My aunt is a reliable emphasizer, so whenever she advises I need to do something, it's always a crucial precaution. Today she dragged out her safe box to show me what I should invest in the next time I leave for The Store. Hers was stark grey, wiped cleaner than the box had been after purchasing it in 1987.
She filed through its contents, giggling fondly at the medical paperwork for her old cats. Tons. I lost count of tags and rabies forms. Another mishap was coming across my mom&dad's former wedding rings, but she's slick with her thumbs and files them under a back folder reserved for forgotten junk.
With papers scattered across the dinner table, I catch a flash of red lettering.
It's an envelope labeled as a U.S. Savings Bond. A copy of my social security card and two large bills like counterfeit fifties slip out of its flap. My aunt explained my grandma ¿Mary? had left similar bills for my brothers as well, a gift before she passed. A blessing from somebody I never met...or don't remember, under such strange timing, just made my fucking day.
Today I feel grateful for the unseen people who impact my life. No spirits. My thanks go to the cumulative effect of others' decisions who molded the setting of my existence—moreover, the reason I was rooted in Illinois.
Galesburg isn't the most beautiful mid-west town, but it represents a close-knit society that largely simplifies the ticking parts of a working community. It's a place where the internal clocks of long-time residents rely on the queue of evening trains rolling through. Church communities sometimes mix, but they don't mingle for long.
Everyone is extremely mindful.
Coming from this condensed sense of reality, where I hardly thought of the moving life outside the corn-lined boundaries of town, Galesburg had forced me to grasp human etiquette that didn't agree with my brain's natural wiring as a child. I found that my identity fully emerged the moment I left for good.
My experience moving with my family every few years and the current tribulations of crashing elsewhere has left me with a short limb for growing attached. Distance can sever friendships that were slated to disintegrate anyway. Over ten years later, I still hold an immovable bond with three girls that welcomed my once meek presence and encouraged my underlying desire to always laugh. From afar, we watched each other transform into distinguished women with vastly different values, but we can still come together as adults and share unconditional love.
Galesburg has become a beacon of unchanged comfort that I seek in only small doses. Revisiting nostalgia gave me a false impression that changing the past is possible, but I've only found relationships are more difficult to mend if they dwindle too long. I've slowly settled into that mindset. In the meantime, I'll just be picking up the pieces.
*pictured is the BNSF classification yard a block from my granny's house.
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