European Euphoria: A Two-Week Travel Diary

I recently wrote this recollection of my trip to Italy and Greece this summer for a college creative non-fiction course. There were far too many people and memories to include in my 3,000 word count limit, so I chose some of the most humorous/significant/relatable/PG-rated experiences to share in a workshop with my professor and classmates. One day I will expand this piece to include everything... :)

Day One: I am frantically scrambling to clean the spilled shampoo out of my perfectly packed suitcase.  My hairbrush has grown legs and walked out of this house.  I just stepped on my cell phone and shattered the screen--but luckily I wasn’t planning on using my cell phone in Europe.  I arrive at the airport frazzled, terrified at the thought of missing this first flight in a complicated series that will eventually end in Rome, Italy.  Laura, my college roommate, and I approach the ticket counter proudly holding our passports, only to be met by a frantic look from the perky airlines agent. “Your flight time has changed.” Fabulous. Those dreaded words always send me into an instant cold sweat.  In order to make it to our next connecting flight, we are forced to take a different route-- and the plane leaves in 30 minutes.  We run through the airport Home Alone style, bags flying in every direction as we race through the hell hole of airport security.  Do I really fit the profile of an Islamic terrorist who has planted home-made bombs in my sports bra?  Thirty minutes later and we are miraculously zooming down the runway in a big silver bird.  The teenage girl seated in front of me is already hitting stage three of her panic attack, crying and screaming that she doesn’t want to die in a plane crash.  Someone get this girl a Xanax and a straightjacket. Not the most comforting entrance to a plane I’ve ever experienced, but my breathing finally slows and my stress is left down at the baggage check-in as I scan the Nashville landscape below me and willingly depart with my familiar turf in exchange for a Summer adventure to Italy and Greece.

Day Two: I’ve been on this plane for eleven hours now, and my total sleep time is maxing out at 30 minutes.  My neck has a crick, my legs are stiff, and my eyes are bloodshot.  And I am giddy like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning.  It’s not just the glamour of travel I ache for; I love these quiet moments of waiting and reflection in the airports and in the clouds.  I’ve got my novel in one hand, my coffee in another, my headphones in my ears, and a cheesy film playing on the back of the seat that faces me-- it’s an introvert’s playground as the rest of the passengers’ thoughts turn off and their heads occasionally jerk up in their efforts to sleep sitting straight up.  Normal people groan at the thought of being trapped inside a plane for more than a few hours, but this is when I feel like I’m home.  My spirit has always been made for the skies.  I picture Dad in his youth, soaring valiantly through space in his jet and rescuing other members of his Black Aces squadron-- a Vietnam hero; and later, the handsome face under his white pilot cap and crisp uniform as he charmingly announces, “Thank you for flying Pan Am Airlines”-- every  little boy’s hero.  I imagine our hearts meeting up here, 23,000 feet above sea level; 23,000 feet closer to Heaven.  

Day Two (and a half): I rub the tiny bumpy edges of the euro version of the penny between my fingers as I contemplate what I could possibly need to wish for as I am here, on the trip I have dreamed about for years.  The Trevi Fountain is packed with tourists and locals on this beautiful August evening.  The buzz of happy chattering tourists snapping away with their cameras, paired with the soothing sounds of the running fountain water; the lingering big city smell and the aroma of freshly tossed pizza--together, they create a relaxed bustle of charm that the Italian culture seems to have patented.  The fountain itself is so much larger than I had ever envisioned in my mind: gorgeous white stone sculptures stretch in front of the eye as far as your vision can reach from atop the stone steps surrounding it.  The giant white columns frame Oceanus, the ancient Greek Titan of Water, with nothing to distract the eyes from his naked muscular body but his long ringlet beard.  He gazes at the crowd with a look of intrigue and pride, as if he knows that all of these people are here to see him in all his glory, and I know that he is right.  I have forced my way to the front through the massive throngs of loitering tourists for a chance to join the thousands of tourists who travel to this same spot in Rome every year to sit and throw a coin over their shoulder with a silent wish.  What more could I possibly ask for when I am in the city of my dreams?  I don’t believe it’s possible that my heart could be any more full than it is in this moment, but nevertheless, I toss the coin over my back with a giggle, and I am suddenly alone amidst the hundreds of people; captivated in this moment, I unswervingly believe in the magic of the Trevi Fountain and its power to return me to Rome one day and to grant my wish.  I wish to find love here. 

