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“Gabe, right now, your thing is cowering in fear at your own brother and sounding like an abacus when you move.” She slapped my back as she walked past me. “I’ll call and set up an appointment for you. Just try it once. And don’t forget to call Marco.”
2
Stacy
I balanced a somewhat heavy box on my hip as I stepped through the front door of my parents’ new rambler. Despite that it was just one floor and had a single hallway that ran from one end to the other, it still felt a little too modern for them. I supposed I wasn’t in any position to talk. My house two doors down didn’t even have a standard roof, having sacrificed the typical gabled roof for a flat, sleek look. My parents, at least, had something that came to a point.
“Those can go in the back bedroom, Stace!” my mom called after me as I entered.
I waved my free hand through the air. “Got it!”
There was just something about swimming through pastel-colored walls and a bland, multi-thread count carpet that brought me a little too close to thinking we were sacrificing ourselves. I wanted my parents’ old shag and wood paneling, the dusky smell of sage and incense clinging to the air, and the natural lighting that very nearly eliminated a need for lamps. At least when I’d abandoned Woodstock, New York, about seven months ago, I could still drive the few hours and return to my grassroots. We would sit around my dad’s self-dug fire pit while my mom strummed away at her acoustic guitar and I doodled any small creature I could find. Occasionally, I’d draw my parents, too. My dad, who was rocking a man-bun before it was cool, looked good on paper with his ratty curled beard and freckled face. So did my mom’s wais
t-length blond hair, slowly being invaded by gray, and her blue eyes that still sparked as bright as an ocean in the sun. She always looked so calm when she was playing, and drawing her made me calm, too. Maybe I could convince her to dig the guitar out after we’d finished loading in the boxes.
I skipped to the left of the door, making my way down the hallway to the door at its end. I nearly leaped out of my skin when I passed a mirror that was set into the wall by design. I still wasn’t quite used to the ever-present vanity of a big city. The incessant need to make sure oneself looked okay was arduous on a good day. Still, my open hand flicked to my lengthy blond beach waves to primp them before journeying to my set of hazel-green eyes to flick an errant eyelash back into place. I was rubbing my thumb along my thin, peach lips before I caught myself and walked away from my reflection. It was already seeping into me, a need for perfection that hadn’t existed when I was just an innocent, young earth child.
I didn’t like using the term hippie. It evoked images of weed-filled tokes and barely-there souls drifting through life without a worry or a care. Sure, my parents would occasionally partake of a recreational drug, but the by and large of it was that we simply lived a more holistic lifestyle than most. We didn’t own televisions, and our computers had been purchased out of necessity. My mom was potentially still the only person buying stationary kits, and it took several stern talking-tos and about three hundred dollars worth of organic, non-labor, non-animal-tested bath products to convince my dad that showers were a requirement. Not every practice our seventies ancestors had handed down were worth hanging onto, and that one had to go. None of us ate meat, and my parents were totally vegan. I was working on it, but I’d had several unexplained affairs with cheese that I refused to apologize for.
I knew that my parents would dig into their new home and get it feeling more like them in no time, but it still made me sad that my childhood home was no longer accessible to me.
“Well?” My mom slid into the empty room alongside me, standing a comical four inches beneath me at five-foot-two compared to my slightly taller five-foot-six. “What do you think? This could be your room. For when you’re here, of course. Your father and I are still totally in support of you living on your own.”
I wrinkled up my nose. “It’s stale.”
“Well, it’ll need a good cleansing. I’ll work on that tonight once I can get some sage and rosemary out.” She swiped her hand through the air, something I recognized as her trying to get the unknown aura unmixed from her own. “It’ll really need a good cleansing.”
“I’m okay with this room, but isn’t it the biggest one?” I crossed my arms, hiding the top of my strapless white, sunflower-covered sundress. “You guys should take this one.”
My mom laughed. “I guess we’re so used to giving you the most of what we have.”
“You already moved all the way out here. I think you’ve given me enough.” I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her into a side hug, resting my head on top of hers. “You could probably get some good plants in here.”
My mom clapped. “And enough room for you to lead me through your new, big-city yoga!”
I shook my head. “It’s the same yoga, Mom. It’s just in a big city now.”
When my yoga practice got too big for Woodstock, I knew I was going to have to take it to a big city if I wanted to continue growing. I couldn’t imagine living in New York City for any reason, and a lot of the surrounding cities felt too laborious to live in. Concrete jungles weren’t my scene, and even if they were, the entranced populations, way too consumed with work to worry about the health of their bodies, wouldn’t be good for business. Philly just seemed like a natural choice, with it still being close enough to my parents and a big enough city but still living off of its historical blood. It moved fast but slower than some of my other options, so I took it. Though I was already twenty-three, it was the first time I’d lived on my own, and I felt it instantly. Being so far from my parents was like being amidst a constant sap of energy. After visiting my parents for the fifth time in a month, they put their house up for sale and started looking for places in Philadelphia near me.
“Well, either way. I can lay a yoga mat in here, and we can have our Sunday morning yoga sessions again.” She clapped. “Oh. I’m so happy to be back near my baby again.”
“I’m happy, too.” I was. I could admit it. I was an adult who needed her parents. I just wasn’t meant to be so far from them. Not ever.
“Ladies!” My dad’s voice rocketed down the hallway and found us in the bedroom as if he were right next to us. “Lunch!”
My mom and I kicked aside the boxes we’d brought in and turned back into the hallway, walking down to find that my dad had pushed together some of the boxes and laid a tablecloth over them. He’d set out the takeout he’d gotten around his makeshift table and presented it with open arms as we walked in.
“Ta-da!”
“This is that Asian place you were telling us about, right, Stace?” my mom asked, walking over and sitting cross-legged next to the box.
Another thing my family generally did without was furniture. A bed to sleep in, a kotatsu table to sit at, maybe an armchair or two for reading, but other than that, it was pillows or the floor. Too much furniture could clutter an aura the same way it cluttered a room. It wasn’t feng shui, but it was in the same frame of mind. A minimally appointed space created good energy, and my family was nothing if not a foster of good energy.
“Yep.” I joined my mom, sitting kitty-corner from her. “I discovered it not long after I got here. Delicious vegan noodles. Lots of veggie-based dishes. Trust me, you’re gonna love it.”
We passed around the white takeout boxes, each helping ourselves to healthy servings of the noodles, veggies, and spicy tofu, snapped open a pair of chopsticks, and settled in.
“So, how’s work been going, sweet girl?” my dad asked. “I was surprised to see some of the stuff in your place. It looked expensive.”
