Pearls&Grit

The family trip to Utah was an annually momentous occasion. Every trip to Utah was always the same. We always left later than we should have, packing and repacking the Suburban, making use of every single nook and cranny. My spot was in the third row, drivers side. I’d picked that seat the night that my father brought the Suburban home. It made sense to claim that seat. It was the furthest point from the entry, so nobody else would venture in that far, on purpose, and I wasn’t near any of the babies in the middle row. 

Before our trips, I would crawl back to my seat, stacking my pencils and pads of paper neatly on the wheel well. My notebooks fit perfectly there, the spiral wires catching securely on the vertical supports of the armrest. I would make sure that the garbage cans in the arm rests were empty, ready for pencil shavings and chewed gum, carefully rolled back up in the original silver foil. It was many years later before I realized the trash cans in the arm rests were actually ash trays. It makes me smile that neither of my parents felt the need to correct my naive assumption. 

As the Suburban started reaching capacity, we would start making jokes about forgetting the aquarium filters, the edge in my older brothers’ voices getting sharper as the clock ticked forcefully along and we remained in the driveway. No matter how impatient we got, my mother would refuse to leave until she had bagged a three-month supply of homemade granola to transfer to the deep freeze. It makes me smile that I naively thought granola-stored-for-the-winter was a necessary Utah trip component. 

My mother would insist on saying a prayer before we left the house. My father, the patient man he is, would always agree even though I would catch him checking his watch as she prayed. 

Once we were on the road, my mother wouldn’t let us eat the Little Debbie nutty bars from the picnic basket until we had each drained a mini can of V-8 juice. By the time we had choked down the lukewarm V-8, the nutty bars were melted and the combination of hot tomato juice and smashed peanut butter-chocolate was enough to make more than one of us car sick. It makes me smile that I naively thought that my mother was trying to torture us with tomato juice, when she was just making a valiant effort at making sure we got our vegetables. 

Then my mother would insist we read a book together as a family. She would scream-read to us until her voice was hoarse, trying to beat the cyclonic wind created by four open windows in a 1970’s Suburban going sixty-five miles an hour down Interstate 90. I’m never quite sure if I knew what book she was reading or if we ever actually finished one, but I do remember the trip where her scream-reading turned shrill. We were shook out of our stupor to discover that we were driving past a farm of beehives and several of those bees had interloped into an open window and right into my mother’s arm. I barely smile remembering my naivety that my mom really was allergic to bees and we thought she was just overreacting. 

Oh the excitement I felt when we reached the outskirts of the Utah Valley, the barren, endless prairies slowly becoming rimmed by jagged mountains. It was always disappointing that there were still several hours to get deep into the flesh of the Wasatch Front. But I would stare out the window eagerly waiting to see the “B” emblazoned on the side of the mountain. That meant “Bountiful” and just underneath, to the north of the “B” was my grandmother’s house. 

When we got to my grandmother’s house, we were quickly surrounded by all of our family members; aunt, uncles, cousins, second-cousins, third cousins, second aunts, twice removed and people who were not even related by blood, but family nevertheless. It makes me smile that even then, I knew I could always count on this group of people. 

There was one family of cousins who were extra special. They had a daughter whose birthday was a mere fifteen days before my own and we were best friends. On this particular trip to Utah, my cousin still had to go to school despite the pleas that were made on her behalf. However, I did get the privilege of accompanying her mom in the pickup line every day after school.

That was when I saw him. 

He was wearing a white t-shirt, Hanes brand presumably, baggy blue jeans and his hair was brown, sticking straight up in the front and stiff with gel. My cousin told me that was Jacob. I was instantly in love. 

My cousin was an obliging accomplice. She suggested that I write notes and she would act as courier to and from school for the week. She had already talked to Jacob and told him I liked him. Therefore, all week long, my cousin would deliver notes back and forth, with the culminating plan to meet at a highly anticipated choir concert Friday night wherein Jacob would be in attendance. It makes me smile to think about the expectant, nervous excitement I felt looking forward to that concert. 

All I can remember about the notes themselves is that they smelled like strawberry Herbal Essences shampoo from being gripped tightly in my cousin’s sweaty, responsible palm all day. Oh how I wish I knew what had been written on those little squares brimming with all the good we thought about ourselves, happily shared in our childlike way. How did I view myself then, still so young and untouched by societal expectation, unadulterated with the looming junior and high school years still to endure? What did I dream for myself? What kinds of things did I think I was looking for in my Fairy Tale Prince and what were the things I bragged about, in hopes my Prince would find me a fitting Princess?

I don’t think I could write love notes anymore. I don’t think I could come up with even a handful of self-complimentary things to say for one note, much less a week’s worth. My adult sophisticate would step in and I would be left wordless and noteless, a sour taste in my mouth for all the things I should have done, could have done, would have done. 

First loves aren’t just about the person for whom we fall so inexplicably, but they are a bittersweet reminder of the innocent child we once were, brimming with perfect expectations of life. First loves are the companion pinnacle of the purest form of self-love, the love of ourselves that would grow and wither, morph and shrink, the perception of ourselves that have to withstand the tests of coming years.

In the end, Jacob couldn’t attend the choir concert because he got sick and I had to get back into the Suburban for a tomato juice, scream-read trip back to Washington. But even now, almost thirty years later, it makes me smile to remember that naive eleven year old girl. It makes me smile to remember that at one point in my life, I was enough because I said I was enough, in a note that smelled like strawberries.