Day Two (and three quarters): I wonder if it is acceptable for me to refer to today as day two and three euros...ba-dum tssh. The program I am touring with has planned this two-week trip for me and 30 other college students from all over the United States, 25 of us being females.  I’m not sure whether to feel sorry for the few young guys with all of us college girls, or to congratulate them like they’ve won the genetic lottery.  The girls have all begun quickly bonding although we have yet to be in Rome for 24 hours, and a group of us are wandering the city by night.  Candace and Melissa, two gorgeous Italian sisters from New Jersey with thick (and surprisingly charming) Jersey accents and luscious long dark hair lead the way, in pursuit of an “ice bar” that they have heard about through a friend studying abroad in Rome.  Thirty minutes, nine girls, six maps, and a few wrong turns later, we arrive at the bar on an empty-looking back street.  But we walk into a futuristic-looking entrance room with blue lighting and a closet full of heavy silver insulated cloaks.  We all decide that the 20-euro cover fee to enter the bar made entirely of ice is absolutely worth it for this unique experience and the chance to escape the Italian heat.  We cloak ourselves and head into the frozen igloo with a voucher for one free drink.  The ceilings, the walls, the seats, even the shot glasses are all made entirely of ice.  We shriek with delight, huddling together for warmth and biting off chunks of our shot glasses.  The DJ spins songs like Neal Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” and we laughingly wonder whether these 40-year-old tunes are just now hitting the charts in Europe (better late than never, right?), or if perhaps the DJ hears our American girl chatter and hopes to win our hearts over with an American classic.  After 20 minutes of negative degree temperatures in our shorts and flip-flops, we decide that it’s time to thaw out.  Would you believe me if told you that another American classic, “Ice, Ice Baby,” marked our grand exit?

Day Four: I have fallen in love with Florence.  We have been here for a couple of days already, and today I walk the streets comfortably alone as the other girls continue on in their unspeakably impressive shopping capacities.  Armed with only my camera and a few euros, I slowly stroll through the already familiar streets, soaking in the beautiful views and the prime people-watching with an occasional click of my camera.  I pass through the Piazza della Signoria, the main square in Florence, through the famous Michelangelo statues and the massive red-roofed Duomo Cathedral, and I wonder at the incredible skill and intrigue of the street performers.  A man is casually free-handing the famous Mona Lisa on the street sidewalk...in chalk.  A man spray painted from head to toe in gold stands posed, fooling onlookers into believing he is a statue.  An older woman  sits painting romantic images of Florence on her easel-mounted canvas, and I stop to purchase a few pieces of her art.  The crows have left their footprints around her eyes, and she smiles freely, exposing frequented laugh lines that veil the pure heart of a woman who is content in her skin.  She is the epitome of beauty, a kind of beauty that no breast-size or complexion can compete with.  And I instantly know that this woman has seen pain, but more importantly, she has seen unsurpassable joy in her lifetime.  This is a woman who loves.  “Bellissima, beautiful,” I remark as I pick up a painting and hand her my money.  “No, you bellissima,” she softly whispers as she cups my face in her fragile but strong hands weathered by time and motherhood and paintbrushes.  “Take another” she utters in broken English with a shy smile, pointing to her portfolio of paintings as delicate and beautiful as her own very essence.  I easily choose a second painting, but my efforts to pay are met with steadfast resistance.  “No, for you, Bella,” she sweetly insists, and I reach for her hand in gratitude.  One of the most coveted landscapes in the world surrounds my new friend and her workshop, but it is forgotten as I am momentarily captivated by the incredible beauty of a stranger I feel I have known all my life.  My heart revels in childish delight at our encounter long after I meet up with my friends, who are now loaded down with shopping bags like pack mules.  I show off my two new pieces of art, and I am reminded of the stranger on the street corner who silently taught me something about womanhood.

Day Four (and a half): Laura and I, and our new best friend and European roomate, Amanda from Chicago, devour our second (okay, third) gelatos of the day as we stand gazing out at the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s world-famous bridge.  The faded warm colors of the bridge, the open shutters wallpapered with brilliantly red flowers climbing alongside masses of ivy, the tall arches hovering over the cobble-stoned streets, the oh-so Italian sound of street musicians with their accordions -- this part of the city is like a glimpse into Heaven, where nothing can touch you but the warm sun as it sinks below the bridge.  It is our last day in this city that we have so quickly come to love, and we cherish this last view before heading to a wine tasting and dinner with our entire group.  After our stomachs have reached more than their full capacities, Amanda, Laura, the two sets of sisters from New Jersey and New York, and I head to the plaza square with a few bottles of wine.  We chat the night away under the stars, passing the wine bottles around our circle as we silently form bonds that we know time and distance will never erase.  We are learning about the world, and tonight, we learn about each other.  

