mountain mama

This must be how snakes feel just after shedding their old skins. All that itchiness from before—cracked, dry, peeling away—and underneath, I was soft, pale, fresh to the world. Tender as a baby’s fontanel.

It was there. We met halfway in the parking lot. Not really. Stick with me—this is a rough and clunky metaphor. We met halfway in a parking lot like divorced parents handing off the kid.

You, too, had shed the old skin. Your belly was soft, tender, pink. Tiny blood vessels coursed below.

It was here you said, “This is the only time I ever really talk to you. When I’m on this truth-serum stuff.”

It was the truth. Then you asked me where I wanted to move. But I couldn’t name a place. Then you grew stern: “In the future, when you are old and can live anywhere before you die, look around. What does that look like?”

I saw trees. Forests. Maybe mountains. Not too big a city. Maybe a medium-sized town. But with culture—civic theater, an orchestra.

“You find that in a college town. Have you been to West Virginia? Driven where Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia meet? There’s Huntington, West Virginia. Marshall University is there.”

I closed my eyes and imagined the geographical threesome. “Yes! I have!”

I recounted a trip to West Virginia. To see an Ani DiFranco show with my best friend—the one now dead. We drove through the mountains. Stopped on a peak to watch stars. Got tattoos before the show. That one. On my hip. You know?

Now we—you and I—our bare, new snake-bellies were touching. So smooth, our skin now. Not rough and tough, not hurting each other anymore.

You said, “You know it’s cheap to live there? We could buy a house in cash. One you’ll never need to make a mortgage payment on when I die. The leftover from the sale of our current place... go on a nice trip, and the rest in savings.”

Yessssssss. Yessssssssssss.

This is a place our new skins can breathe until they get too tight and itchy again someday.