To Voyage As We Can


The door slammed behind him, the vibrations reaching the kitchen table where I was sitting. I caught a breath of the warm spring air that managed to sneak past Jacob's exit ... lilacs. I love the smell of lilacs; the fragrant scent almost made me forget my anger. I lifted my mug and dumped the cold tea down the sink. As I walked down the hall I heaved a sigh of disappointment and tried to figure out how I was going to entertain myself at home that night. I completely forgot my grandmother was sitting by herself in the other room.

"Well Stephy, is it a girl's night in? How about a game of cards?" Immediately I cheered up. I love spending time with my grandmother in a way that is so much more refreshing than spending time with the rest of my family. She is the most liberated eighty year old I have ever associated myself with, and she always has the most inspiring stories to tell.

"So Gram ... are we playing for money?" I joked, as I reached for the cards. Gram just smiled and shuffled the deck. She gave me one of those looks, like she can read my mind. She knows all about the injustices that exist in this household. My thirteen year old brother is allowed to go out to the movies with his friends; of course he is, boys are not in danger of the evils that lurk in the dark.

At fifteen years of age, I cannot even go out for a bike ride with my friends: "But Stephanie, you'll have to bike to Kelly's by yourself, and then home by yourself. I am not chauvinistic, I am your mother for crying out loud! How the hell can a mother be chauvinistic?! I resent you repeatedly accusing me of being a sexist pig. Look, if you can arrange for Kelly's parents to pick you up and drive you home, then fine. You can go. I'd drive you myself if your father didn't have the car."

Well then in that case ... great! I'll just phone up Kelly's parents and ask them to drive two blocks to pick up me and my bike. That kind of defeats the purpose of going for a 'bike' ride, don't you think? I sense my mother is getting rather sick of my sarcasm. But of course my sarcasm stems from hormones ... didn't you know? It has nothing to do with the fact that I am trying to get a logical point across to this insane paranoia: a teenage girl will surely be killed and chopped up into little tiny pieces if she decides to ride her bike two blocks to Kelly's. It would have nothing to do with the fact that I have a valid opinion and need to express it .... nope, it's hormones all right.

Gram dealt the cards and broke me out of my instant replay of the night's events. "Dear, did I ever tell you about how I met your grandfather?" She asked this question knowing very well that she had told me this story about fifty times before. Gram knew I loved this story and that I never got sick of it. I gave her a grin that gave her the go-ahead.

"I was seventeen and traveling with my parents in Scotland. As usual, we split up and went our separate ways. I headed straight for the mountains. Oh, I do miss the mountains!" I could never quite get over the fact that Gram came and went as she pleased .... especially back in 1937!

"I still have my walking stick from those mountains that we found in the woods. It has my initials and your grandfather's initials carved in it. The silly old goat ... why he wandered off the path the way he did I'll never know; it's a good thing I was around to rescue him!" Gram giggled like a young girl in love. She closed her eyes as if she was trying to re-live the experience.

Gram had been hiking down the other side of the hill she had just conquered, when she heard a vague rustling and cursing fairly deep in the woods. She thought someone might be hurt, so as she was well on her way to becoming a nurse, she walked into the woods ready for whatever might face her. Gram didn't seem to be afraid of anything. Perhaps this was because her parents gave her the freedom she needed to explore on her own and she was able to use her own instincts to survive. Gram always told me that women can do anything they desire to do. In the world we live in we must exercise caution, but we should not let our fear, or societies dictation's prevent us from doing what we wanted.

"Oh dear!" Gram was laughing so hard that she almost spilt her drink. "Child, you should have seen your grandfather all caught up in that vine!

He thought he was quite the explorer with all that 'gear' on!" Gram paused for a moment to take a breath. "And that compass! He held it up as if it was his most vital survival tool. He studied it with such a confused look on his face, you would think he was defusing a bomb! I told him that if he had just stuck to the path like a normal person out for a walk in unfamiliar territory, then he wouldn't have needed the darn thing. Not that it did him much good anyway!"

Gram took off her glasses and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Goodness, it's not like he was out camping or something; he was just out for a leisurely walk like me. Oh well. When I twisted my ankle on one of those branches, your grandfather piggy-backed me part way down the hill, and then carved me that walking stick. I guess we were heroes to each other!"

Gram sat back in the recliner, signaling that the game was over. Just as I thought she was drifting off, in a soft but serious tone she said: "That was the best day of my life. My desire to explore led me directly to my life partner." It was then that Gram drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

As is always the case after I spend time with her, I felt much better. As I walked upstairs I thought of the over protectiveness my mother had over me, and the constrained way in which it made me feel. I know about what happened to my mother when she was my age, and I understand her fear of me walking or biking alone at night. She knows I'm responsible, and she knows that the world is there for me to see. My mother wants to take me traveling on my eighteenth birthday; just me and her. I can't wait for that! A mother and daughter trip would be perfect for us, especially since we've drifted apart in the last couple of years. Traveling would be the perfect way to reconnect.

After cleaning up the mess in my room I curled up in bed and reached into my night stand drawer. I pulled out the poem that my mother had written the day I was born. As far as I knew she didn't know I had it, nor did she know I even knew it existed. I found it along with about a million other poems she had written, stuffed in the bottom of her jewelry drawer. I used to love playing in there when I was younger; I never had any interest in the papers until a couple of years ago. This poem had special significance to me because of the fact that it had my birth date written in the top right hand corner. It was of great interest to me to see what kinds of things were running through my mother's head on the day that she gave birth to her only daughter:

I sail these careless waters,
With no concern for strife.
This is my time to ponder
My purpose in this life.

This world sets up its rigid rules,
I follow what I should.
In my space I've used the tools
And voyaged as I could.

There are no limitations,
When we look past the blocks.
We need no imitations
Just the key to our locks.

Land and Sea exist for us,
For humans of all kind.
We see restraints we must cuss
The unknown we must find.

by: Jennifer Doherty