Day Five: Today we travel back to Rome.  Most of the bus is asleep already, but I am plagued with curiosity, as usual, unwilling to miss any of the gorgeous Italian landscapes we pass through.  Mere blinking is the enemy.  The sunflower-filled fields that surround both sides of our bus steal my breath away, and I wake up half the bus with my childlike excitement.  Heads bob up in the seats in front of me as the sleeping passengers briefly drink in the beauty of the fields of gold before returning to their dreams.  I pull out my iPod and pick the perfect song that has already put into words the nostalgic serenity I am experiencing now with my eyes.  Today we wander through the Roman Colosseum and the ancient ruins of Rome.  As I gaze at the empty remains of the past glory of Rome, I am reminded for the second time this week that perhaps the greatest beauties are those that are broken by time and the devastations of weather and life itself.   

Day Six: As I sit devouring the best pizza that has ever touched my taste buds (extra cheese with cherry tomatoes) with seven of my new closest girl friends, I sigh a sigh of pure full-hearted, full-stomached contentment.  We have just spend the morning touring the Vatican, home to the Pope and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.  I made decent marks in my college Art History class, but no textbook picture and description can contain the overwhelming essence of true art.  Despite the claustrophobic amounts of tourists jam packed inside, elbowing you in the gut as they crane their necks and sneak photographs whenever the vulture guards turn their heads, there is a kind of holy reverence inside the Sistine Chapel that ushers out hushed admiration from its visitors.  I love the story of Michelangelo’s refusal to paint the ceiling for this church that he tried so desperately to rebel against; how the people gossiped in confusion and doubt as to why the Pope would choose this hellion of a sculptor for such an honorable task--why not Raphael, the most talented artist of the times? they cried; how these same skeptics’ were left in awe-filled silence when they saw Michelangelo’s masterpiece.  The Pope later explained that he chose Michelangelo because of his lack of experience and technique with a paintbrush-- he felt Michelangelo’s flawed but impressive frescoes accurately mirrored the beauty in the imperfection of humanity.  It seems to be a recurring theme throughout my Italian experience that what the world views as crumbling, aged, and flawed--are perfectly magnificent in all their imperfection. 

Day Six (and a half): I realize that you might stop believing me as I continue using superlative forms every time I speak of food, but tonight’s dinner was hands-down the best lasagna the world has to offer.  Italy has proved to live up to its reputation of good eating-- the extra skin on my stomach that’s starting to emerge stands as a proud testament to a successful week in Italia.  But don’t worry guys, it’s just water weight, we all assure each other as we help ourselves to another gelato.  Tonight’s last night in Italy is spent at a modern outdoor bar, complete with a swimming pool.  It’s no surprise to anyone that crazy little Jenilee, who we’ve named “Tour Guide Barbie,” ends up at the bottom of the pool at some point in the night, to the delight of the infatuated local men.  I think we have all begun to realize that we want to stick Tour Guide Barbie in our back pockets and carry her home with us next week for guaranteed endless excitement and laughter. It’s a good thing she’s not as great of a navigator as she claims; what would our last night out in Rome be without getting desperately lost one final time as we trek back to our hotel? 

Day Seven: Overnight ferries seem to be a common mode of transportation around here.  So the other passengers seem quite surprised and amused by our group of 30 Americans emulating Titanic’s Jack and Rose poses on the bow of the ship, playing “Ninja” spread out in a circle across the entire deck, taking more shots of vodka than a freshman on Spring Break, and conga dancing through the cruise liner’s discoteca as the DJ blasts “We Are Family.”  And we are.

Day Eight: We just arrived on Greek turf, and I’ve already decided I never want to leave it.  The sun is beginning to set as we make our way to the seaside town for dinner, perfectly illuminating the majestic Mediterranean Sea as it kisses the shore line topped with lonely-looking mountain peaks.  I turn up the new Bon Iver album in my headphones, and my heart seems to breathe a sigh of relief as it meets the slow, mystical serenity that Greece embodies. We arrive at our outdoor seaside restaurant as the sun gives its final goodbyes to the earth; a warm wind flutters against my face as I gaze out to sea and smell the salt of the ocean.  I savor my dinner of warm robust tomatoes stuffed with rice and peppers with the same sort of lustful relish as I do the landscape.   

