In a few weeks, I will return to my childhood home for Thanksgiving. It will be the first time in years. The holiday is, despite its colonial underpinnings, a favorite of mine largely because I can’t think of another day when anyone can get away with having four to six kinds of pie for dessert. Still, this year, I have an inexplicable knot in my stomach whenever I consider my imminent return.
Then, I read the poem “Before the Burbank Reunion” by Brett Foster, which was published in the twenty-ninth issue of the Journal, in 1998. I’ll let you read the poem rather than ruminate on it, but it features a “you” on their way to a reunion. The poem speaks for itself and I won’t put you off, reader, with an overly long introduction. I will just say that in this poem I felt less alone with my anxiety about going home and about having to spin a believable narrative of my life from far away, and I realize that maybe this story, or any story about a life, will never be enough.
Before the Burbank Reunion
Brett Foster
To think that this indeed is the life
you waited for all these years,
that the winding miles of rock hills
entreat the outposts of suburbs,
trail through the valleys to greet you here—
a late breakfast, a cafe table,
a nameless afternoon in San Fernando.
You can't keep your foot from tapping
the white leg of the chair. You're going—
you'll see all the unmentionable friends
in seven hours, and can only wonder
why you ordered such a ridiculous thing,
a fruit zinger with carrot bits and mango.
The hot-white glint on silverware
is why people move here. The sun and fun,
the mild seasons. But you fear the weather
and all the answers you attribute to it.
Unfair and irrational, because it didn't
save your father, who died the year
he retired, all his projects unfulfilled:
the sunroom off the townhouse, the citrus
trees out back. Your mother moved and lives
with relatives. Raising you a princess,
cute at the foot of Hollywood, they always
promised the world. But the world can't
keep its own word, much less theirs,
so here you are, crying in a dull motel,
eating alone, prepared to fabricate some style
of life, one maybe you'll even believe
when your Dallas-bound plane raises itself
above the ritz and paparazzi of the city.
You want only that, not the tan or good
standing, not sweethearts whose shadowy names
will return like ghost stories, specters
reticent and uncaring, but ready. Happy
to swallow you whole, to share the grief,
to know what you've become is not enough.
