This one's just for me

In the interest of sparing you yet another I Can't Keep Up With My Own Life Let Alone My Email Inbox post (which is all I've got lately) I thought I'd just tell you about some of the places I've lived. Get us all (or just me) out of the tired guilty trap I've been in the last several days. Weeks? Anyway.

To get to Sicily, a place I had never heard of, we had to fly from Seattle to Detroit. Then Detroit to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia we sat in a huge waiting room, on the floor because it was so crowded, and waited for a military charter to fly us over the ocean. We boarded a huge jet full of men in uniforms - my first brush with Air Force life. And they were all smoking, because you were allowed to do that then. The back rows only, although why that even mattered I have no idea. Our first layover was in the middle of the Atlantic, on an island I'd move to a few years later. Our second layover was in northern Italy, where I'd move a few years after living on the island. I didn't know these things then. I remember getting off the airplane there and helping myself to the Tang and cookie spread provided by, I'm assuming now, the officers' wives club. Then we got back on the airplane and flew to Sicily. There was a base very close to the airport, but we weren't moving to that base, which belonged to the Navy, we were moving to the brand new Air Force base another two hours away. Someone picked us up at the airport in what must have been a Eurovan, and it was one of the longest, hottest, car sickiest, hallucinatory trips of my life. I was ten years old. 

At that point I think the farthest I'd ever been from home, the area where my parents live now, was Texas. I'd never felt so out of sync, so disjointed with time. Jet lag was a disturbing and confusing phenomenon, something I didn't feel so strongly again until I went to China a few years ago and experienced it all over, just backwards. It was hot, SO hot. There were no trees, and large parts of the base were just dusty empty fields. It was flat, at least it's flat in my memory. And it was a military base, so all the buildings looked alike, a monochromatic palette for buildings, sidewalks, signs. 

My most vivid memory is a certain smell. Every time I smell this smell, which isn't often because this is America, I instantly fly back to Sicily, where I'm sitting on my bike in front of our house, a blistering day. It's a sickly sweet smell. It might have something to do with sewers and the heat, although I remember smelling it most often in the car with the windows down. I hate it and long for it at the same time. 

We lived in 'old' base housing, which meant the houses were four or five years old. 'New' base housing was only a year or two old, but that's where all the important people lived- officers, cute boys. Our house was one in a fourplex, which was embarrassing to me at first, since the people who lived in duplexes at home were, I knew, not very well off. But everyone lived in these houses, which all looked exactly alike, and formed little windy neighborhoods, with small playgrounds popping up in between every few blocks or so. There was a perimeter road around the base which we could see, since our house was as close to the fence as you could get. A tall fence with barbed wire on top, and an empty moat on the other side. There were guard boxes staffed by Italian soliders with guns, and we'd try to get them to wave at us as we flew by on our bikes. 

I'd never known such freedom. I was allowed to ride my bike practically anywhere. 

There was a commissary and a burger bar (all the bases had burger bars, although now, I think, all the bases have brand name fast food joints.) A bowling alley. A chapel. A library. I don't remember any of these places. I remember the TLF (Temporary Living Facility) where we lived when we first arrived and when we were just about to leave. I remember the school, and the huge huge field between our housing area and the school. We trekked across that field every day. I remember the guard boxes and the more deserted area of the base where I thought the Russian missiles lived. 

Did I mention it was hot? So very hot. 

The beach was nearby. Remember I was from Washington State. We do not have beaches in Washington State. We have rocks and near-black sand and waves that steal your breath they're so cold. People in Washington State wear jeans and sweatshirts to the beach, with their hoods up because of the wind. The beach in Sicily, by comparison, was paradise. I think it was dirty - I remember my mom talking about the beach being dirty - but the water was warm. The waves were gentle. The chocolate gelato you could buy on the boardwalk and eat in the sand was quite possibly the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. I was afraid of water and I didn't like the salty taste, but I can't remember having anything but an insanely good time at the beach. 

My parents liked to drink cappuccino at a cafe in a nearby town with their teacher friends. The kids would eat gelato and play pinball, or run around outside. There were different kinds of treats in Italy - pastries, candies, packaged ice cream bars. Groups of teachers and their kids would go out for dinner. I remember my first calzone, and the thick stretchy cheese inside, the layers of ham, the bubble on top that you stabbed with your fork - the first thing you do when you eat a calzone. I had been afraid of moving to Italy, because in Italy they eat spaghetti and I didn't like red sauce. But I ate swordfish. Antipasto. Spaghetti carbonara with heavy cream and homemade pasta. I might be drooling as I type this. 

My best friend lived a few houses away. We might have lived in Sicily, but we listened to the New Kids On The Block and spritzed ourselves with Debbie Gibson perfume. We played many hours of Mario Brothers on her personal Nintendo.

The only reason I remember the layout of our house is because I know exactly where I was standing when I answered the phone and it was my uncle calling to tell my mother my grandpa had passed away. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my parents' friend who had just dropped by, waiting to find out what was wrong. I remember all the kids on our street. I remember my best friend a ways down the block, and the girl who lived two houses down from me, who wanted to be our friend too, but we didn't like her very much. I still feel horrible for the ways we left her out. 

The base was so new and everything outside the base was so old. And then my dad would make us drive hours and hours away to see even older things - ancient temples, Roman villas, amphitheaters. I was always carsick. Our huge van was always having to turn around so it wouldn't get stuck in tiny Italian alleys. We were always going somewhere on the weekends, and during Christmas and spring break we went even farther. The smells and hotels and names of the towns all run together, but I am still sure there is no better place on earth to live. I know it's because I was ten and my thoughts are blurry and can life be any better when you are slurping up your gelato before it melts all over your hand, at the beach with your best friend, turning brown, washing off the stickiness in the Mediterranean? 

We only lived there two years, and then everyone was transferred somewhere else. Something about a treaty with Russia? The Berlin Wall coming down? No need for whatever weapons lived in the far reaches of the base? I don't know. It was a waste of money, my dad said, all these new beautiful buildings the United States only used for four years. 

Comments

[Amanda]

This post was so well written that I am almost positive I'm in Sicily. Or at least, on a boat....

(ha)

Ok, yes, definitely in Italy RIGHT NOW. Thanks!

[Jen]

Oh my, I want gelato and carbonara RIGHT NOW. I lived in England, and did a lot of visiting in Europe and I have yet to find anywhere that can recreate the gelato and carbonara.

[janey]

Wow, Maggie! That was beautifully written. Forget about fiction. You should put that in your book!

[Christiana]

How cool, what a great experience for you!

[lauren]

maggie - i love this post. It gives me hope that my kids, when they grow up, will look back fondly on their nomadic air force upbringing.

[MichelleRenee]

It's always the smells that we remember as kids. You do a great job with the description. I can imagine the smell of Sicily now.

[sheila]

Oh Maggie!

This totally reminded me of my days of Army brattiness and travels abroad... I'm getting a little choked up.

When I read this part:

"I know it's because I was ten and my thoughts are blurry and can life be any better when you are slurping up your gelato before it melts all over your hand, at the beach with your best friend, turning brown, washing off the stickiness in the Mediterranean?"

I remembered this crappy little Ohio town I lived in at that age... I was sooooo happy there. But now when I go back and visit, it astonishes me to realize that it was the poorest, dirtiest place I've ever been. But it still makes my heart happy.