Day Ten: Today we depart Delphi after seeing the mythological Greek ruins and arrive in Athens, a harsh contrast to our first view of Greece.  The big city is much like any other in the world-- dirty and touristy and busy.  But today we leave the bustle of metropolitan life as we hike up to the glory of Athens, the site of the Parthenon and the 

Acropolis.  Beauty in the ruins is once again confirmed although we 

have left Italy.  The sun blazes down on our bare-skinned bodies atop the mountain that overlooks the entire city of Athens.  A large Greek flag waves proudly in the wind at the highest point of the overlook.  The sun saturates the brilliant blue against the white in the fabric.  I catch myself comparing the Parthenon to the “real one” in Nashville.  This ancient “replica” is under much construction in order to conserve it.  Aren’t we all under a considerable amount of construction?  I’m starting to believe these two weeks in Europe are a re-building inside me of the curiosity and passion and appreciation of pleasure that often become dormant in a life structured by routine and the inevitable ticking of the clock of a logical lifestyle.  I’m often told that my head is too far in the clouds, that I’m too unrealistic and I dream too big and too often for something too different from what’s expected out of me.  So I feel right at home in the clouds overlooking Athens with Athena, the goddess of courage and strength and everything I want to embody as I become a woman.  

Day Eleven: I am wearing my new floor-length white cotton dress today over my swimsuit.  It blows in the breeze around my toes as I stand at the bow of the miniature cruise ship.  It is the last official day of the trip, and we are spending the day island-hopping via boat.  Shouts of “Opa!” burst forth every few minutes as the crew play Greek music and circle up the passengers to teach us traditional dances.  I pull up my white dress to my knees as I kick my feet in time with the music.  The world has probably never seen a prettier day, and my insides squirm with excitement as we exit the boat to the island of Hydra, a quaint town on the Greek Isles with no modes of transportation more advanced than a donkey, which is what I am met with as soon as I step on land.  Laura and I climb onto our donkeys sidesaddle in our white dresses, and the Greek locals smile as we ride by with more delight than two little children on Christmas morning after Santa has left his signature.  We circle the tiny island atop Amazon and Diva, misleading names for our anciently slow, gentle animals.  Perhaps my donkey’s sign on her marked “Diva” refers to her passenger?  Bells clank charmingly as we ride past the sailboats of the island’s harbor, welcoming us to Greek paradise.  The blue and white flags are strung across a line above the masses of colorful parked sailboats.  The bright pink hydrangeas burst forth against the white-washed buildings and blue roofs.  Hardly any restaurants have indoor seating; even the shops of fine silver and turquoise jewelry have opened their doors, welcoming the sunshine and the smell of the salty waters.  We make our way to the top of the rocks on the edge of the island, passing oversized umbrellas made of straw and outdoor bars, stray cats and friendly old local Greeks, looking permanently crusted but content from a lifetime in the sun.  We reach the top of the cliff, and my toes curl over the edge of the rusty rock of safety.  I don’t hesitate--there’s no time for it in life.  I plunge off the side, holding my breath as white noise invades my ears and my heart is left at the top of the rocks.  Time freezes mid-leap and my heart threatens to burst as it holds everything good in the world.  I feel my toes tingle as they smack the Mediterranean water.  The sea swallows my fear, and I swallow crystal blue water, laughing in pleasure.  The bobbing corks of heads who have already jumped welcome me to the water--to adventure, to love and friendship and laughter, to beauty and chaos, to life.  

Everyday: I think back on that wish I made that first day in Rome at the Trevi Fountain: to find love.  Alex from Atlanta and Amy from Virginia found it in each other thousands of miles away from their homes.  A group of strangers found it in each other over shared plates of pasta and bottles of wine, over laughter and dance-offs and Mediterranean Sea skinny-dipping and seaside stargazing. I found it in a little lady painting on a street corner in Florence.  I found it in the noises and the sights and the smells and the tastes of foreign lands-- in sunflower fields, ancient ruins, and cobble-stone streets; in Nutella gelato and sun-dried tomatoes and baked lamb gyros; in Athena and Michelangelo and Whoever created all of this beauty to begin with.  Under construction, broken buildings with gaps and holes and crumbling remnants--that’s all any of us are.  Perhaps the broken seams are there so love can burst through them.  

