13 april 2006
The Girls Return from Hoarfrost
by Nanci Olesen
Listen to an audio version of this MOMbo essay.
In these stupidly dangerous times I entered the airport and smelled that stuffy, synthetic, slightly nauseating smell. In front of me in the line to go through security, a man was talking on his cell phone and laughing too loud, too dramatically, to show me and everyone around him that he could really be the cavalier businessman he told himself he was every morning in his hotel mirror. I took off my cowboy boots and put them in a grey plastic bin. I had finally learned to stop wearing jewelry to the airport. My heart was beating fast and I tripped as I pulled my boots back on. I hustled down the moving walkways, one after another, with the voices calling out to me about what flights were departing. Someone from Phoenix had just “de-planed” and taken the wrong black carry on. An announcer was trying to get us to all look at our carry ons to see if we had the wrong one. I had nothing. Just my little purse and a borrowed cell phone. I finally got to Northwest flight 1020 from Edmonton at Gate 21 on the G concourse. I told the attendant that I was the parent waiting for two girls to de-plane. He told me that the plane was on the ground and that it would be pulling up shortly. I stood on one foot, then another. I started crying. I paced. I tried to look nonchalant. I wanted to look the way they wanted me to look. I wanted to look eager and loving and competent and enthusiastic, but not too much of any of those.
People started to come out of the long tube that brings them from the plane to the terminal. Older men, those sassy businessmen eager to get golfing, overly tan women with too much hair dye, and little kids, trying to look like they knew how to handle all the noises and confusion of airplane travel. A few more people. Then none for a while. Then a few more people. A high school band from Edmonton. And then, my girls. They were there, with a flight attendant, they were smiling and blushing and sparkling their eyes at me. I started crying and laughing at the same time and snot came out of my nose. That made them laugh, and their eyes filled with tears. Nora said, “you look different!” And I said “you look different too. You look GREAT!!” I leaned to kiss them and their hair smelled like wood smoke and the dog barn and sweat. Their arms were long and their shoulders had noticeably widened. The strength in their voices and bodies was overwhelming. They laughed and looked up at me. The flight attendant made me show i.d. and I signed a form and then they were mine again. We started walking. We were talking about a million things. They had gone to Ikea in Edmonton to pass the time with Krystal and Jasper and Kaisa, the mom and her little kids who met them there. My brother Dave had put them on the plane in Yellowknife at 7 in the morning. They had been in knee deep snow that morning, with their snowpants on.
The day before they had been at the homestead on Great Slave Lake, where they lived for a whole month. They had mushed that day, and done the dog chores, and eaten a big dinner around the table in the cabin. When it was time for them to get on the bush plane to leave, they had all cried so hard. As they got in the plane, they could still hear 6 year old Liv wailing.
They told me which dog was their favorite. Léne called her dad on the cell phone, who was waiting to hear from them. She can walk on a moving walk way in the airport and talk on a cell phone at the same time and tell all about how many dogs she mushed up to Lacey Falls. When I talked on the cell phone later, at baggage claim, I had to stand still. I always talk too loud. I always think that the cell phone couldn’t possibly carry my voice. So I loudly said into the cell phone to my husband “Thank you for having this beautiful family with me.” Which of course made our girls laugh and cover their mouths and try to quiet me down. “MOM. GOD.” I was crying again and I didn’t care.
It was all like a dream. We drove the freeway home to our urban neighborhood. Our neighbors came running out to meet them and we all hung out in the late afternoon sunshine. Our son stood quietly by, smiling big, and listening to their stories. They all went out on the trampoline and I grilled hotdogs and steamed green beans. Then we ate on a blanket in the sun in the yard and they told us about sleeping out in the snow fort they made.
Downstairs with chocolate ice cream we watched pictures from Léne’s camera on the TV. Pictures of the girls doing each other’s hair every morning. Pictures of all the dogs. Pictures of the crepes they made. At the end of the pictures I said, “Did you take any of the house or the other buildings?” “NO!” Léne said, “ I wanted to!!” And she started to wail. “Oh honey, I didn’t mean it like a criticism, I know what the buildings look like.” She sat there on the basement rug, sobbing, tired, and so lonesome for the life she had known up there. If only she could go back and take some pictures of the buildings… if only she could go back go back go back. I sat down next to her and she leaned into me, sobbing full on. I smelled her smoky hair and sobbed too. I felt her northern family taking her in and loving her and knowing her in a way that was all theirs. I felt so grateful to my sister in law and brother and their girls. I felt so lucky to have given them this experience.
The girls are perfect today. They woke up rested and enthusiastic. They let their little Tibetan terrier puppy outside in their city yard and ate their Raisin Bran. They told more stories as they ate and they wandered around, digging through all their luggage still sitting in the front hall, to find clean socks. We stumbled out the door and down the street to school. Our puppy sat down on the sidewalk and wouldn’t move after they said goodbye. I had to pick him up and carry him home.
And now I am here. Starting my day. I left a voicemail for my brother. I wanted to thank him. I started to cry on the phone. Then I came running up here to write this.
The pictures of all the girls, laughing their heads off, lying in the snow, singing…. the little movies they made of the dogs….It’s all theirs forever.
Today will be huge for them. Talking to friends, finding out what part they got in the school play, catching up on the social life of the playground, remembering the smells and schedule of their school day. I’m leaving all their luggage in the front hall. It smells so smoky and strong. I want them to sort through it and I want them to do their own laundry. And I want them, I want them, I want them to…. stay strong.
—Nanci Olesen
producer and host, MOMbo: 1990-2007.
Her brother lives with his wife and two daughters in a wilderness homestead on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, in the Northwest Territories, Canada. |
