?” But yes, it will be another new beginning, and why not? 

An added complexity, however, is that even though I realize I could not sustain the effort of being with him continually, my attachment to Felix has become very powerful, and the separation painful. I’ve been thinking about the phenomenon of attachment, how it can form so intensely and quickly and incite such extreme devotion. I do understand that challenges and limitations can sometimes serve to forge a more ferocious bond, and maybe that’s what’s going on here. Or maybe this is just how it feels to be a grandmother. It’s a kind of adoration accompanied by an acute awareness of one’s own constraints. It's a desire to leap in and engage fully even while weary, even in fact, while being pushed away. 

I watch robust young mothers here on bicycles hauling kids in trailers and marvel at their strength and competence, forgetting that I was once the same, riding my bike long distances with my daughter in tow, undaunted by the physical work of our lives at that point. Now I am a faded version of myself, a little wobbly, and on bad days veering towards frail, but Felix’s enthusiasm is irresistible and contagious. I have been flattered and mobilized by his acceptance of me, propelled by my yearning to be a part of his life, and pressurized by the knowledge that soon we will be very far apart. And I’m sitting in this kitchen now missing him too much already, so please forgive me for talking about it obsessively, but I’m trying to wrap up this trip and process the complicated feelings with which I am left.

Felix. He likes to be naked and attains that state at every possible opportunity. On a stormy afternoon in Cornwall, he could not understand why I would not join him for a frolic in the surf, or even take my shoes off. “It’s fun, Nonna!” he shouted, tugging at me (and oh, he is strong). “Take off your shoes! Come in the water!” He utters his commands in an English accent, each word gleaming with exuberance, punctuated by running (and oh, he is fast) and forevermore I will regret that I wasn’t the kind of Nonna who would at least kick off my shoes and splash around up to my ankles…but maybe I can still become that.

I watched Felix tilt his head to sip cold water from a running faucet and looked closely at the sweet soft curve of his cheek as he did so, feeling tender and protective. I’ve run my fingers through his thick brown hair, endearingly lopsided with bed-head as he comes downstairs in his NASA space pajamas and announces that he had a big sleep and could we all sit down for breakfast together? I’ve dutifully obliged as he dictated orders in a multitude of emergencies and rescue missions, co-hosted a birthday party for a small orange forklift, and run after him shouting as he bolts away defiantly, fast and fleet and perilously beyond his Nonna’s reach. I’ve watched him skip along the streets to nursery, and proudly ride his balance bike around the block, and I’ve shared a secret with him to which he responded with a knowing, conspiratorial whisper and wink, and I could tell we are connected in a fundamental way. 

Felix has been to California twice, and in his mind, California is a ranch by the sea with cattle and tractors and trains whistling by and blonde-haired little girls who share their toys nicely and lots of chores to help Papa with involving tools and digging and starry skies and beaches for running naked and maybe even a rocket launch and definitely a hot tub, and Nonna and Papa keep a prism in the window, and the sun shines in and splashes rainbows everywhere. It’s hard to grasp how far away California is while sitting in Felix’s house in East Oxford, but we managed to hang a rainbow-maker in a southwest-facing window of an upstairs room, and when the sun dipped down and angled in, rainbows danced on the walls and the bare wood floor, and Felix sat among the rainbows and said, “This is California!” And it was. 

So, three more days in Oxford in this funny little house, and I thought I was going to veer into the sad place, but here I am smiling inside, and note to self: this is how to cope.

California has always been a place for new beginnings.