Brood X

You’d think with all this pandemicky time on my hands I’d be spitting out blog posts left and right. Turns out that’s not happening, clearly. In fact, not a whole lot has been happening lately. Amiright? Are we nearing the end of COVID or not? Do we need a mask when walking from the car to the restaurant? What if I’m vaccinated? What if people are pretending to be vaccinated? I let out a chuckle last week when I overheard someone joke about “identifying” as vaccinated whilst shopping at Giant. I tried to play the whole thing off as a burp but could see the star fruit gawking at me as I rounded the corner to the next aisle. I didn’t blame them. My favorite anti-vaxers are rife with tales of viral government trackers and serial coded humans — don’t they know we’re already there… hello, if you’ve got a SSN and an iPhone, where the hell you gonna hide. Screw Pfizer, I’d like the shot that makes things go back to normal, the blue pill. That, or someone get me a fucking DeLorean because I’m ready to go.

Where would I go back to? When I lived in NYC? I see myself at my favorite spot in the city, it’s Tuesday night at Prohibition. Behind the bar are friends, good friends and old friends, most I’ve come to love. Almost all the stools are filled, and tea lights flicker along the walls in anticipation as the music starts. Despite my status as a regular, here I feel anonymous, protected and ignored in equal capacity. I stand at the corner of the bar all alone. People pass by, their bodies turn to avoid me as they pass by and the place starts to fill up. I’m like a rock in a river, it’s here I can rest as the world continues, invisible. Free until the music stops and I have to go home.

Would I go back to college? I think about my friends from Bates. The nights we spent drinking PBR’s and Jimbo’s at the Blue Goose, the days we spent skiing, a few we spent studying. What would I change about my years in Maine? I wonder often. So much of that time is lost in my memory, once some of the friendships faded it seems the luster of college has worn. I look back and smile, it’s time I want back but I know it doesn’t work that way. I let myself mourn the friends I no longer talk to and make a point to be better.

What decisions would I change? Even if I could change my most egregious mishaps, would I? Would making edits to my past cause a ripple effect and change my present and future? Or would it create an alternate reality? If only I had a bald Tilda Swinton to badger with my questions. Would I lose people from a storyline in this life if I go back and never open the book to begin with? Is there a butterfly effect? Tampering with the past, as we know from the movies, is a shitshow. I’m certainly not willing to bet my present on the unknown.

Even if I could go 88 mph to any point in my life knowing I’d land right back here after my visit, I’m not sure what I would do. The minute I type that sentence I know it’s not true, at least I know where I would start. I would go to Medford Lakes and remember the day I spent sailing with Mimi in front of Drew and Jen’s log cabin. I’d plunge my hands into the lake’s sandy shore and take stock of the moments I can now barely recall. I’d reach down with my toes through the murky water, feeling the temperature fall as my feet neared the bottom, to the squish of the lake floor. As we left, I’d wait for the old log cabin hotel (was it a hotel?) to come into view and I’d take one last deep breath, inhaling as much of the day with me as I could. I’d commit to memory my pop-pop’s voice as he read The Grandpa Tree later that night. I’d say my prayers twice with Mimi kneeling beside me. I wonder what I prayed about back then.

I would relive those days when it was just the six of us in Australia. One weekend we found Whale Beach and declared it our favorite beach. The rock pools that bookended the wide beach cove were like something out of a fairy tale, a Point Break themed fairy tale. Standing there as the spray from the waves hit us in the face, as the rockpools filled and emptied with sea water, I wonder if I knew how cool it was. I remember my cheeks hurt from smiling, I guess you can’t expect much from a beached 8 year old. It’s these memories, I want them all organized so that I can visit easily, whenever I need to feel my cheeks burn like they did that day.

I’d go back to every time my dad held my hand, each bug bite and scraped knee, and the smell of Mom’s clothes when I was too tired to walk. I wouldn’t let myself fall asleep at family dinners like I often did, slumping in my seat and finally resting in a puddle of exhaustion under the table at my parents feet. Instead, I’d savor each bite and word, all of it. I’d marvel at my parents’ youth and look for my features in their faces. I’d tell them so many things as much as I could, though I’m pretty sure I maxed out my word quota each day.

I’d cry into Harley’s fur and spend more time by his side. I’d ride my horses. I’d give Sonny endless apples and free reign for all the hand licks he’d ever need. I’d relish every bath, grooming session, saddle rub, and freezing cold morning. I’d never take for granted how lucky I was growing up, how amazing my life was made to be by the people around me, and how much I loved it. There were hard days, of course, but it seems many were of my own design. If the pain was real, I’d feel it all and not turn the music up as the water rushed around me.

I would shadow those nights in Georgetown with my girlfriends and long training runs around Manhattan. I’d replay the first time I met my friends at Columbia as a post-bacc student. I’d relisten to every conversation I had with Jeff, replay our nights in P-town. I’d go on the trips I loved the most whenever I needed to get away. Back to Castle Combe for a gin and tonic and onto Amsterdam to ride bikes along the canal. I’d listen to every splash and scream on that first trip to Hawaii as a family and catalogue my favorite moments from my yearly trips to Vail. I’d ski the mountains of my youth, the glaciers of Whistler and the ice in North Maine. I’d drive the New England college corridor with my mom again, and again and again.

I realize my DeLorean has taken me so far from COVID tonight, I don’t even know how this post started. I’m also starting to sound like a bit of an asshole, but I don’t care. I’m onto a new memory. It was June and I was sitting at my brother’s graduation watching cicadas fly back and forth over the faculty seated behind the podium. Seventeen years in the making, the same as me. I remember being happy, nestled in between my mom and sister in the outdoor amphitheater. The day was cooler than normal and I was wearing oversized pearls and a pink floral pencil skirt. Though it wasn’t my graduation, that day stands out as a day of beginnings, I don’t know why. The grand sermons and speeches echoed from the mouths of middle aged men for over an hour. Boredom brought me back to the cicadas.

Brood X is back after all these years. The same brood that returned that year. A full life cycle that began the week I was born was ending that day, the next chapter had begun. One landed on my arm with a thud as applause began, perfect timing to muffle my gasp. Huge eyes stared up at me and I noticed its little legs gripping my white shirt for dear life. For what seemed like a brief eternity we stared, until suddenly he flew away. Time to go, I thought.