Hello! It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog. But we are still standing, most of the time! Always surviving, sometimes thriving! According to the WordPress records, I haven’t left an update since June 30, 2022…uh, can you agree that was a quantum lifetime ago?
Next month will be ten years since Vernon’s accident. My, how life has changed our family since then! Still, life keeps throwing punches, as you can surely relate. So we learn to bob and weave until it feels natural, I guess. Some might even call it a dance. Sometimes its graceful, sometimes it’s just awkwardly moving. The point is, we are moving. As much as there may be a post-traumatic stress response, there is also the opportunity for post-traumatic growth. Two sides of the same coin…or rather, two partners in the same dance. If done well…it’s entertaining for others and keeps the dancers in shape.
I think I did as best as I was able with my family those early years, but I was also a different version of myself then. I was younger, for one thing. But no matter how hard a parent tries to keep things “normal’ for their kids, they can’t really know how things will affect the children. Some of these traumas take years to surface again. In Justine’s case, hers began to show up in about fourth grade. She’s finishing up 8th now. Of course lots of these kids struggle, the Pandemic came at a crucial time for the adolescents. Anyway…one thing I thought might bring some healing for her is a trip back to England. She had always resonated with the idea of being English, even though she couldn’t actually remember what it’s like there. Though she, her brother, and her dad were born there, we moved to the states shortly after she turned two, so the memories are only served up by photos and stories.
So finally, I updated her passport and began to imagine a plan. It took about ten months from conception to getting on an airplane…the truth is, I wasn’t sure where the money would come from or if Justine would feel stable enough to make such a trip. It became a big goal, something to keep us both motivated toward. Eventually, after checking in with my friends and family there, I bought the tickets. We were committed to the vision now. A few months later, I realized how anxious the idea of traveling everywhere on a set schedule of trains and coaches was doing me in. So I rented a car. That brought its own brief anxiety, but once everything was locked in on this side, we took the flight, trusting everything would be okay on that end.
And as the Irish blessing says, the road DID rise up to meet us. It didn’t take me long to re-acclimate to British roads. Fortunately we were given an upgraded car, which was amazing and made us feel rich and safe. The GPS was our godsend and so, it turned out, was the selection of radio stations and excellent speakers. We drove deep into the night, with the brights as our guide through narrow hedgerows most of the time. When I’d turn on the brights, Justine would say (smiling): “This is like a horror movie!” Truly, it was eerie and bizarre. But body memory kicked in, and I was able to get us through a ten-day road trip, with all sorts of weather, including SNOW. Luxurious seat warmers were just the cherry on top. (Or should I say bottom?) Justine loves experiencing snow, and this was in the county that her father lived when Maki was born. It was a little kiss from the land that we hadn’t expected.
Now, heres the thing about England: it is a deeply layered, vibrant story inside my DNA as well as my lived experience. I am something like 94% English genetically, and I know this ancestral history is important to Justine too, especially as she was born there. I have visited the country so many times since I was about her age. Even then and through the years, I would say: “This is the only place I never can get lost.” I hoped Justine would have a sense of that for herself once we arrived. And truly, I think she did. She said as much…not about getting lost, but about feeling at home. I was so grateful, and it was a lovely thing to embody together as we drove sooooo many hours through countryside of the green and pleasant land. It rained quite a lot, but it was worth it for all the green fields…and horror-story roads. We were an ancestral slumber party on wheels expecting healing support and soaking it up wherever it reared its loving head. (I don’t know how else to phrase it yet.) I may speak for myself, but I felt we were supported at every turn, though friends, through memory, new experiences together, and wordless grief. Me, being reminded of my life story, threaded in the land. With or with out Vernon and children. And Justine, sensing for the first time, making sense of her unconscious past: new smells, tastes, sounds, views. She soaked it all up like the potent medicine it is at it’s best. The body remembers. It didn’t matter if it was grey, wet, and cold. Old church graveyards are much better for photo-shoots when the weather is awful. What would England be without its rain? This is what makes its sparkle so special.
I guess I’ll just photo-dump at this point as there are too many moments to tie into this tapestry…and I still haven’t processed it all yet. The point is…it was great. It was healing. It was activating. It was better than imagined. We saw family, we saw friends. We let three rounds of the leftover ashes fly in the wind or float on the waters: in Cornwall: the Merry Maidens stone circle of Penzance, the Jurassic Coastline at Charminster Beach, where 200 million year old fossils wash up for the taking, and the River Thames in Buckinghamshire…where I released the last of them, and some grief around the marriage before he was hurt. Wooosh! What a road trip. What a satisfying circle.
These were our stops over ten days:
London Heathrow to: Exeter, Devon—Penzance, Cornwall—Poole/Bournemouth, Dorset— Bourne End/Buckinghamshire—Reading,Berkshire—Oxford, Oxforshire—London, Buckinghamshire— and back to Heathrow Airport in our awesome Mercedes.
Now we are home again and happy to be here. That was the most special trip ever. No regrets. I know I did good.
Well, if you got this far, you got the gist! We both had the trip of our lives. We were so happy to connect with older parts of ourselves. This trip was a big deal and I expect we will continue to notice its benefits as time goes on. The Best. 10 out of 10. Would highly recommend.