“That was the real you runnin’ through the fields of gold wide open,

Standing in places no picture contains. 

That was the real you windows down, we could smell the mint fields crying

Singing to the radio to a song we can’t name.

That was the real you sayin’ ‘maybe I’m not too young to be a cowboy,’

Hey brother, we’re all learnin’ to love again.” -Mat Kearney

Autumn Arrives

Autumn arrives with a

crunch and a chill

and a color change

that creeps up cautiously

before you knew that Summer left.

Sunshine is swapped for

soft sweaters and cider

so suddenly you shiver with surprise,

uncertain of saying goodbye to Summer. 

But then you see a sunset

that Summer never saw

and it stays with you all season

it warms you

and it warns you

that nothing ever stays.

Like a train through the station

Autumn soon starts to pass

and freeze into frosts.

Nature’s song is melancholy.

The leaves fall.

The Fall leaves.

when i grow up

“when i grow up” 

i know this education comes 

with more than a small fee

but now i know when i grow up

i want to be a hippie

with long gold hair that glows at dusk

sometimes in braids, but mostly waves

that crash down all my back

stranger to a comb

a tangled tress, a mangled mess

where wildflowers make their home

with a white cotton dress

that touches my toes, it flutters and flows

in the wind like it never left the clothesline

beside the patchwork quilt for picnics

in the meadow under the old oak tree

with a smile made of sun beams that stretch

so freely that the crow leaves his footprints

on the edges of my eyelids as he peers over to see 

what treasure lies behind those eyes

and with a voice that sounds like springtime

quiet and warm as the sun on your skin

after a hard winter

it floats on the wind like a lark

like David and his harp

it brings healing to the hurt

i will roam and wander countrysides

through garden rows of grass grown tall

i will hold the hand of the old man and the little girl

over the rocking chair and a pot of tea

he will teach me how to suffer 

she will teach me how to laugh

and together these will make a harmony

a song that only the free can sing

when i grow up i want to be 

a wild little angel 

hippie

jlf.

Learning to Fly

“Blackbird singin' in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly. 

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Take these sunken eyes and learn to see,

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free. 

Blackbird, fly.”

-The Beatles

      I still remember my 11-year-old excitement as I pinned and sewed Daddy’s  pilot “wings” and Navy patches onto my L.L. Bean monogrammed backpack before the first day of the sixth grade.  I wore that bedazzled backpack for most of middle school with pride, as if it were a badge of my own honor and glory, rather than the leftover souvenirs of a wilting man who remained a great mystery to me.  Anyone who asked about the adornments of my school bag received eager, lengthy, and somewhat embellished stories about my dad’s history as a Navy fighter pilot.  My peers had fathers who attended every school play, soccer game, and birthday party; I had an absent, much older father in the late stages of severe alcoholism.  These patches were my claim to fame.  These stories of badass heroism and fearlessness in the skies were in the  distant past, and the valiant man starring in them was a stranger to me, but I clung to them nevertheless.  

  By the time I hit high school I knew that the father I had attempted to freeze in time in my mind was melting into a mere illusion.  The effects of the excessive alcohol were no longer easy to ignore, despite my innate gift to block out pieces of life and of people that don’t settle neatly into my personal framework of the world.  Some call this denial, I call it self-preservation.  But the strong and youthful man of his past was now unrecognizable in his hollowed eyes and sick, fragile frame.  I began to doubt the man I had heard about in enchanting war stories, I began to forget the charming father of my early childhood, and the place he held in my heart was replaced with resentment and disgust.  What I found most difficult to accept was his unwillingness to admit to an addiction-- denial must run deep in the Francis genes.  It was only the desperate threats of divorce haphazardly thrown by Mom that coerced him into AA classes and addiction support groups.  Dad’s multiple attempts at AA or rehab left little to no evidence of progress.  In fact, he seemed to experience a major setback every time he even attempted to last a day without alcohol in his system.  

