Russell Lee:
Child of Migrant Worker in Car, Oklahoma
(1939, printed later)

"If we're fortunate, we'll stumble into another …"

After The Muse and I went bankrupt in the not-so-great crash of '08, we were exiled into an unwanted but necessary adventure. The Muse found an unlikely job that required her (us) to relocate from what had been our Eden Near The End Of Our Oregon Trail to a suburb of Washington, DC. We didn't have to worry about mistaking there for any place near any Eden. It stood about as far from Oregon as anywhere on this continent could. It prominently featured many attributes that would motivate any half-witted emigrant to head out across any hostile continent, but there we were for that time as if working off some debt to society or ourselves. We got extremely fortunate in ways that never would have found us had we stayed safely ensconced in our Eden. Back there—for it certainly seemed as if we'd taken a giant step backward—gravity didn't work right, yet things seemed to turn out all right, or all rightish, from the outset. We found as close to a perfect place in what would turn out to be the ideal suburb for us. We found decent, helpful neighbors. That most un-Eden-like place came to feel like another Eden to us, especially when we compared it to where we might have ended up.

Throughout my lifelong migration, good fortune has dogged my paths. I never expected everything to turn out alright, yet most things have. Indeed, I've experienced my fair share of tragedy, but on the whole, I have been more fortunate than many. I cannot explain why. Was I blessed with an aura that naturally attracts good fortune? That qualifies as a fundamentally unanswerable question. Still, many experience similar good fortunes; even when their Eden seems far distant and absolutely out of reach, some little Eden might still visit. Even if it manifests as nothing more complex than a bit of parking karma, where the space adjacent to the door magically opens up just as they draw near. If I had been paying attention, it might have seemed as if I had always been dogged by good fortune and that Eden manifested wherever I was, even when I was far away from my beloved Oregon.

Eden might only exist in some future or some past. When The Muse and I returned from exile after twelve dog years away, the event seemed absolutely magical. Even before our belongings caught up to us, when we were sleeping on an air mattress in an otherwise empty house, it seemed as if we'd stumbled back into Heaven. Eden was not quite as we'd imagined it. In some ways, it was better, and in other ways, worse. I learned that Edens might be best if I tried not to overthink them but if I just tried extending grateful acceptance. Over time, the initial magic seemed to dissipate, and our lives found their new normal. We could not return to where we'd started before the exile, for we had changed, as had our long-longed-for home. We felt challenged to accept our Eden as it was rather than how we'd so fretfully imagined it, welcoming us through the years exile had prevented us from returning.

Eden's long tail still contains some little Edens. The BIG Eden imagined when held far away from home might have never been. If absence makes a heart grow fonder, exile forces even more affection. Imagination serves as every Eden's native soil. It absolutely thrives in anticipation and survives mainly as nostalgia far into any future. No one's actual mailing address says "Eden." Each one says something else, but the heart understands the difference. I now sometimes feel homesick for our exile, for there were several wonderful aspects of living that disconnected existence. I feel confident that, hardships aside, my emigrant ancestors felt some nostalgia for their Oregon Trail ordeals, too, for no destination can ever hold the glowing anticipation that moving toward an Eden entails. Nor can any exile ultimately erode the permanent warm sense that one was once truly blessed, whatever follows AfterEden.

Eden might be eternal and ever-present, just not always present in any particular dimension. As I said, it thrives in pasts and futures. It proves fleeting once achieved. It might be most potent as myth, the once-achieved perfection you ruined with your appetite for apples. The place where snakes influenced your choices. A place holding historically cautionary tales. One need never fear repeating even those long-ago sins, for the conditions necessary to muster a repeat performance couldn't possibly exist again. The innocence was lost in passing. The experience might have been well worth the crime. Paradise might just as well be lost. If not, what would we ever willingly wish for? After Eden, we might continue hoping for another Eden again. If we're fortunate, we'll stumble into another before losing it to some blunder again. How fortunate that Eden thrives best in nostalgia and anticipation.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Fambly, #PureSchmaltz