It would happen: the trip back to Floyd. And then it wouldn’t. And then it would and it is and I have just a few days to pack.
The idea was conceived by one or more Floyd expats who had the notion to return for simultaneous visits. I almost backed out the first opportunity because having lived in the county for 27 years, the pattern for June weather includes heat that I do not suffer silently or happily.
JUNE: First half, remnants of spring with cool mornings, warming days and pleasant nights. JUNE: Second half, quickly trending to days near 90 and night time temps and humidities such that leaving the windows open feels like camping in a swamp. And so I head to the swamp, ready to sweat for the cause!
The first glimmer of hope to travel were dashed a couple of months after our September arrival in Columbia. Ann became easily distressed and anxious when needing to be punctual or attending to details was required. Neither of us would enjoy the trip at that point, with the additional burden of her feeling awkward not remembering the who and where of our old familiar places and people.
Then a space opened in memory care mid-May for Ann’s housing if I was away, and there was still time to get tickets and make plans after all!
And let’s just say: my dance card is so full! Three full days I will fill with food and brews and walks and dancing, pizza and music, and visiting familiar markers around town that somehow persist, even though I have not been there to sustain them by observing and knowing. How is that possible?
Can you walk out of a fairy tale and then back into it? There will be an otherworldly light on the trip, start to finish. I plan to take notes and pictures to confirm to myself that it all happened. Me. Free to live and move and have my being. Whaddaya know?
So I’d best go do a load of wash and get organized.
I have not decided what is best to do with regard to telling Ann. I think the tendency is to let our son, who will visit the days I’m gone, tell her — after she asks the fourth or fifth time and seems to get it that I am away. By that time, I’ll be on my way home. And she will not remember any temporary worry or angst; and that kind of forgetting is a tiny silver lining on her cognitive plight.
This is the widest expanse of flat land this Appalachian might have ever visited—save for an airport. I have never seen so much sky. And there is practically no road noise at all. It is a five minute drive from home. The margins are prairie-like: wild and native. I am happy there.
– Fred First is an author, naturalist, photographer watching Nature under siege since the first Earth Day. Cautiously hopeful. Writing to think it through. Thanks for joining me. Subscribe to My Substack HERE.