I don’t know if I would have traveled the world like that, although the idea of spending time, say, in Italy, Corsica, and Spain sounds intriguing, I think it was more the idea of setting aside my daily life and embarking on a journey to gain clarity and to clear my mind. There are times when I feel like there is so much crap in my head and no way to use a kind of mental floss to get rid of it. There’s an undeniable appeal to the thought of not having a schedule, not having to go to work and deal with the stuff you have to deal with daily and the stress of wondering if people like you well enough to let you keep doing it, of being able to just do what you want when you want to do it. Or even just to get away and explore, do something different for a while.
It used to be that I would never have entertained the idea of doing an “Eat, Pray, Love” kind of thing. I couldn’t imagine just doing nothing or not having a job to go to or just being able to let go. I was out of work for 10 months not too long after I got married, which, when I look back on it, was an unbelievably long period of time for the late 80’s, when there were tons of jobs out there. I feel like it says something about my discipline or my ability to (or desire to) apply myself effectively or my thinking better of myself than I deserved. Whatever the case, I nearly lost my mind at various points. I was frantic to find a job, any job, as long as it was in my field, and I couldn’t relax, couldn’t settle down, couldn’t take the time to explore and learn. The next time I was out of work – only about 4 months – I had learned more about taking time to heal myself. I had come out of a horrible job experience with a bully for a boss and I was beat up mentally by the time I left. Having time to undo all of that was a gift. And now I wish there was a way to have my own “Eat, Pray, Love” experience.In many ways, I think my mother’s year in Europe was her “Eat, Pray, Love” journey. Of course, she had a purpose for being there – to teach school, although there was scant reference to it in her diary! – but she had a chance to explore and be awestruck and to fall in love. She grew up in a well-to-do family and ran with a well-heeled crowd in Charlotte. She was smart and she knew what she wanted for her life. As she told the story, she was talked into doing this teach in Germany thing, although I don’t know how much arm twisting went on with that. She was still young enough to be excited about the adventure and there wasn’t anything that she wrote that indicated that she was scared or apprehensive. She took things as they came and took advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves.
Mother knew that when she went to Germany that she would travel. How could you be there and not? I think of my brother Paul and his family, living in France for 3 years. They’ve taken advantage of proximity and traveled around Europe and into Asia, just like our mother did. So she, like they, have had the opportunity for “Eat, Pray, Love” travels, although I’m not really sure any of them thought about the experience as the opportunity to “find themselves”. In fact, I know my mother scoffed at that kind of thing, so I’m certain she just looked at it as her “grand European adventure”.
But, in fact, I do think she came back a different person. She was probably a little naïve when she went. After all, she lived in a time when women lived at home until they married. She came from a small Southern city where she wasn’t really exposed to much that challenged her at all or her beliefs. She wrote about not being able to understand other people because their American accents were different and then struggling in a place where many, if not most, people didn’t speak English at all! She had to learn to get along in a place that was very different from where she came. She saw things she had only read about in history books, which I know is always awe-inspiring. Even though she lived on an American army base where people spoke her language and there was some semblance of what she knew as normal, she still had to learn her way around a foreign country. She talks about things like trouble along the Iron Curtain, which was not far away, and crime on the base with an uncharacteristic nonchalance. She didn’t seem afraid, she seemed intrigued.
And she certainly didn’t go with the idea that she would fall in love. But she did. She met a man that she liked and she grew to love him. She traveled with him and then she came home knowing she would marry him. They were an unlikely pair. She was a college graduate from a good family that lived well. He was a college drop-out and came from a family that valued work over higher education. She was a dyed-in-the-wool Southern woman, plantation Southern, I always said. And he was a Yankee, born and raised in Michigan, and an Army man.
She never went back to Europe. Never had a desire to. She didn’t like to fly, so she didn’t. She came back home and settled into the life she had planned for and hoped for, as a wife and mother. She was kind of like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” where she never wanted to go beyond her own backyard again. But she had seen the world and I think that stayed with her. It made her want more for her children. She was so excited when I went to Europe the first time, back in the mid-80’s. I think she would have been thrilled that Paul had the opportunity that he did to live and work in France, although she would have missed him and his family very much. And she would have loved the fact that George and I took advantage of that to visit Europe again.
But that leads me back to the idea of “Eat, Pray, Love”. I watched the movie recently and while I enjoyed it, it didn’t give me the same feelings as reading the book did. Although I did enjoy the thought that Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Love” was Javier Bardem. J But watching the movie did remind me of those desires again. I cried a little at the end, wishing I could be as brave as Liz was. That I could put aside the practicalities and do something like that, even if it just meant living at Wrightsville Beach for a year. To experience the whole idea of breaking away from the norm and doing something different with my life, like my mother did. And then coming back a different person. Elizabeth Gilbert was a very different person when she came home. My mother was probably just a little different, but she did have an experience that amazed her and changed her, if only a little. And it took some bravery too, on her part, to do what she did.
These days I feel too old, too settled, too practical to be that brave. And yet I yearn for it.
I’ve wanted to know how this all started for Mother. What made her decide to do this? What did she tell people? Did she share any more detail with her family than was in her diary? So George and I went to Charlotte to spend some time with our aunts, my mother’s sisters. And over a dinner-on-the-lawn meal of fried chicken, potato salad and deviled eggs, they and their cousin Helen told us what turned out to be precious little about Mother’s little adventure.
So Mother and her friend Miriam had decided that they would enlist in this program that would send them to Germany for a year to teach school. Unfortunately at the last minute Miriam was told she would be going to Japan. They contemplated not going, because the plan was always to do it together, but then they decided to go ahead and go their separate ways. So what did Mocha and Granddaddy think about their oldest daughter going off to Germany all by herself to teach school? Were they shocked? Horrified? Unhappy? Thrilled? Did they try to tell her “no”? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. As Helen shared, we’ll never know what was said behind closed doors, but in public they were very supportive of her decision to go.So did Mother write home and tell them all about Daddy? Did she dish all the details of her romance and falling in love? Again, no. L When she came home, they knew she had met someone and that it was serious, but she didn’t share all the intimate details. It just wasn’t done.
Aarrgghh! Nothing. Oh, well, I suppose we’ll just make up the details and imagine that she begged and pleaded with her parents to give their blessing to the trip. After all, she was a grown woman, in her mid-20’s. It’s not like they could really tell her what to do. But eventually, Mocha and Granddaddy gave in and wished her well. They were afraid, of course, because she was going off on her own, without even Miriam to depend on, but of course Mother told them not to worry, it would all be fine. And she bravely went off, not afraid of anything and excited to be on her own without her parents watching her every move. And so when she got there, she partied all the time and made new friends and dated many men, until one skinny guy with a big nose and ears that stuck out a bit charmed her with his storytelling and his easy laugh. She got to know him better and then went off on little trips with him – scandalous! – although they were chaperoned. J And he was smitten with her Southern accent and her demure nature, so he told her before he left that he would follow her as soon as he was able. And so she reluctantly went back home to wait for him and spent her nights dreaming of him until he was able to return to the States. And all of Charlotte was mad with curiosity waiting to see what he was all about. And when he got here, he proposed to her in some ridiculous fashion that was not romantic at all, but they were both practical souls and they thought they were clever and cute and got married anyway. J