LJ Idol Week 8: My True North

[flipflop_diva]

There were two constants in my life growing up: My mom and the mountains.

(Okay, there were actually a lot of other constants, too — my dad, my sister once she was born, the house we lived in — but those aren’t quite the same. My dad traveled a lot. My sister was my sister, and we fought more than we got along when we were kids. And the house, although it was there the whole time, always included my mom, so the house on its own is not really a thing in my mind.)

My mom was a nurse. She worked part-time at the hospital a few streets away, mostly on weekends or overnights. I didn’t realize back then how lucky my sister and I were that my dad made enough money that my mom didn’t have to work full time and that she could stay home and take care of us.

And she did. She took us to school every morning, and she picked us up every afternoon. She made us lunch every day and packed it nicely for us in our little school lunchboxes. She volunteered to be our Brownie troop leader and then our Girl Scout troop leader. She was room mom for our classes in elementary school. A few years she was in charge of the book fairs or the cake sales.

In high school, she helped sew all the flags we used in Colorguard. She attended every parade we marched in and attended every competition we performed in.

My mom was the one who took me to look at colleges and took me to SAT prep classes. My mom was the one who taught me to drive and how to do laundry and how to cook. My mom was the one who helped me fix the disaster of a skirt I tried to sew for a Home Ec project in eighth grade and made sure I didn’t fail.

My mom was the one who took us back-to-school shopping every summer and made us stand on the front porch to take our pictures every year on the first day of school. She also took us to our future schools before we entered junior high and then high school the week before classes started to walk us around and make sure we knew exactly where our classes were so we wouldn’t be nervous about that.

She took us shopping for Homecoming dresses and Prom dresses and read over essays for college.

My dad worked, a lot, to let us have the things we had, but my mom was the one who was there.

She was also the one who taught me a very important piece of information: “The mountains are always north.”

Growing up, we lived in Southern California, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Growing up, I was directionally challenged. (I still am actually; I just have Siri to help me out now and tell me to make a U-turn when I go the wrong way.)

But my mom would always tell me that if I ever were lost, I should just find the mountains and then I would know which way was north.

It was good advice. After all, the mountains were the first thing I would see every morning when I stepped out my front door. On bright, sunny days, they were so crystal clear, it was like you could reach out and touch them. On foggy days, you could still make out their shadowy outline reaching up into the sky.

My mom loved those mountains most of all of us. When my sister and I were teenagers, my parents bought a cabin up in them so we could go there on weekends or holidays or on long summer days.

My mom was happiest on those days. She smiled more and laughed more, and we sat at the kitchen table and played endless rounds of Yahtzee and laughed when my mom whooped and hollered every time she rolled five of a kind.

I left Southern California when I was eighteen, to go to college, in a place where there were no mountains and where my mom was miles and miles away. I thought then that it wasn’t a big deal. I thought then that it was what I wanted.

Six years later, my mom was gone forever. My dad sold the house we grew up in and moved a couple hours east.

I live in Texas now. They call it Hill Country, but it’s not quite the same. No mountains greet me when I walk out my front door, not on crystal clear days nor on foggy ones. Sometimes, when we leave the city limits, we can see for miles and miles, the horizon stretching out uninterrupted, but I can never quite figure out where north is.

Every once in a while, I go back to Southern California, to see friends or my dad. Every once in an even longer while, I go back to the city where I grew up. It’s changed, and I don’t want to live there now or again, but when I look up at the mountains, towering bright and clear above everything, I hear her voice — “The mountains are always north” — and for a moment I smile, and I feel like I’m home.


Non-fiction



This was written for Week 8 of therealljidol. I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to read more entries, you can head over here. If you would like to vote for any of the entries, voting should be up Sunday night at therealljidol.

Comments

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry you lost your Mom so young. It's sweet to have the mountains as a powerful reminder of the strength of her love. And to have had her so close for so much of your life is a special blessing -- it had a great impact on who you are, and judging by that, she must have been an incredible woman. Thank you for sharing.

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

So sorry for your loss. What a great lady! This is a fab tribute.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I, too, am a SoCal native. Every year we would drive to the mountains, the nearby mountains and the soaring Sierra Nevada.

Years later, I visited my future husband in New York state. I was picked up in NYC by him and his father. They told me we would go through the mountains to get to their hometown in Upstate New York. It was late December and we drove and drove for hours through a black and white landscape. I kept watching for the mountains. Finally from the backseat I asked, "When are we going to get to the mountains?"

"What? Are you kidding? We passed those two hours ago."

"Sorry, I never saw anything that resembled mountains to me." I had the distinct impression they thought I was being snarky.

Mountains are a grounding point for me as well. Saddleback is only about 5400 ft and to our east, but I find I look to it every day to make sure everything is right with the world. Unusually, at present, it actually has snow on it. That feels like a good omen to me, here in this arid place. Oh, and, your San Gabriels also are sporting their December mantle. Another touchstone for making sure that this year we may have enough water and cool green forests to explore.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

LOL - for me, the mountains were in the east. The sun rose over the mountain every morning.

[rayaso.livejournal.com]

I am sorry for the loss of your mother. This was a wonderful tribute to her, and it's very sweet. She was a great mother who clearly loved her children.

[marlawentmad.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful testament.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

A touching portrait of your relationship with your mom.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful and bittersweet entry. I'm sorry you lost your mom so you. She sounds wonderful and very much loved.

[static_abyss]

This was beauitful to read and such a lovely tribute to your mom.