Space Between Us

Photo by Denys Mikhalevych

In the fall of 1970, we sold our single-wide and left Happy Acres Trailer Park for Fremont, California. Dad got a new job as an engineer in a water treatment plant, and we settled into a spacious two-story townhouse in a community next to a nunnery.

My new school and friends didn't stand out. Teachers continued to express their concerns about my lack of attention and poor grades, and my behavior became increasingly feral. The last place I wanted to be was stuck at home with Mom. I began playing with matches in dry fields, shoplifting, and keeping store-bought mice hidden in my bedroom as pets. While Dad finally got his upright piano, Mom, a Siamese cat, and Brother, a girlfriend, I couldn't have cared less about any of it.

In 1972, everything changed. Dad accepted an engineering job to help build the world's largest earth-filled dam. The job site was Tarbela, located on the Indus River in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The opportunity transformed my family into world travelers; we circumnavigated the globe and returned to the States every few years to visit family and friends. Over time, we felt more like foreigners in our homeland.

Brother and I attended a small K-8 American school onsite at Tarbela, where I struggled academically and flunked sixth grade. Brother's academic future became a problem when he reached high school, and mine would soon follow.  

Mom and Dad found an unlikely solution: a Christian missionary boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas, even though they were agnostic. I still remember the day Mom and the driver dropped me off at the dormitory with my trunk. I was so excited about my new adventure, sleeping on a top bunk in a room full of girls my age, that I forgot all about Mom. She left without saying goodbye. My new living arrangement was precisely what Mom and I needed: some space.

Brother graduated in 1977 and returned to Bakersfield, California, to study nursing. The following year, Dad got a new job working on the Banglang Dam and took Mom and me to the jungles of southern Thailand. Since there were no schools on the remote job site, I attended a missionary boarding school on the island of Penang, Malaysia. And once again, I thrived.

The night I graduated, Dad was in Venezuela at a new job site, Mom was at a hotel in Chicago waiting for me, Brother was in Bakersfield, and I was in Malaysia moving the tassel to the other side of my mortarboard. The physical and emotional distance between us didn't phase me; I was used to it.

I returned to Bakersfield, just like Brother did. I felt safe knowing he and Happy Acres Trailer Park were only a few miles away. I majored in fine arts at Bakersfield College and transferred to the California College of the Arts in Oakland to study graphic design.

Mom flew back to the States for my art school graduation. After the ceremony, I found her alone in the shadows, wearing dark sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. She hugged me and formally congratulated me on making it through college, something I never doubted, but my parents did. The next day, she boarded a flight to Venezuela to be with Dad, and I returned to the only place that felt like home, Bakersfield. A few years later, Dad relocated to the Dominican Republic with Mom for the last assignment of his globe-trotting career before retiring to Arizona in 1989.

Someone once asked if I ever resented being sent away to boarding schools instead of living at home with my family. Not surprisingly, I felt relief from the constant friction between opposites. I thrived in a structured environment, somehow survived academically, and enjoyed being around people rather than being alone. On the other hand, Brother didn't adjust to boarding school as well as I did.

I used to wonder how my parents felt about becoming empty nesters so early. I never asked. I’m sure they had my best interests at heart as they tried to make our unconventional family life feel normal. Shipping me off to boarding school was never meant to make things easier for them; instead, it became an experience that saved both me and my relationship with Mom. Although there would always be some distance between us, we found just the right amount of space for friendship.

And Mom finally quit smoking.