I'm leaving for Sicily on Friday. I'm grateful to go back to the Motherland I have never known, my exile so deep I only know her face from a glimpse in a movie. It's vague in my head, it's vague in my mother's head too. We imagine sketched outlines of churches, food that will be sort of familiar, a volcano . . . .somewhere. My sister remembers bright glimpses from her time as a flight attendant but nothing overly substantial. A wine she had liked when she still drank, a particularly pretty town. The details have lost their sharpness over time and have been replaced with a whirlwind of elementary school activities for her son.
It's the first time we will travel, the three of us together in well over a decade without any husbands, children or our uncle. I am nervous about everything - the fact that I only know one phrase that I doubt will endear me to my estranged homeland, the amount of travel required to get there and get around there, being trapped on someone else's schedule for we will be on a little old lady tour, something I swore I would never do. It felt very far away for me, it still feels very far away despite being six days away. I'm not packed, Amazon boxes full of travel pillows, brita water bottles, homeopathic jet lag pills, pashminas, walking sandals that I'm trying to break in, space bags are strewn around my living room. It has not yet been a month since tax season ended, I'm still desperately running, trying to check off a never ending list of things that had been put off but now must be put on, I'm trying to keep up with going to the gym and meal prepping. I'm trying to read, I'm trying to write.
On one hand, in the words of the musical Pippin, "We could all use a change of scene." On the other, I'm exhausted still and as exciting as globe trotting will be and the memories that we'll be creating will last a lifetime and then some, Jow also just finished school for the semester and kicked ass and took names on his final and has an awesome GPA. I haven't really had much time with him in a year. It's hard to leave just when I'm starting to have time for my various practices. It's hard to want to run a marathon when I just want to sleep still.
In our office, we often say "Timing is everything". The timing on this is not great, but I'm pretty sure that if I didn't do my best to open myself up to this experience (though it will be difficult for me, honestly because that's not someplace I naturally excel at), I would have a lot of regret about that.
Exile is all about doing our best to make the best of whatever we have because it may be fleeting, it may be taken from us, it may be destroyed. My moment to feel sexy in my body didn't come at a pole class, as you may recall. It would be the obvious moment, the easiest, the most GIRLPOWER. But exile doesn't often work that way. Exile often works more like the Universe, who can be a capricious bitch. It's her right to be a capricious bitch but it's my right as a Queen in Exile to find the thread of my narrative.
As Sister Queens in Exile, we do get what we get because . . .we all do. It doesn't matter if we are Queens of countries, getting in and out of limos or Queens of a tiny desk domain where we have warlords to answer to or Queens of our households with tiny children constantly staging coupes. It doesn't matter how big your Queenship is or how tiny. We all struggle, we all cry, we all strive, we all fall, we all hurt, we all laugh. Getting upset will happen, but if we're perpetually stuck in a loop of hurt feelings, anger, disappointment, depression, anxiety and other hamster wheel emotions, how can we take control of our Exile? The phrase you get what you get and you don't get upset is missing the secret second half, probably because it's unwieldy: You get what you get and you don't get upset but you don't have to accept what you've received as the end point of your adventure. Branch out a bit. Get outside your head. Figure out other choices. Ask for what wasn't given. Accept that it may still not be given. Figure out how to get it yourself. Get into a staring contest with the Universe because fuck her sometimes. Your mother isn't always right and neither is she. Take some calculated risks. Keep doing different things even if it feels like putting your face in a blender. Keep doing the things you are already doing, keep perfecting them even if they will never be perfect. Princess Margaret would break down and fuck up but she figured out how to work a door knocker, goddamnit. So will you.
So I asked the intertubes for advice. I thought power thoughts about it. I