  The day my parents dragged me (and this is not figurative language) to “family night” of his first addiction support group knocked the wind right out of me and left me numb for days.  As I sat in a room filled with desperate and dying young people addicted to methamphetamine, narcotics, and other hardcore drugs, my private school bubble of a world became forever popped, and my naivete was replaced with a large dose of reality.  I was an alien in foreign territory.  Unable to hide my overwhelming fear of the twitching, hardened addicts, and of being the only minor in the room, I spent the hour staring through streams of tears at the colloquial yellowed “Jesus Loves Me” poster, that felt strangely alone and out of place given its surrounding environment.  I have this habit of intensely staring at typically overlooked inanimate objects when I am fighting to mentally escape the world around me or to control the urge to cry, slash vomit.  It’s in these moments of fierce concentration, eyes locked on the tiny holes of a button, a chip in the paint on the door, the sugar content listing on the back of a Poptart wrapper--it’s in these moments that I really see and appreciate their tiny significance, maybe for the first time, and in doing so, I am able to dry up my tear ducts and distract my mind and my heart from the cause of my distress (or my nausea).  As I stared into the penciled face of Jesus and his flock of sheep, unable and unwilling to shift my eyes or attention away from him in my attempt to block out the room around me, I was reminded of the song I had often carelessly sang in Sunday school: “Keep your eyes on Jesus// When the tidal wave of trouble around you rolls// Keep your eyes on Jesus// He will calm the storms of life that toss your soul.”  As I dwelt on the words of this song for the first time, a calm came over my current storm unlike any relief I had ever known.  And in the next few years I would learn to cling to that Heavenly Source of non-circumstantial calm as if my life depended on it, as this was only the beginning of a long and scary journey.  

  After Dad’s completion of several weeks attending the addiction support group, he was awarded a certificate of achievement and given the chance to sign his name to a pledge of sobriety.  I knew that “diploma” was a meaningless sheet of paper, and that Dad’s word of honor was just empty promises, within less than 48 hours when I found a mug of whiskey hidden in the garage-- an undoubtedly more sneaky maneuver than his past efforts.  After multiple incidents of outright and intentional deception regarding his efforts of sobriety, I began to assume that any man’s word was as reliable as the serpent in the Garden: manipulative, meaningless, malevolent.  But I began to accept that sobriety was simply not an option for Dad after his body began to aggressively shut down after a 24-hour period without alcohol in his system.  His body began to contort and convulse, his hands would shake uncontrollably, and he would become violently ill.  The amount of vomit and acids that he produced became so detrimental to his teeth that he was forced to replace their decay with porcelain veneers.  As Dad’s condition worsened and his body continued to fail him, the alcohol paradoxically remained the only substance that could relieve him from his misery: the shakes ceased, his stomach settled, and his nerves were calmed.  And so his fiercest enemy, deceptively playing the role of his only savior, continued to slowly kill him.  This is the tragic irony of addiction.  I began to associate Dad’s episodes of stomach sickness as the path to death, and I developed a very gripping and irrational phobia of vomit.  (I still shudder to even write the word.)  My fear reached an unhealthy level when I began having panic attacks anytime another student coughed too aggressively for my liking in class, or anytime someone hovered too long over a trashcan; I would stare at my ceiling every night too paralyzed to sleep for fear of throwing up in the middle of the night.  I began to build walls of self protection and isolation around myself out of fear...fear of sickness, of pain, of people, of life itself.

  It was only a matter of months after the failed attempt at AA courses before Mom attempted to set up a more potent method of rehabilitation.  As we drove the two hour distance to drop Dad off at Cumberland Heights, an overnight alcohol and drug treatment center, I fixed the headset of my shiny red portable CD player squarely over my ears, turned the volume to its highest notch, and drowned out the sound of Dad’s pleading efforts for Mom to turn the car around.  By this point I was an expert at all methods of self-numbing.  Mom directed me not to leave the vehicle once we reached the facility (as if there was any chance I was getting out of the safety of our mini-van), because she knew that if we were to accompany Dad into the treatment center, it would be too painful to get back in the car headed home and leave him in the foreboding sterile white walls that trapped the desperate prisoners of addiction.  But as we pulled up to the eery building, I believe that all of our minds began to run wild with thoughts of patients in withdrawal going into crazy fits of physical, mental, and emotional chaos.  I was unable to block out the reality of my dad, a once headstrong and brave fighter pilot-- a decorated Vietnam veteran, whimpering and crying, fearfully begging my mom and me not to leave him at this place.  He turned to the backseat, pulled my headphones of safe haven off my ears, and pleaded with me, “Don’t let her leave me here! Don’t leave me! I promise not to drink anymore, I promise! I can stop!”  I shut my eyes to avoid all the hysteria that’s breaking loose in our mini-van as I yell out to Mom in the driver’s seat, “Mom, just take us home! Let’s go!”  She turns around in her seat with a look of total pain and torment as she asks me whether she thinks we should make Dad go inside and check in, or just take him home.  “I don’t know, Mom, I don’t care, let’s just go!”  I remember being filled with silent fury and disgust that both of my parents would plead for wisdom and safety from their 13-year-old.  The car was silent as the three of us made the two-hour drive back home.  Another unsuccessful attempt.  Another failure on the part of Dad’s two biggest enablers-- his wife and daughter.  But surely this time Dad’s word had intention in it.  Surely he was willing to trade in that moment of fear and desperation at Cumberland Heights for self-governed sobriety.  This time had to be different.  

