I'm melting! I'm melting! - Kansas Part 2

I sat on my flight attendant jump seat staring at the back of my passanger's heads and changed my mind about driving to Kansas at least 10 times. It was my last flight of my four day trip, and my last flight before picking up the rental car. Later, walking down the aisle while checking seatbelts I decided not to go.

After work, in the Denver airport, I changed out of my uniform. I grabbed dinner and waited for my flight home to Portland, Oregon.

While I waited the feeling that I was making a mistake, grew and grew as I watched families walking by. Finally, I jumped up and headed to the rental agency and hired my car.

I was on my way to the tiny little town of Rexford, Kansas.

A few hours and a couple truck stops later (including some lost turn a rounds) I was pulling up to the little Prairie House I was going to stay in.
It was cute and dark and I was tired. So I slept. (Great story so far, eh?)

First thing the next morning, I took a walk. To the school where my mom went, and my Grandfather was the superintendent of. Walking through the school I let my hand glaze over the aged wood banisters inside as I made my way into the main staircase into the hall (it is a 3 story school house built in the 1920’s). I looked over the trophies of the last 85 years and walked into to the auditorium/gym. I sat on a bench and thought about my mom.

Did she sit here and cheer at a basketball game? Did she sing on the stage with a choir? Was she popular, or quiet? Then getting up, because no matter how long I sat, I would not have any answers here, I walked to the lower level. On the wall I saw the graduating class pictures of the last 85 years. It was interesting because since it started the average class size was about 6 –15 people, sometimes less.

Looking through the early forties I saw the pictures of the first year my grandfather was the superintendent. He was young and his eyes twinkled like he was really happy. I made my way to 1952 when my uncle graduated; he looked as cocky as ever. I held my breath as I looked at 1958. There was a picture of my mom. Her hair was perfectly curled, she wore big button earrings, horn-rimmed glasses, and a VERY 1950’s dress. I couldn’t stop starring. She looked like a different person that I knew/know. I mean, the same face, younger of course, but different. Not knowing what to do with this feeling. I walked out and onto the main street.

The interesting thing about Kansas is the surprising beauty. I have always thought – coming from the mountains, near the ocean with rivers all around – that the prairie, dry flat land must be harsh and ugly. Just thinking about being surrounded by flat land as far as the eye could see, made me feel suffocated and nauseated. Standing on the main street in a small town, with flat land as far as the eye could see was beautiful. I can’t explain why but it was almost as awe inspiring as starring at Mt. Hood. I took in the view and then walked to the only church in the town, which my family went to.

When I walked in I noticed it was a perfect arts and crafts style church. I sat down and looked up at the stain glass windows that were beautiful and imagined my mom sitting in the middle of her family. Her older and younger brother on each side of each her, as her mother and father sat near them holding a hymnbook together. My mother wore her best dress. That’s where the daydream ended, because that is all I know.

I got up to leave, and saw a old guest book, I opened it up and it landed on a page in 1965. Glancing down at the page I saw my grandparents name signed in my grandmother’s handwriting.

Mr. and Mrs. Francis Gift.

They had moved to Montana in 1963, so they must have been visiting.

There was something about seeing her handwriting. She’s been gone now, since for 10 years – also passing from Alzheimer’s just a few years before my mother was diagnosed. Stumbling upon this felt like I was overhearing her talk knowing that she can’t speak. I almost dropped the book.

I had to get out. I checked on my friend, who was still sleeping, and jumped in the car to the nearest restaurant. It was 20 miles away. In the next town.

I grabbed my book and walked in after the calming drive. It was funny, I was reading a book about small towns – and them staring at the newcomers – when I looked up and saw the old men just staring at me like I was from the traveling circus. The food was amazing if you like meat (which I do). The prices were fantastic (nothing like paying for a cheeseburger, fries, milk shake for $2.99!).

When I got up, the cute little waitress, reminded me – seeing as I was from out of town and all… there was a Tornado warning for the rest of the day and that night. She wanted to make sure I knew what to do.

