Counting...

Time, money, time, kids, time, lovers, time, haters, time, groceries, time, shoes, time, socks, time, clothes, and did I mention Time? I'm not good at waiting. I never was. When I was about 8 or 9 years old, my parents decided that I should get to know my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jay better. I already loved them anyway, and the idea of spending a week or two before school started at their cabin on Mount Shasta in Northern California was "just what I needed"....Well, I think daddy needed it more than I did, but it didn't matter...My sister Pinkey would drive and mom navigated, and it was a two day trip, sometimes more, depending on how tired everyone was and I loved it.  The only thing that irritated them was that I could easily keep myself entertained in the back seat for only a certain amount of time. I'd get tired of my camera, books, puzzles and coloring books. Remember, this was "the olden days"... There were no cellphones, no laptops, no electronic gadgets of any sort. I would ask all sorts of questions about the food growing in the fields and the various animals in the many farms we passed. I always liked  to learn new things.  After all that, I'd ask the one question that driving parents hate. "How much longer?"  The "five more minutes" didn't work either, but Pinkey (being the ever-intelligent woman that she is) took it as an excuse to stop the car at the nearest stop so I could run off some energy. It's a good thing too, because I could easily stay occupied for up to 3 hours at a time. I get restless more now than I did then.

One place we always stopped at was Oakland. Some of daddy's family lived there, so mom and Pinkey would take me to see Tia (Portugese for auntie) during that stop. "Eat, eat" she'd say as she kept bringing more food from her kitchen. I was far more interested in her dog, Popcorn, and her delicate roses in the garden than the food, but I'd try to be polite and tried the food she brought. How such a frail tiny woman could possibly eat all the food that she did was beyond me. One more thing about Tia: She always wore a long black dress. I think she must have had a closet full of them, all the same. High neck with long sleeves. I recall thinking at one point that she might be a witch, but she was too nice to be a witch. After dinner with Tia, we got settled at a Travelodge and then we went to a coffee shop named Diamonds for breakfast. I picked it out because I liked the name and after that first trip, it became a tradition for us to eat there. I was a good reader, and I'd pick out my own food from the menu. I also discovered that things weren't always "fair" on that first trip. They had a "Travelers Breakfast" and I noticed that even though the price was the same, men got 2 eggs and 2 slices of toast and women only got one.  I asked mom about that and she just said "Sometimes life isn't fair". I took that with me and I've often repeated it to my boys.

Several hours after breakfast we'd arrive in Chester California just in time for lunch. Molasses cookies and a slow moving creek in the backyard awaited me. My Aunt Rachel was perhaps the best cook in the world, and she always had warm cookies waiting for me when I arrived. No more counting time, just lazy days playing by the creek and under the bridge, fishing for trout and riding into the woods with my Uncle Jay in his custom made Jeep. It makes me get nostalgic for those easy days. Not necessarily because they were easy and I was carefree, but because I could wander off for hours at a time, and my mom never worried about me. It was safe to be a kid. I didn't wear a watch. I'd come back when I was hungry and ate lunch, and then I'd leave again till almost 4 because at 4 my Aunt Rachel would have a cocktail, and she made special fizzy drinks for me.

The advantage of being a kid is that you often "miss" things that adults see, so I never noticed that after I had my one "special" cocktail, that my Aunt Rachel continued drinking till late into the night. The summer I turned 12 was my last trip to see Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jay in their cabin. They came "down" for the winter and stayed with my Auntie Esther and Uncle Eddie that winter because Aunt Rachel was "sick" (she had cirrhosis and liver cancer from all the drinking). She died in a hospital in January and I never went to the cabin again, and Uncle Jay moved to Oregon and I never saw him again. It's just how life goes, how things are. People live and die and move on, and somewhere in a car nearby, a child asks "How much longer?"

Still, I sit here, counting off time and waiting. The words "How much longer?" never escape my lips, but it goes off in my mind and I look at the clock, see it's not time yet, and I go back to whatever activity I'm doing. Not too much longer now...