Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I hope it says Snicjers in his meticulous address book

Dad: Send me your new address.
Me: [Blah blah blah street address+ZIP]
Dad: Chicago?
Me: Yep.
Dad: America?
Me: I knew you would ask that.
Dad: Planet Earth?
Me: No, Ork.
Dad: Milkyway [sic] or Three Musketeers?
Me: Snicjers [sic]
Dad: Got it.

I was trying to be funny and write Snickers, but my phone has been all wonked up since I spilled water on it--I was moving, okay, and the water bottle I selected to keep me from heat stroke is missing its top, and I'm a dumbo--and so I have to hold it a certain way to see the screen and...this is all a very roundabout way of saying I mistyped "Snickers."

Then today, I received a package addressed to my old address. Inside was an envelope addressed to my new address. Inside that envelope was an envelope addressed thusly:

He sent me a suncatcher that belonged to my mom. I'm pretty sure it was a gift to her from someone--Aunt Shirley? Beth? Shannypoo?

I have great big south-facing windows in my living room and dining room. I'll have to find somewhere nice to hang it. My urn is already at the apartment, along with a few photos I unearthed: one of the two of us hugging at the airport after I returned from my semester abroad; one of her facing the ocean on a trip to Mexico with Dad.

Moving reminds me of her. It was a hard business when she drove Plum and I down to Chicago. A policeman yelled at her in front of Wrigley, and she snapped, "Do you really want to live in this place?" She hated the apartment Kate and I took over from friends. It was too dirty for her liking, and it had bars on the windows facing the fire escape. And she told me she cried all the way from the Addison Red Line stop to Midway Airport.

Sometimes I think of our mother-daughter relationship as one of leaving and returning: I often waited up at night for her to come back from her 3-11 shifts or from her leaving the house in a fit of pique to see Grandma Winnie; she waited for me to come back from England, only to take me to Chicago four years later. Maybe that's why the sensation of missing her hasn't hit me; maybe I'm still waiting.

She always told me that the first thing you should do in a new place after you've moved is make the bed. Since this move has been gradual, I have done many things before even bringing the bed over to the apartment. I'm torn between petulance and obedience: part of me wants to continue putting books on my bookshelves in an open act of defiance to her rule; part of me wants to make the bed as soon as the movers drop it off, if only to see if she gives some sign of approval.