Mom & Me Four Archive

...that over the last week or so we've been catching up on episodes of Northern Exposure, the fourth season. Of course, we've been enjoying them. Mom watches this show with unusually close attention, about which I'd never thought much, before Saturday, when we put a few more episodes under our belt. I happened to notice that she was silently mouthing place names mentioned in the episodes: Three that I can remember: "Sleetmute" (which is mentioned often), "Ilivit" (a mountain peak, I think), "Chickaloon" (the town where Ed's father lives with his family). At first, I thought nothing of it. All the place names in this series sound provocative and are fun to say. I considered briefly that her mouthing of the place names might be akin to the activity of reading aloud.
    On Saturday, though, after one of the episodes which seemed to be loaded with place names, as the credits were rolling, Mom said, "I wonder if we'll see MCS, MCBIL and the girls." This "stick", as MCS calls the branches of our family, lived in Alaska for some years, during which Mom visited them. She continues to recall parts of this visit in detail when reminded of it (as she does her trip to England to visit another family "stick" and another visit with them, I'm not sure whether this one took place in Florida or Guantanamo Bay, in which she was treated to a trip on MFexBIL's boat), especially a visit to a glacier. Although I doubt that the scenery in the episodes echoes the actual scenery to which she was treated during her visit, seeing as how the show was not filmed in Alaska, I find it interesting that she considers watching the show akin to watching home movies featuring MCS's family. I'm sure she remembers, when prompted, that MCS's family now all live in Colorado. We've visited them in Colorado a few times in past years. But, because of the spectacular quality of the visit to Alaska, I guess she tends to associate them with this place more than any other in which they've lived (they've lived in several places over the years).
    "I don't know, Mom," I said. "We'll have to keep our eyes peeled.
    Privately, this reminded me of an incident some decades ago while we were living on Guam. A good friend of mine moved, with her family, "back" to Honolulu, the "home" of many people we knew on Guam. She and I corresponded for awhile. Soon after she moved there, the series Hawaii Five-0 debuted on television. My father loved this show and watched it religiously. If the rest of us weren't doing something else, we'd join him. In letters written to my friend at the time, I would tease her about how I continually looked for her among the extras in the background. On Saturday, after having the relative-locating conversation with Mom, I remembered this and speculated about for whom I'd be looking and in what shows and movies I'd be looking for them when it's my turn to enjoy the mental reorganization of Dementia-Lite. I wondered if there will ever be a show or movie in which Guam, as a setting, played a role. Such a setting would certainly trigger some evocative searches for me, as currently do, for instance, viewings of Sleepless in Seattle, which I continually scour for places I recognize. And who, I considered, would be sitting by my side, deciding to go with the flow when I wondered aloud if I'd catch a glimpse of this or that friend or loved one?
    Later.