  The stress of the day and Dad’s rattled nerves led him straight to the liquor cabinet upon our return home.  “One last drink, it’s just one drink,” I heard,  a familiar phrase at this point.   Mom knew it was hopeless by now.  We were all at the end of our quickly unraveling ropes.  I became convinced that I did not belong in this family; I wanted no part in this tragic mess.  After two weeks of refuge and relief on a mission trip to Mexico with my school, I arrived home to a mass chaos of change that would continue to spiral out of control for what would be the most volatile next two years of my life thus far.  Mom picked me up and promptly took me to her new home: she had filed for divorce and bought a house 45-minutes away from where I had grown up, during the short time I was gone.  Within the next year, my life was quickly turned upside down with a divorce, a new town, a transfer from my lifelong private school to a new public school, my mom’s remarriage-- complete with step-brothers and sisters after a life of being an only child in the home, and the dangerous decline in my dad’s physical and emotional health.  Not wanting to lose my mom, Dad made impulsive choices in order to win her attention and in hopes of convincing her to come back home to him.  He became increasingly unstable, and within a matter of months lost his driver’s license and his job due to his increasing reliance on alcohol.  He was quickly merging from a functioning alcoholic to a total train wreck.  His record soon became filled with violations from stalking to restraining orders to DUI’s.  I forgot the man I knew as a child, and I hated the man he had become.  I began to believe that he had intentionally chosen the drink over his wife and me, his own flesh and blood.  He couldn’t really love me.  If he couldn’t choose me, his own daughter, what man could ever find me worth fighting for?  Resentment grew and festered, as it so often does in a troubled heart.  A soon-to-be high school senior, I emotionally divorced myself from my dad; I checked out, left the scene, and left him and all his problems in the dust.  

  My hair stuck to the  back of neck as I sat on the curb on a hot late August day, a week before my 17th birthday.  I had just woken up from an after-school nap, and I was still stuck in that delirious post-nap haze.  The flashing lights of the police squad car and the emergency medical vehicles only added to my state of totally numb shock.  The thermometer read 80 degrees but I felt a deeper cold than I had ever known-- a hollow emptiness down to my core.  Dad was dead.  It was all over.  And it was the alcohol itself that had killed him, after he drunkenly slipped down the stairs in his home and fell to his death.  I cringed with self-hatred as my first gut reaction to this truth was...relief.  The alcoholism, the crazy behavior, the incessant phone calls, the burden of his pain-- were all over.  I never had to watch my broken father cry like a helpless wounded animal, ever again.  The rainy night Mom and I found him lying in our backyard in the pouring rain, drunk and unable to pick himself up, having to drag him into the very house that he had been stalking-- it was over.  I was free from this misery and all of its heavy chains.  I spent the next few weeks hibernating in a cave of physical, mental, and emotional slumber.  The heavy exhaustion of the past few years finally sunk in.  It was all over...and now it was time to rest.  

