GOING HOME

On Saturday, I stopped in Pullman, Washington to visit Washington State University, my alma mater. It's been  forty-five years since I graduated and well over thirty years since I last saw the campus.

I spent an hour trying to find my way around campus.  First of all the trees are a lot bigger -- to be expected after all these years. A lot of roads around campus were blocked off for game day. And the fields around the campus perimeter are now filled with apartment buildings.  I finally found my dorm.  It's looks pretty dilapidated and is fenced off for renovations.  The large parking lot, between my dorm and the field house is now filled with buildings. Regents Hills was one of the best, though not the newest, dorms when I was there in 1963-1967. Some of the dorms that were old back then still look good from the outside. I saw the home economics building, but it's called something else now.  Home Economics, as a field of study, no longer exists.The center of campus is blocked off so it's not possible to drive among the buildings.  I could see a couple of landmark buildings at a distance, but couldn't get to them easily.  The buildings were even more crammed together than when I was there, with almost no space between the buildings.  That's a good thing during winter when you have to walk from building to building in the blowing wind and the temperature hovers at twenty below zero.  The campus is still a mix of architectural styles, but it's the lack of green space that bothers me.

Nothing felt familiar. Nothing felt right. I had no sense of being at home or even being in a familiar place.  I drove past the church I used to attend; it still looked the same. I thought about going in but knew I didn't need to.

I am undone this afternoon.

I expected things to change, but I expected  some of it to still be familiar.  I had to hunt for anyuthing I even recognized.  College was a good time for me.  I liked being there and it was a good place for me to be. Many things happened on that campus that changed the direction of my life. Of course I didn't know ahead of time that I shouldn't have gone to campus. I am deeply sad when I leave campus. I know now I don't need to return. I learned my lesson really, really well today:  you can't go back.


My memories are better than what I saw today. It's a good thing to know where you don't have to go back to, or don't need to go back to for any reason.  My memories were disturbed today -- and I am not happy about that. I will begin to work through my feelings as I drive this afternoon.

In the meantime I am taking the very familiar drive through Colfax and on to Walla Walla. I suspect the drive  hasn't changed too much.  The wheat fields are still being farmed like they always have been.  As I look across the horizon I see wind turbines -- 30, 40, 50, or maybe more -- all new since I was last here.  There's plenty of wind out here so these turbines make sense. The wind turbines certainly change the landscape -- they are stuck up along the ridges like toothpicks or like children's pinwheels but the farming still continues around them.  They've been added to what was always here because it's the right thing to do for the environment. They are actually quite picturesque.

I am listening to Beethoven's Eroica Symphony on classic radio, a piece I know very well. As I watch the turbines that surround me, they are dancing to music.Their movement nearly matches the majesty of Beethoven's music.

This drive that I made so often in my college years, doesn't feel all that familiar.  I would have missed several turns without the highway signs.  And I had forgotten about crossing the Snake River out here among the wheat fields at Central Ferry.  How could a person forget something like that?

When I get to Walla Walla, Mary, one of Mother's long-time friends, welcomes me into her home.  We spend hours talking and sharing the conclusion of Mother's life.  I have felt an obligation, in the best sense of the word, to finish Mother's story with the friends who loved her.  On Sunday, we attend Pioneer Methodist Church, where I grew up and where my parents were active for over forty years.  It, too, has been renovated recently which is a great improvement to an old building.  One of Mother's hand-made banners was hanging over the sanctuary altar.  I'm told they often hang her banners she made years ago.I spoke with perhaps half dozen people who knew Mother, but that was all.  Six of us shared lunch afterwards, including Margaret, a beloved high school friend of mine whom I had lost touch with.  And there was dinner at Chuck and Lill's house that evening.  The conversations were wonderful and painful and personal and honest and fun as we sat table together.

On Sunday afternoon, Mary asked if there were any places or people I wanted to see while I was in town.  I had already decided I didn't need to drive by our old houses, or what remains of the schools I once attended.  I revisited those places when I was in town several years ago.  There was no reason this time.  I am keeping my memories.

I left early Monday morning, to spend time with my cousin Jim and his wife Donna in Portland, before going on to Cannon Beach.  My GPS wanted to send me through Milton Freewater, which was not our usual family route to Portland.  I drove through College Place to catch the road to Pasco.  The only problem was I never could find it.  I checked my map.  I never needed highway numbers in Walla Walla before.  After about thirty minutes, I found a traffic circle with a Highway 12 sign.  As I progressed around the circle, it neglected to give me a sign for the correct exit -- or at least I didn't see it.  In a few minutes I was back where I started.  I could see the highway I wanted.  I just couldn't get there.  I finally found more signs for Highway 12 but when I got close to actually getting on the highway, the roads were blocked off for construction with no detour signs.  I check my map again.  This time I realize the highway I want is the same one I used when I came to Walla Walla on Saturday. While there must be several entrances to the highway, the only one I knew was on the far end of town.  So, I head that way, through downtown Walla Walla, stopping at every traffic light, block after block.  Nearly an hour after I left Mary's house, I am finally on the road.

I was embarrassed and humiliated to admit I couldn't find the way out of my home town.  Or course it has changed too. The old landmarks are gone or look different, the highways have been added or rerouted, there are houses where fields used to be. 

The places I know best are the ones that undid me the most.  I got through Minneapolis, St. Paul, Fargo, Bismarck, Helena, and Missoula way easier than I got through my home town. But perhaps that's one of the lessons of this trip.  I've never had a desire to move back to Walla Walla or to return to my university for anything other than a visit.  The people from these places are important, but I've learned that it doesn't matter where we catch up with each other, because these relationships are not tied to place. So my trip is not about actually returning to the homes and schools and churches and towns of my younger life.  I know now it's about breathing in the landscape -- the fields, the rivers, the mountains, the lakes, the spaces where my life came to be.