2 Running To

Lily— September

 

People have asked what made me do it. Why, at thirteen years old, I left the safety of my home and set out on my own. Was I afraid, some asked; did I run in fear, like my friends before me? No. That wasn ’ t it. I never saw myself as running away from something. I was running to something. That summer, the one when it all began, was when Lily Gardener finally knew her name .

The morning I left , a drizzling rain blanketed the town forcing me to remember it that way—hazy, obscured—merging in my memory with what Arturo had said. That there was something off , repressive, about our city. “ Like a cloud covering it ” were his words. I experienced no pangs of remorse as I deposited my goodbye letters for Ma, Rose, and Ana . And rather than feeling sorry about Arturo, I felt warm leaving the seeds in his care. With one last look at my hometown, I boarded a bus—one of only three passengers departing that early September mornin g — and sat right up front, the mindset of looking forward. I would find James Gardener.

M entally, I gathered up everything I knew about my father—so very little. I never knew him, and worse yet, he never knew me. By the time I was born, he was already in custody, soon to be locked up. I wondered if Ma had visited him during the sham trial or if he had ever held me. The pain of my mom ’ s deception needled me like a sliver in my shoe. An anger I couldn ’ t quite extinguish, yet barely acknowledged, simmered within me.

Looking back, now, I understand why my mom did what she did. But then, that day on the bus, I felt betrayed by the only parent I ’ d ever known. So I chose to look away from Ma. I convinced myself that I was my father ’ s child. My father was a fighter, a leader, a writer. Someone who defied the status quo, risking everything. I would find him; we would fight together.

Ma had given me an allowance for as long as I could remember. I was never as grateful for this as I was now. Rarely having much to spend it on, I had saved quite a lot—the sum total currently bulg ing deep in my pocket, minus the chunk I ’d used for a ticket to Florida. True, I didn ’ t know if my dad really was in Cuba as Ana said he might be, but in case he was, I ’ d be that much closer. Besides, I ’ d always dreamed of going to Florida—who doesn ’ t?

It would be a long trip, giving me time to think about what to do next. I knew shuttles from Florida to Cuba left every hour but I wasn ’ t sure how I would board. I considered stowing away but eventually decided my best option would be a fake letter of permission from my parents. I hoped by then to have made contact with “ friends. ” I had a few stops planned farther north in Florida, inten ding to meet Seed Savers. Maybe they could confirm or pinpoint my father ’ s whereabouts.

I reached into my pocket—not the one with the wad of cash, but another one—and pulled out the paper from Ana, the elderly mentor who had first taught my friends and me about seeds and gardening. I ’ d been surprised at the crowded list of names and numbers hand-printed neatly in tiny writing. I studied the paper, looking at the long list, trying to make sense of it. The names, for the most part, were listed alphabetically by last name. The numbers differed; some were obvious street addresses or telecom numbers, but others . . . I wa sn’ t sure —a code? The two letters ending each entry were obviously abbreviations for the fifty-one states.

Florida had seven listings. If only I could decipher the rest of the info and find someone like Ana who could tell me more, help me find my dad, provide a place to stay . . .

I pondered my last conversation with Ana. I had started blubbering about my dad. Revealed to her that I saw myself as being like him, shared how I too, loved to write. I ’ d complained about Ma and the way she disliked my writing. “ Lily, your mom is trying to protect you. She knows it was your dad ’ s powerful words that destroyed your family. I ’ m sure she is proud of you and your writing. Please try to understand, ” Ana had said. And then she stunned me by telling me to do something contrary to my mom ’ s wishes. “ However, please don ’ t stop writing. Writing is an act of reflecting. And the function of reflectors, after all, is to catch the light and shine it out. The Movement needs you, just like it needed your parents. ”

I liked that idea, that I was a reflector. That I could catch a ray of truth, like light, and shine it farther and wider.

Clare, my best friend, had tried unsuccessfully to journal — she had two abandoned diaries and a spiral notebook — and once, in exasperation, she had asked how I did it, this filling of notebooks, this incessant writing. I told her that if she had as many voices in her head as I did she wouldn ’ t have to ask. Clare had laughed hysterically. But the thing is, I was being perfectly honest. There ’ s no easy way to describe how my brain often felt, feels. C luttered. Like being in a room full of people, a room with bad acoustics, the cumulative noise of countless conversations roaring and crashing into a deafening din. Then slowly, as the room empties, the voices stop one by one, and at last there is a peaceful silence when everyone has gone.

That ’ s how I write. It ’s why I write. To take the voices out of my head and confine them to bars on the paper. To have peace.

Grateful for a window seat, I stared out at the changing landscape. Thirteen, and I ’ d never travelled more than a hundred kilometers from home. The urban sprawl through which the bus crawled was ugly and dilapidated. But the open land in between had its moments: gentl y rolling hills, golden plains with snakes of green along creeks and rivers, vast swaths of agribusiness crops.

There were no signs posted to identify the crops, reminding me how little I knew about the food I ate . Protein, Carbos, Vitees, Sweeties, and Snacks had always been enough. It was no longer enough. I wanted to know what was growing out there. I wanted to know what was in my food. I wanted to see what it looked like before it became the plastic-wrapped square or circle I called lunch.

Were those beans? I pressed my hands up ag ainst the bus window trying hard to make out the plants on the other side of the glass. I’ d grown beans back in the vacant lot. I wanted to stop the bus and jump out . W e were moving too fast for my inexperienced eyes to decipher what I was seeing .

Here and there abandoned homes presented more to ponder. The o nce quaint houses and old red barns were now forgotten and fading ghosts of history, falling in on themselves and grown over with weeds, shrubs, and flowers. Family farms from the past, I figured. The ancient barns were dwarfed by the shiny silver megastructures of today ’ s corporate/government-controlled farms. I closed my eyes and imagined how it had been before. I thought about what Ana had told me, that GRIM was losing its stranglehold, that Seed Savers were gathering strength. I remembered Arturo ’ s comments about California. A hope for the future surged within me.

When I opened my eyes, I was startled by the sea of gigantic three-pronged towers, arms spinning. These must be the wind turbine farms I ’ d read about and seen pictures of on educational Monitor shows . I wondered what they sounded like. My soul was torn between the grand idea that I would make a difference in this world and the countering thought of how small and insignificant I was in a place filled with such enormous structures.

On and on we rolled, past more abandonment and desolation. Areas where not only the buildings were discarded and hopeless, but the land itself. Places too expensive to water and where adequate rain no longer fell. Land parched and treated so poorly that it had lost its ability to be productive and was tossed aside like so much trash.

Even the birds flew over without stopping.

From my cool seat on the bus I watched the ripply waves rising off the pavement, a testament to the devil-hot heat out there. I closed my eyes against the depressing sea of emptiness, clicked on my music, and willed myself to fade away for just a little while.