As I look at the pink and white ticket stub, I’m so relieved that I kept it. Shirley Valentine, my mom’s favourite story. We first saw the movie on my first trip overseas to Holland. Nicola Cavendish was the actress who starred in it, a solo performance. The story is about a middle-aged housewife who gets a free airplane ticket to Greece from her best friend who says she needs a holiday. Shirley can’t decide if she should go; her husband will be upset that she’s not at home to do laundry or have dinner ready on the table every night the moment he walks in the door. She is enraged at her husband and hopelessly bored with her domestic life. She decides to go, leaving her husband frozen dinners and a note. When she arrives in Greece, her friend takes off with a local man and leaves Shirley on her own. While on the beach, another Greek man meets Shirley and they have an affair. The camera didn’t show any nudity when they first made love, just the boat they were on rocking vigorously up and down. Shirley realizes that she hates her life back in America and stays in Greece permanently. She doesn’t end up with the Greek man but loves her independence and works at his restaurant. She doesn’t care that she has upset her family by not returning home. It was all about her needs, since she was so tired of trying to please everyone except herself.
My mother loved that story because she could relate to Shirley’s situation. My mother was a hard working housewife who raised six children and could never say no to anyone, so giving and generous in every way. She often talked about that movie, how we saw it together on my first remembered trip to Holland. I was six months old when she had originally taken me there.
Eighteen years later, I decided to take her to see the play at the Stanley Theatre on Granville Street on her trip to visit me in August 2003. This would be her last trip to Vancouver ever. She died nine months later. I’m so glad I took her to that play. She didn’t take her eyes off of Nicola Cavendish, the star and solitary actor of the play.
After the play, we went out for coffee and dessert at La Café Crepe down the street. We chatted about the play, and Mom didn’t know the actress’s name until I told her several times. The play gave her a new hope for life. On the flight back home to London, Ontario, she was sitting in the window seat of the plane. She had to use the washroom, but the lady beside her was sleeping, blocking her in. Normally, Mom would be too shy to wake her, but this time she thought, “I don’t give a shit-I’m Shirley Valentine!” and politely excused herself as she gently awoke the lady.
She called me one month before she died, the day before her last trip to Holland. She told me she would make changes after her trip, which included volunteering at hospitals. She realized from previous hospital stays in her bouts with cancer that she gathered strength by reaching out and helping those in need.
I still have the brochure of the play on my bookshelf, beside her photo. I wish my mom could have had more time to be Shirley Valentine.
*****
I sat in the grounded Boeing 747 jet beside the window, terrified. This was my first plane-ride ever. I was scared of the unknown, motion sickness, the anticipated speed. Mom settled in beside me, telling me where the washrooms were, how to fasten my seat belt, where to put my purse and magazines. She was so calm, so happy to be here with me, to take me to her homeland.
“Don’t worry, Rochelle, everything will fine. I’ve flown hundreds of times,” she said.
“Really, and you never got sick or scared once?” I asked, shivering. The plane was very cold.
“Well, when I flew for the very first time to Canada, I got sick,” she admitted.
“Really? You were sick the whole time?”
“No, just on the connector plane from Toronto to London. It was only a fifteen minute flight, but it was a very bumpy ride.”
“Did you actually throw up?”
“Yes, during the landing. I had it all over my beads as I got off the plane. It was so embarrassing.”
“Oh, that is so gross!”
Her story provoked the fear in me. I was always looking for the worse case scenario anyways, so if I hadn’t heard that story, there would have been something else. I shrank into the back of my seat, pressing my hands against the glass of the tiny window beside me. I just wanted to get this over with, and tried not to think about being thousands of feet above open-ocean for eight hours.
The plane jolted; I froze.
“What the heck was that?” I asked.
“Don’t worry-they’re just loading up,” Mom said, laughing.
My hands shook as I reached for my purse, looking for something, anything to distract myself. I found some gum, and unwrapped it slowly, examining the pink rippled texture before putting it in my mouth. I chewed meticulously as I looked out the window at the runway. There were men everywhere, wearing orange jackets with reflective, bright yellow stripes, running around with beacons, driving little cars, loading luggage into the bowels of the huge structure below me. It amazed me that something so big and laden with people and their belongings could stay in the air. I made a note to myself to read up on aerodynamics the next time I flew. If there is a next time, I thought. My heart skipped a beat as I opened a magazine and stared at the glossy pages.
The plane shook a final time as the doors banged shut. The flight attendants walked up and down the aisles, securely locking the overhead compartments, looking at passengers’ feet to make sure there were no loose objects that could fly out and knock someone unconscious in case of turbulence. Their contrived calmness and plastic smiles amused me. The plane began going slowly backwards and prepared for take off, and my heart began another race against itself as the lights dimmed.
As we gathered speed, my stomach lurched into my throat. The runway, land and sky became a blur as we left the ground. I felt the weight of the plane dip and rise, and my head spun. I clamped my hand over my mouth.
“Mom! I think I’m gonna …” I said through clenched teeth.
