This summer my dad, my siblings, and I took a camping trip to Ojai for Labor Day weekend. We wanted to replicate a childhood tradition where our dad would take us camping. These were special and exciting times, as our mom had primary custody of us at the time. For some years in my childhood I remember hardly even seeing my dad. When he first left my mom he was essentially off-grid. My mom would constantly drone to the five of us, “I don’t know where your dad is,” and I would imagine the several different fun and exciting lives my dad could be living in Idon’tknowwhere.
Also around this time, my mom adapted a new hobby: using the family landline to hound our dad at work. She called several times a day in succession to try and get a hold of him, she’d tell stories of his missed child support payments to guilt the receptionist into compliance. When she was unsuccessful she enlisted one of us to—using our most pitiful voice—plea on the phone for our dad. Each time the phone dialed, I felt like a child actor nervously getting into character. If we did not reach him we were to hit *66— my introduction to redial as a convenient technology to badger an otherwise quiet outcome into a reachable one. One of my mom’s specialties.
At some point, I became accustomed to seeing my dad one night a week and/or every other weekend. Often less than that when plans fell through without explanation. This would be the opportune time for my mom to affirm: “your dad is such a flake.”
I still remember the one day in all my childhood that my dad picked me up from school. He must have gotten off of work early or had the day off to pack for our trip. I was looking forward to pick-up time the entire day. When I saw that he was actually there to pick me up it was like a dream come to life. The car was ready to go and packed with camping gear. I was thrilled. I remember our camping trips very fondly. These were rare reprieves where we weren’t being scolded by our mom to complete a neverending list of household chores. These were near impossible tasks due to my mom’s hoarding problem that worsened after my dad left.
This summer we were joined by my sister’s boyfriend and my brother’s partner. In late September and landlocked in Ojai, we were met with low 100s temperatures as early as 10am. Our campsite was a likely host for heatstroke. It took all of our effort to get breakfast started, clean up, pack up and leave our sweltering campsite before we were met with the worst of the heat. We divided our 8 person group into two cars and headed to the beach. After battling for parking and unpacking our respective cars, we reunited. Finally on the sand and feeling the beach breeze we were all quiet and exhausted, basking in the relief from both the heat and coordinating logistics.
This is how we were when the tide came for us, quickly and quietly. With little words, we were all jolted into action, reaching for phones, shoes, snacks, as we ran up the beach. We laid the blanket out at the new location, hung wet clothes on the umbrella, returned flip flops to our beach neighbors, and resettled. The memory of the tide reaching us plays back to me quickly and silently like an old film.
Months later, I kept dreaming of lounging on an idyllic beach with friends. We are at total rest and ease when suddenly a fire meets us like the tide reaching the shore. We are forced to run and find shelter away from the beach. As we are moving away the fire seems to follow us. We watch fire ignite on sand and concrete—surfaces we never imagined would ignite so easily. This new information is terrifying.
When we are able to catch our breath different voices in the crowd surmise “it’s the earth, it is getting too hot.” I picture the magma at the earth’s core, kicking and screaming, no longer interested in being tamed. The heat within is spreading, reaching for the surface, sparking up on sand and water alike—it’s burned past all social niceties, deciding it doesn’t need an invitation. It’s as if we had been on different earths and now this earth wants to be one, for its fire to become our fire.
There’s frequently a point in our family gatherings where we take an inevitable turn into a popular topic of conversation: our mom. Someone will start with a pointed memory that showcases some of her worst traits. We all laugh with our guts and take turns dishing out old stories in a similar fashion.
I picture my mom, alone, uninvited, buzzing with a million and one ways to craft distraction. Remember the pictures of the penguins she texted me once from the San Francisco Zoo. Under the crossed out bell which indicates “do not disturb,” I see the text “March of the penguins” in my messages. “Cute,” I respond
“Sometimes I go alone.” She replies. “I really loved going on Valentine’s Day by myself. It was very sweet there…”
Picture dad’s front door shaking violently, the kicking, screaming, and banging fists on the other side of it. The rest of us quietly wait inside for her to fuse out and leave, though it doesn’t seem like there is an end in sight. We’ve drawn the curtains to avoid confrontation.
In my dreams, I’m terrified, watching the fire outline the coast—it stretches the entire shore. The crowd comes to a consensus, an alchemy distilling fear into anger. It’s our earth that is betraying us, turned against us after centuries of good behavior. The world in flames and this is the only protection we prepared—speculation for who’s to blame.
“I take after dad’s side” I recall my older sister frequently reminding me growing up. She would always say it as if it was something to be proud of, but mostly what I heard was the implicit rejection of any and all resemblance to our mom, with an air of disdain for those of us who do take after her, even if only in the most rudimentary of ways, determined by physical features.
I used to not think too much about this ritual of ridiculing our mom. It served as a cathartic unloading. An outlet to unleash angst, anger, pain, confusion—and distill it into a string of comedic episodes, ripened for the most relevant, most hungry audience. Though lately I find myself suspicious of the premise: that our mom is this furious ugly thing that the rest of us are far from. That somehow we have escaped this. With a narrower nose or rounder face.
Later in my dreams, the crowd rests. I watch the shore blaze from a distance, alone and petrified in thought. I can’t help thinking that it’s me who’s betrayed myself. The heat at the earth’s core is something that we’ve always known about. Lurking inside our earth, pumping the world’s blood below our feet, but we never stopped to think about it as a potential threat, why hadn’t we considered it?
adrienne_bich 