  I didn’t cry at the funeral.  I didn’t miss more than a day of school.  My senior year of high school was filled with the normal trappings of a careless high school student: laughter, football games, and prom dances.  I still had my constant grin and innocent happiness.  And I had everyone fooled.  Unable to expose my own grief even to myself, the shower became the one place I could freely and openly weep on a daily basis.  Not just a casual tear; on your knees kind of crying.  Big drops of warm lava that slowly roll down steaming cheeks: the overflow of volcanic eruptions of the heart.  Tears of loss, tears of exhaustion, tears of hurt, but mostly, tears of guilt.  Guilt that life seems so much less complicated now that Dad is gone.  Guilt that I turned my back on him in his last days.  Guilt that I couldn’t save him from himself.  Guilt that I killed him.  If I had been there, I could have saved him from lying there alone, bleeding to death.  If I had been the one person to stay faithful in his darkest times; to forgive him endlessly like the God I claim to follow forgives me; to cover him in love and bear the weight of his sorrow and addiction alongside him-- if I had been that one person, his life wouldn’t have been cut short.  He could have turned it all around, and I could have known the man he used to be.  These were the thoughts whispered to me when the world got quiet and I found myself alone.  

  I carried this guilt around with me for several difficult years of my life.  I have carried it into relationships, striving to fix the broken-hearted and the alcoholics, striving to be the one constant source of love and forgiveness in their worlds, to the point of my own martyred self-detriment.  I have stuffed, denied, and literally forgotten pieces of my past in attempts at self-preservation.  I have pushed myself to perfection and fallen short of my own expectations consistently.  I have found it difficult to accept love from another human being, in fear of later losing it.  I have obsessively tried to control every detail of my life and others’, in hopes of monitoring life so well that I can carefully prevent its storms from ever hitting again.  I have prayed and cried and driven too fast and changed my hair color and gotten drunk and had my heart broken by a man and broken the hearts of other men and stopped calling my mom and cut off high school friendships and resurrected them and not slept for days and seen a counselor and wrestled with God and begged for forgiveness and confessed everything to complete strangers in writing.  I have grieved deeply. But, “man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists.”  And so I have lived deeply.  

  I believe that everyone has a right to grieve in their own way, and I suppose I discovered mine on accident.  Aching for adventure and an escape from everyday life in my small college town, I applied my sophomore year of college on a whim for a one month travel abroad program to Germany, a country I had never before felt any particular desire to one day see.  This seemingly minor decision is one that has most impacted the future course of my life and has provided extreme growth and relief for my soul.  I instantly fell in love with Europe, and traveling in general.  Thousands of miles away from where I live, I finally felt home.  For maybe the first time ever.  Every moment since, I have been striving and scheming towards my next adventure.  From packing up and moving cross-country to a job in Colorado by myself for a summer, to backpacking Italy and Greece with a group of strangers, I have consistently found therapy and healing in foreign turf.  In leaving the familiar and seeking out risk.  In heading West, following the beautifully lonely mountains that seem to be the bookends of my life.  In replacing the very Southern need and desire to marry young and follow a man in his journey in life, with the need and desire to find my own path first.  In diving into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, head first.  In the revelry of exploring different cultures and backgrounds and beliefs.  In the journey to healing, life itself has become my lover.  I carry no heavy chains of fear; my motto endures to let life happen to me, both the joys and the sorrow, because the deepest kind of beauty is only revealed in the aftermath of the darkest of tragedies.  As Tagore writes, “Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.”  

  I ache to see and touch and smell and taste every inch of this beautifully broken world, loving others fearlessly but needing nothing in return to find fulfillment.  I find it no accident that flying was my dad’s destiny, and now it is mine; Ironically enough, what Dad left behind to me, materially speaking, has funded my journeys and made it possible for me to realize my passion in life, which looks much like his own, at a very young age. In the beautiful circle of life, it took losing him to find myself, and in finding myself, I have begun to really know and understand him for the first time.  We are cut out of the same cloth, he and I.  I still cling to the young memories of my childhood father: Daddy and his “J-bird” watching Top Gun, and singing Oldies songs on our daily drive to school; spending summers at his work offices building lego mansions as we listen to talk radio (which must account for my loyalty to the “Right Wing conspiracy”); watching Eric Clapton live in concert every Friday night. But as I begin to learn about myself--what makes my heart tick, and my reason for existence in my odyssey of life, I have begun to learn about the man in my father that I never knew.  That vibrant young man “driving up in his red Corvette with his aviator sunglasses to announce that he is defying the family and joining the jet world,” as a family member describes it-- He lives in me.  We know and understand each other in the deepest kind of way, because he will always be my father, and I will always be his daughter.  I have learned to let go, not out of strength, but out of understanding.  His pilot wings are no longer clipped to my backpack, but they will always be clipped proudly on my soul.  And I can hear him laughing, guiding his J-bird now, as I earn my own set of wings and fly off into the sunset.  Into life itself.