One of the things I miss most during this pandemic is travel. Last year my mom took me to Santa Fe to celebrate my 42nd birthday, and as I approached my 43rd, I kept thinking about our trip. Strange, because I don’t tend to reminisce, I tend to look ahead. But always looking ahead, always straining toward what the world can become, can get exhausting. I’ve been trying to slow down. I’m reading Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses to try and pay better attention to today: To smell my coffee before I drink it. To sniff my husband’s neck before I kiss it. To feel the soft tickle of my tank top against my skin.
A couple weeks ago, after several days of batting away at my memories of Santa Fe, I overrode my inner overachiever who considers remembering unproductive and let myself remember our trip. I lay in bed half an hour and savored every precious moment I could recall, from the climbing potted rose bush at Casa Elena, our Airbnb, to the toasty sweetness of corn muffins at a candlelit adobe restaurant, to the way it felt to hold my mother’s small hand over those ancient, uneven streets. Last spring my seventy-eight year-old mother was falling in the middle of the night, was slipping on the hardwood floor on her way to the bathroom for seemingly no reason. We lost my father nineteen years ago, and I still miss him. I can’t imagine going forward in life without both my parents, but as I watch my mother battle various ailments, I know at some point I will likely have to. When I remember our trip and how tightly, how desperately, I clutched her hand and bolstered her arm, I wonder who was holding up who. Or if really I was trying to hold us both up. I felt strong as I helped my mom over Santa Fe’s ancient high curbs and cottonwood-root sidewalk cracks. It was a joy to serve as her protector as she has always been mine, but when I remember the time now—especially against our separation during this pandemic, it seems as if our joy had risen to unite over a chasm.
This year, on my forty-third birthday, I felt compelled to do something I otherwise never would have. I called my mom on Zoom and took her on a virtual tour of our trip to Santa Fe in May 2019. I screen-shared photos of us enjoying ourselves at Meow Wolf contemporary art experience, at a fancy, candlelit adobe restaurant, and at the oldest chapel in North America. I opened tabs and shared photos of the Santa Fe Square, where we met for a food tour; of The Shed, where I ate the best red chili enchiladas of my life; of Ten Thousand Waves spa, where we got simultaneous massages and where, as if God couldn’t stand not to show us just how amazing life is, it miraculously snowed in May.
My mom has always treated me like a princess, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at letting her. I accept—no, I relish—her pampering now in an uncomplicated way, without guilt over dollars spent, without fear of compromising my thrifty ways, without dread I’m “selling out” and she might feel entitled to pressure me to follow her rules. We’re different enough and I appreciate a mother’s precious, all-encompassing love enough to let my mother love me her way without hesitation.
These days I worry she might get COVID-19 because every time I call, she seems to have friends over or about to have a party, as if there’s no pandemic. And forget wearing a mask. She wouldn’t have it. As the pandemic tightened its grip and my mother continued her joy-at-all-costs ways, I’ve had to loosen my grip and let my worry about her health fall into the chasm, because I know she’s as good at following my instructions as I am at following hers. I’ve had to accept there’s nothing I can do to protect my mother from 600 miles away, so I am no longer consciously worrying about her, but this knowledge hasn’t made my love any less fierce.
When I remember Santa Fe, I ache to be with my mom. And I also ache to have the freedom to go anywhere with her whenever we want. These two freedoms seem tied: The freedom to spend time with those we love in the places we love. I miss them both. Who knew such close and far-flung joys could lie so closely together.
We all easily enjoyed these freedoms, and we only now see them against their loss. Imagine being able to take our loved ones thousands of miles from our homes at almost any time we desired—or even just down the block. There were aspects of life we only enjoyed sometimes, like travel, but even when we weren’t partaking, just their potential fulfillment—their burst of fresh air—enlivened us. The world of a few a months ago seemed well-designed for our every pleasure, ready and eager to hit all our bliss centers whenever we desired, but we didn’t know what we had. What joys do I have today that I might only see by their loss? I want to know them now, love them now, savor them now, before the only place left to relish them is in my mind or over Zoom as I remember walking those ancient, craggy streets with my mom.
The day after my birthday I found out my mom is coming to visit soon. I’m delighted. I’ve dreamed of this since we first heard of the virus, but I would be a liar if I were to say it hasn’t occurred to me that she could be bringing this virus from Amarillo, which has some of the highest infection rates in Texas due to its meatpacking plants. She’s having people over and running nonessential errands, such as getting her dog groomed and running by the grocery store for one item. My husband and I have been zealous about staying in. We even do contact-free online grocery delivery, a service we’d never heard of before coronavirus.
Will I hug my mother when she rings the doorbell? Of course. Will I hold her hand to help her up the stairs? Yes. But there’s now a hesitation in these joyful moments, a heart-clench over a now darker chasm. Though she and I are both are presumably healthy, thought of the virus has invaded the hard-fought joy we’ve nourished the last few years. I’ve been patient with many small and large pains brought by this virus, but I’m bothered by the worries it brings to my relationship with my mom, because the mother-child bond is sacred. The sacredness remains despite the virus, and we must decide whether we risk ourselves to reach for it. To hold my mother’s hand again, I will.
Elizabeth White Olsen 