The Green Suitcase - Piece for The Write-Away Contest

Scribbit is hosting a Write-Away Contest with the theme being summer travel. This piece came rather naturally to me, so I've decided to send it in. I guess this means I'm serious.

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All night long, the winds battered against the window. I try to think what it is I thought about before the hot pre-summer winds of Israel started. Ah, yes. This summer we’ll hit the creeks of Northeast USA and maybe even the sandy beaches of California and I feel cool again.

But before I know it, Momma’s voice comes through the zipper even after the winds already died down.

“Don’t forget to label the clothes.”
“He’s only two years old. No summer camp.” I say.

In goes the baby’s swimsuits alongside my old maroon jellies. And the cotton swabs. And the book on Penquins. I am a bit unsure when it come to packing, so I listen first to advice about unnecessary packing, so I put the discman aside. I limit myself one journal and a book. My mom’s advice, of course.

My movements are slow; first starting dusting the suitcase off, then slowly opening the zipper, missing the one that actually opens the suitcase. Its wheels have been eaten by walking around many airports. Its frame is a bit bent out of shape, torn in some places, stronger in the handle, however always reliable.

Taking down the suitcase from the top of the closet is like letting the memories fall again. I am not sure which memory to put in and which should stay out. But my two year old makes the final decision, a choice that overwhelms all. He sticks in the “I love New York City” T-shirt I bought for him two summers ago when traveled from Israel. It was hard trying to explain that my mom was now a grandma.It will be ten years this August since her diagnosis of Alzheimer's.

I should have known. Just when I wanted to take my little redhead and suck on popsicles near a creek in Earlton, New York where I went to sleepaway camp for so many years, I am reminded that our first stop is in fact, New York City.

Summer in New York City. I can see my son fidgeting over an ice cream popsicle while I wait for the sky to change colors after a long dirty haze and hear the factory workers across the street. Dad’s paintings stayed in the same position while mom's dusty cassettes remain hidden behind a bag of books in her closet of those days when my mom knew how fast her fingers could fly.

We’ll only be staying in New York City for a week or two, before we find our right home. But it’s enough to remind me how I longed to get out of the city as a teenager and now that I’ll coming back, I wonder how my mom looks this time around.

Many summers ago, I looked for momma in a sweltering hot Grand Central Station returning from an exciting nine weeks of summer camp. She was waving frantically. The pink swirling sunsets, the smell of jasmine and the rosy rose garden were all behind me. Momma never knew how much Kool aid I ate. My tongue was red under a blanket in the dark with an almost dead flashlight battery. Those confessions go into the suitcase too.

Rounding up the final things, I take down the file folder with all of mom’s documents and important papers of her Alzheimer’s. With the suitcase finally padlocked and closed, I know there’s one thing I’ll do right after jet lag. I’ll walk down the Hudson River Walkway with my little son’s hand in mine perhaps also with my mom.