“Look! Look out the window,” she said softly. I turned my head. I hadn’t even noticed it was evening before we ascended. Below was a sea of slanted glittering lights against the black sky. The magic of the view took my breath away, and I forgot about my fear. I sat quietly as the horizon changed its position several times as the plane escalated.
“Isn’t that beautiful?” Mom said. The big smile on her face calmed my frazzled nerves.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s so cool how everything is slanted. I had never thought of what that would look like from up here.” For someone who was afraid of heights, she was handling this quite well. She would always freeze when we crossed a bridge and couldn’t sit in the balcony section in church. I knew she loved flying because she was returning to Holland.
I settled back in my seat. I felt a bit nauseous as the plane turned. After awhile, it felt like we weren’t even moving, and all I heard was the hum of the engine and the fans. Relieved that I hadn’t puked, I unfastened my seat belt and stretched my legs. The flight attendants appeared with large trolleys, serving beverages and snacks. The smell of coffee filled the air, further relaxing my senses. I plugged in my headphones. The song Shout by Tears for Fears resonated in my ears as I settled on a pop music station.
Mom got so excited when the food arrived. “I just love airplane food!” she said. As I peeled back the foil, the tray revealed steaming, soggy vegetables and grayish-brown meat. It was a meal she didn’t have to prepare herself. She loved to be served, whatever it was. The food triggered hunger pangs and I devoured the tiny meal with relish.
After we finished our strong KLM coffee and sticky pastries, a screen rolled down and lit up in front of us. I changed the music station to the movie channel. Shirley Valentine. I had never heard of it. I hoped it would be good.
We laughed and cried together as the movie played, passing each other tissues as we needed them. When it was finished, I closed my window blind, and we settled in to sleep. Mom pulled a thin, wool blanket over me, and I rested my head on her shoulder. I was sixteen years old, but still her youngest child when I needed to be.
A few hours later, I awoke to the smell of coffee brewing again. The plane was so calm and still, I almost forgot we were in the air. I opened the blind, and the sky was a brilliant blue with the sun behind us. We floated above white, cotton-candy clouds. They made me want to dive into their softness and deceptive strength. I took a picture with Mom’s camera.
The flight attendants served fresh fruit, hot coffee, and warm face cloths. I understood now why Mom loved to fly. This was as relaxing as it could get. I had no idea it would be this fun and that you couldn’t feel the speed of the aircraft so far up in the sky. Just as I thought that, the plane jolted. My fear returned as tingling prickles in my neck and chest. Now it felt like we were on a bumpy road in a coach bus. The dishes rattled on the trays as I hurriedly wiped my face with the cloth.
“Oh crap,” I said.
“Relax, it’s just turbulence. It happens all the time,” Mom said. Her coffee spilled onto her lap as she tried to sip it. She moaned as she soaked it up with her facecloth.
“See? You have to be careful. Besides, I have to go pee.” I watched the seat belt sign glow red as the flight attendants scurried to their stations with trolleys in tow. I buckled up and sat stiffly, my hands clenching the armrest. My face winced with each drop as I imagined the aircraft being hurled into the sea. The turbulence stopped after several agonizing minutes. As soon as the seat belt sign was off, I freed myself and jumped out of my seat. I squished passed Mom’s legs and the heavy-set woman beside her and waited in the line-up for the washroom. When it was finally my turn, I wondered if this was where they coined the phrase water closet. I wondered how the heavy-set woman would fit in here. I was afraid the toilet would suck my skinny body in if I didn’t shut the lid properly after I flushed. After I hurriedly washed my hands, I returned to my seat, anticipating more turbulence.
A few hours later, my ears popped and I felt light-headed as the plane began to descend. I looked out the window at the clouds breaking away. There were miles of flattened, green fields, and quaintly tiled rooftops. The sails of windmills whirled in the distance and I saw a jackrabbit run across the runway just before we touched the ground. I felt a thrill inside of me as I looked at this magical, new place, which was an old familiar friend to my mother. Although it was foreign to me, I felt right at home as we disembarked and greeted our relatives.
We stayed with brothers and sisters of my mother, who shared her fair hair and blue-green eyes. They were warm and friendly, always offering something to drink or eat. My Mom spoke often of Shirley Valentine during our visit. I saw a new light in her on that trip, one of independence and confidence. Her spirit was set free as she showed me the house where she grew up, rode with me on the train alongside tulip fields, taught me how to eat a whole pickled herring with my hands, and took me to restaurants to eat the same food she cooked for me back home.
When she spoke Dutch, her face radiated with confidence and bliss. When she would laugh, I would laugh, even though I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Her happiness and warmth were contagious as we enjoyed the hospitality of family and friends. She was in a way, Shirley Valentine, away from her husband and the trials of life back in Canada. She had taught me to overcome my fear of flying, as she herself had done many years before. I thought how frightening that must have been for her. At twenty years old, she was the only one in her family to travel alone overseas to a brand new country.
As my memory drifts back from our first flight together, I realize how strong she was for me despite her own fears. Her own fears eventually consumed her as she returned to Canada and her troubled marriage. However, there were many short moments in her life, when she lost herself in her paintings, music, or trying exotic recipes, she was that person she wanted to be.
Mom, you are forever Shirley Valentine.
blaak sheep 