It hit me suddenly yesterday. The whole New York and America thing. It was the last day of school for my boys and as a surprise, their father had picked them up – which he absolutely never does as his workday in the U.S. begins at that time and he needs to be ready for whatever email or impromptu Zoom meeting comes his way. But yesterday was the Fourth of July and consequently no one was going to be available for him to do anything. So he offered to get the boys and of course I thought this was a brilliant idea, given that I spent the entire school year picking them up almost every single day, and complaining that I still needed a baby-sitter to help, given that they were dismissed at the same time in two different buildings located twenty minutes apart. But that’s another story. Suffice it to say that yesterday my husband decided to help, and I didn’t have to go to school. It felt like a mini vacation ahead of time and I was grateful it was a holiday in the U.S., without paying it any heed.
At dinner however, when my husband asked my 7-year old what day it was, and my son asked if we would see fireworks like in New York, my throat suddenly started to constrict. As my boys kept talking to their father my vision slowly blurred and their voices started fading. What I saw was no longer the pink wall in front of me, the dark fuchsia color that we thought we would paint over at some point but so far haven’t done since we moved last summer. Instead, the Henry Hudson highway presented itself, with the purplish sky in the distance and the sound of bumpy tires on the pot-holed asphalt that makes it hard to believe New York is one of the richest cities in the world. On the left, the tall, brownish Washington Heights buildings. On the right, the Hudson River and far up in the distance, the red, blue, white pops of fireworks in the haze of the setting sun. My children are asleep in the back of the car. I only have two of them at that point. Maybe my son is actually awake; he never really took naps in the car, always enjoying whatever long drives we would take and intently looking out the window the whole time. There were several drives like this, usually coming back from Vermont where my husband’s grandmother used to spend part of the summer, in her sister’s expansive and crumbling farmhouse. At some point when my older kids were toddlers, she passed away, but we kept going anyway, as some combination of the family would always be there on the Fourth of July. I can’t distinguish between the years anymore, it is all a blur that focuses back to this drive home at night fall.
There were also the summers when the fireworks would be over the East River, and we would watch them upon arrival from the corner bedroom in our Upper West Side apartment. I know there were several Fourth of July parades in Brattleboro, Vermont, sometimes followed by the farmers market if the day happened to fall on a Saturday. I don’t quite remember what we did in the evening. Probably some buffet style dinner under the wrap-around porch. I can see my son, around 4 years old, running down the hill facing that porch while my daughter, then ten months, is tentatively walking from couch to couch, holding on tightly to the flowery cushions. But this was the time the family gathered for a memorial honoring aunt Peggy, the owner of the house. It was a weekend in May. Probably Memorial Day weekend, which I always loved as a harbinger of summer, while Independence Day could be too hot and sticky already, providing a different, more sultry, kind of enjoyment. On the Fourth of July, I am pretty sure there were stays in Basin Harbor, further up in Vermont on the banks in Lake Champlain. But one of those stays was also on Memorial Day, as I remember a tour of the lake wrapped in blankets and my frustration at not being unable to swim in the freezing water. We were definitely at Basin Harbor two years ago while my older kids were at camp. The summer before the pandemic was at the Woodstock Inn, in Vermont again. A picnic/buffet on the front lawn. A nice tomato quiche and red, blue and white cupcakes for dessert, with little starred flags on top. My 11-month old son is crawling in the grass, his brother running around with a new friend. I miss my daughter dearly at that moment. She is at sleepaway camp for the first time and would so want her to be there with us that evening.
The summer of the pandemic we escaped to France and were on a small island. It was cold and rainy that day, but it didn’t matter because school hadn’t finished yet in France and we felt like we were the only people there, extending our escape started in Vermont – it is always Vermont - at the end of March. Last year was at the Woodstock Inn again. Our movers had just come to empty our apartment in New York, and we had dropped off our older kids at camp, one week after my daughter tested positive for covid and they both had to be picked up by their dad the next day. We had just signed the lease on our Paris apartment and I was about to fly to France to retrieve the keys and do a walk-around of the place with Kevin, our remarkably helpful broker. I was thoroughly exhausted and spent the two days at the hotel sleeping twelve-hour nights and lounging by the pool in a state of daze and wonder. There were also stays in Massachusetts at my husband’s best friend family home. Their daughter’s birthday fell on the fourth and our girls were good friends. There was shrieking laughter in the inflatable pool with included a shower, and cupcake frosting sessions with the grandmother. One summer the same girl was in New York and her birthday was celebrated there. On the way back, my daughter mysteriously got a deep cut her on her knee upon exiting a taxi and almost had to get stitches but we decided it was fine. The scar is still there and I wish we had made the effort to get her to the E.R.
So many layers of faces and fireworks and smells, and a deep longing for my older children’s childhood, their brother’s babyhood. Just when I thought I had finally gotten used to Paris for good and came to terms with the fact that we would probably stay here forever, New York came back with a vengeance and all I want to do now is go back and have my former mother’s life revived in all its trials and glories. I have come to understand that this will be the feature of my life for a while. A seesaw of acceptance and regret, of loving Paris then hating it or liking it but still loving New York even more. I have no idea what my future holds, and whether or not I will be back in the United States someday. There are moments when I am sure I will be, and others when it is impossible to see a way back, unless we become multi-millionaires within the next few years. But America will always be out there as a place of longing and mostly the place where I became a mother. If I am perfectly truthful with myself, I do hope that life will bring me back there in some way, but for now I can only live in my memories. It is okay. I will be back at least this summer and trust that some hidden powers will know what the right path is for our family.
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