I didn’t.

She gave me a little crash course. Stay away from outside walls; go into a basement, and away from windows if I heard the tornado siren or if it at all seemed like tornado weather.

Sweet.

Where I was staying had no basement, no inside rooms, and windows in every room….

Fantastic.

She asked where I was staying,

“Oh the girl from Portland,” She said. “ I heard you got in at like 3am last night”. Small towns then struck me as a little creepy, as I wasn’t even in MY small town I was staying at.

She assured me the church next door was always unlocked. I could just run in their basement.I paid my bill, and got excited about the tornados. No big deal right? I could always go in the church, and it was always unlocked…right?

Tomorrow, My real life Twister adventure and meeting my Mother thru her best friend.

I'm not in Kansas anymore

Last week I found a stack of letter’s that my mother had saved through out her life. For any of you that don’t know, my mother is dying of Alzheimer’s disease.

My mother started showing symptoms soon after I graduated from high school. When I was a teenager and child my mother and I were never very close, I would get so frustrated because we were so different.

I know that a lot of girls that have bad relations, with their mothers in their teenager years, learn to appreciate their mother as a fellow adult in their twenties. I never had that. When I was old enough to see that I needed her, and I wanted to know what she was like as a person. She was already fading to the point that was no longer possible.

In a way, I never really knew my Mother as a person; she was never forthcoming about her past. What I did know is that she was different than most women. She was to scared to drive a car, leave the house as I grew, she never went shopping or spent time on her hair and make up. I had to learn those things on my own. When I was old enough to understand the importance of these things, I was only angry that she never taught me to be a female.

Knowing my Grandmother for a few years before she died, I knew she was a vibrant adventurous artist that radiated beauty wherever she went. Because of this I never understood my Mom. Didn’t she have my Grandmother to teach her?

One of the letter’s was from my Grandmother to my Mom during her 1st (and only) year of college in 1959. She was chastising my Mother for her changing so much. Her letter was questioning my mother for going from straight A’s to failing all her classes. She couldn’t understand why my mother went from being happy and bright to never leaving her room.

I was shocked when I read this, because it seemed as my mother changed dramatically in such a way that only usually happens with a trauma. When I questioned my Father about the letter he told me a secret that my mother kept from everyone but him. A trauma had happened to her that was fatal in that time, especially in rural Kansas where she grew up.

My mother was real, flawed and I never really met her.

After reading that letter I took some time to locate her best friend from Jr. High through college. Since she still lived in the same town. (Rexford, Kansas) Where my Mother lived until her late twenties, where my grandfather was the superintendent of schools, where my Grandmother painted murals. Where I had I decided to go there and see if I could find out whom my mother really was, before this trauma affected her life so severely. Since it’s only a four-hour drive from one of the major airports I fly to, I made car rental reservations for the day I finished work. Unfortunately, I not only was aware it was tornado season; I also didn’t check the weather forecast. Since I was headed straight into “Tornado Alley” that would’ve been a wise thing.

Coming soon: what happened on my trip to Kansas, Dorothy has nothing on me…and searching for my mother while surrounded by tornado’s.

Choose your own adventure...

Hola!

I almost hate having too much to blog about rather than too little…because then how are you supposed to choose….I do long enough posts as it is to do more than one subject…and I hate doing two posts on the same day, people only look at the first one….

So I’ll let you decide which story I should post:

The options…

1. My night at the White Eagle, complete with a large glass of milk at the bar (bonus: How I further annoyed my roommates at 4am)

2. My last work trip, not that exciting – but the "World” of a flight attendant – some of you dig that shit

3. My last trip to Montana…The story of my Grandma that just passed on…World War II in Germany, Austria, and England…how she came to the Bitterroot Valley.

4. My upcoming 29th birthday – What it means to my future…very philosophical…

5. Upcoming trip to the small town of Rexford, Kansas…why am I going there??


These are your choices…. vote carefully. And if you have write in votes for a different topic entirely, write away….

Keeping it real…. on the flip side….

Flying Waitress….out.