Me, Myself and Mom - Ongoing

Story 3

Four weeks earlier I had been standing at the kitchen sink, looking out at the patch of mint that grows next to the patio; green and fragrant in the warm months, but then just blackened and brittle from the cold February air.

The suburbs of New Jersey, where I had been living for the past ten months, were a dreary collage of prickly trees, salted cars, brown grass, withering snow banks, and uninspiring strip malls; some whose shop windows still had smothered pieces of holiday tinsel peeking through forgotten squares of tape.

That winter, the winter of 2007, felt exceptionally bleak. The snow felt colder, the wind bit harder and the nights were the deepest shade of black I have ever seen. Even the parking lot at the local Home Depot seemed more vacant than usual.

But, of course, this was only a projection and my logical mind was fully aware of this fact. I knew that the snow was the same snow as the year before, not a colder version, the wind was the same wind and that the night sky had many beautiful and visible stars, ones in which I had only chosen to dim. And it was not the parking lot at the Home Depot that was more vacant, it was me. Because the only difference between this winter and last winter was that last winter my mother was still here.

The phone rang. It had startled me out from one of the long gazes I had acquired since her death the previous spring; a spring in which the mint bush, ready to open and bloom and share its fragrance with the world, refused to recognize that my mother had just died. It went on blooming anyway, instead of staying hard and brittle as I would have preferred. To this day, even though I love it in tea, salads and lamb meatballs, I still can't help thinking mint is just a little bit rude.

“Hey Girl, it's Chris. Your not going to like what I have to say but here goes: our apartment fell through. The guy won't move out. His sax playing is driving the landlord crazy but there's nothing he can do. The guy just won't leave. He's tried everything to evict him but, you know, tenant rights.”

“What? Seriously? But we're two weeks away from moving in. I have everything ready. My boxes are packed, the movers reserved. What the fuck.”

“I know. It sucks but there's nothing we can do. He won't leave and that's that. Anyway, Kenny and I are off to Egypt next month for ten days, you should come.”

It was then that I hung up the phone and didn't let any thoughts pass through my head. I literally walked to my computer in a state of mental blindness, sat down, loaded Expedia and bought myself a one way ticket to Cairo. I would meet my friends there, have a ten day holiday with them and then I would continue on and follow the map overland for as long as I needed.

Alone. Just me, myself and memories of mom.