Messin’ with Texas

Saturday morning I woke up on the extra mattress on the floor of Izzy’s room as I usually do. It was too hot in the room when I had been trying to go to sleep the night before so I had opened the door. As I was slowly waking up I felt a cold crisp draft blowing over me. Instinctively I rolled over and pulled the covers a little tighter. A few moments later I awoke with a powerful longing to be at home in New York.

I have spent a lot of time away from home. I have lived in the Marshal Islands, Pittsburgh, and Switzerland before coming to Turkey, so I have gotten used to being away from home. In fact, I cannot remember such a strong desire to be at home as I felt on Saturday morning. Why I was suddenly hit with this, I am not sure, but I have an idea.

The cold air reminded me of being home. Our house obviously had heating, but when ever the door was opened to let the dogs in or out, the same cold air would crawl across the floor attacking any unprotected feet. In my sleepy state, I thought I was at home, again. I awoke expecting to see Sitka (one of my dogs) sneaking into my room. I expected to hear my father cooking delicious holiday foods (for the past few years I have only been home during holidays) and to have their aromas already well entrenched in my room. Perhaps those aromas would be mixed a bit with the smell of a fire in the living room or the dining room. Outside it would be windy and cold. The ground would be a little frozen with a light dusting of snow (we never really got much snow). The big windows facing the sea would of course have a bit of ice formed around the edges, but my father would have taken the time already to defrost the majority of the window. For some reason this cold draft, which could have easily given me a cold, made me think of all the things I like about being home during the Christmas holidays, thus making me sick in a different way. Living in this wonderful half dream, I realized something: this Christmas will be the first Christmas I have not spent with my family.

This was a bit strange to think about. I had a sinking feeling thinking of how much fun everyone would be having. The whole family could be together at my grand parents. Beth would be going crazy with Miranda and Olivia, my brother would be hung over, my mom would be reading in the living room, or working on a quilt. My grand mother would of course be working tirelessly over the stove as my grand father went back and forth to the store all day. Dennis would be running around working on some mission/project the details of which no one seemed to know. My cousins would stop by, and we would listen to our grandmothers stories of when the four of us were young. Blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Chicken soup and pirogies for dinner. Distant cousins would drop in here and there to say hello and catch up on the past few years (they always brought a subtle but charming mix of accents from around the US to the table). Evenings we would play pinochle and watch TV together.

I am missing all of that this year. Christmas isn’t going to happen like that this year anyway. I think each piece of the family has independent plans so I am not missing that much. It was just very disappointing to come out of my sleepy haze to realize I was at Izzy’s. I am glad that at least my brother is coming here for New Year’s.

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