For Derek, the kids, and I, it is day four of our travels, but in Ithaca time, it's really only full day three. And it was a relatively easy, straightforward day.
It was a bit cooler out, but that coolness came at the expense of a bright, sunny day. It was overcast and MUGGY. Not a great combo, but it was the weather hand we were dealt. I woke up and had my coffee, everybody else woke up and had their breakfast. We packed up the cooler full of lunch stuff, snackies, and drinks, and headed out to Taughannock overlook.
It is important to note the land we were enjoying as tourists, the land I was born in, was stolen (as all land here was). This region belongs to the Cayuga. Please take a moment to read a very, very brief history of how this land was taken out from under them, from the Cayuga Nation itself:
I hope we were good stewards of the land while we were visiting.
Here are the kids, checking out the majesty of the falls.
Fun fact: Taughannock is the tallest single fall waterfall east of the Rockies. It's three stories taller than Niagara.
We overheard that the trail to the bottom of the falls was closed that day for maintenance, so after spending thirty or so minutes looking at spittle bugs in the plants, we left Taughannock and headed to....PURITY. ICE. CREAM.
It is the best ice cream place in the entire fucking world, and that is a hill I will die on twice. Now, because I'm keto, I wasn't able to partake of the portions of the Purity. But I NEEDED my kids and my spousal unit to try Purity.
This sign lets you know you're about to experience something amazing. Except...well...I was doing my google dive into Purity, and I discovered that in the aughts, the management outsourced the ice cream making to Byrne's Dairy, so it is no longer made on site. Derek asked me a moment ago, "what was even the point of going?" Well. He has a fair point, though I didn't know that at the time, now did I?
Purity sure has expanded since the last time I was here! There is an entire restaurant in there now. And the shop itself is about four times the size it was the last time I was there. It still feels like Purity, but only my dad and I really have the knowledge to understand what that means.
Here is a plaque of the most iconic and long lasting flavors that Ithacans and visitors alike expected from Purity! My favorite flavor was only a sometimes flavor, I guess. It was called compost crunch, and it was chocolate ice cream with ribbons of fudge and caramel, and raisins, and clumps of chocolate covered Grape Nuts. Fucking DELICIOUS. But not on that sign.
I couldn't stop taking pictures of Purity signs.
Derek couldn't figure out the flavor he wanted, so he asked me to choose for him.
Here is Alex eating her cookies and cream scoop in a chocolate waffle cone, with extra oreos.
Rhyann got the butter pecan, and I think she got the sugar free one, because Derek said hers was not nearly as cloying as the apparently shitty flavor I chose for him.
I got him...I think Bulldog crunch? It sounded like it could have maybe been close to the flavor I loved twenty years ago? But he said it was horrendously sweet.
Here is my daddy, enjoying his black forest cone!
Here's me, hating my big cup of fuckin' nothin'.
It was hot as fuck in that piece, though. I was so sweaty.
After Purity, we drove up to the Cornell Campus. Cornell was absolutely my dream school, long before Duke became a viable option. I wanted to go to Cornell so badly that I made my own Cornell "swag" and hung it up around my room. My mom's work had this office of computers and printers that I was allowed to use when I had to go to work with her, and I used a dot matrix printer to print myself a Cornell Banner. It was several sheets long, and I tried to cut it in the shape of a pennant, but I didn't know how to accomplish that over several sheets of paper, so instead I drew a really sloppy pennant shape around the blocky letters. It looked absolutely trash, but I wanted Cornell so hard. I colored it red and left the rest of it white, of course. That was hung on the wall behind my door. On my door, I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish. Going to Cornell to be a vet was top of the list. I couldn't tell you what the rest of them were, but I know that was the first.
Driving around the campus was pretty awesome. I have probably been there, but I have no memory of being on campus before. I feel pretty confident that if I did even a partial glance into Cornell's history, I would be horrified by it, and I would regret my adoration of it. I will do that deep dive eventually, because that is my nature. I am taking a pause on deep dives for the rest of these blogs, because if I don't, they won't get finished. You may have noticed I didn't do a deep dive report on Purity, because I spent 45 minutes looking into it and who knows how much more writing that would have translated into? It's June 19th, we've been home for almost two weeks, I have to get these finished. Anyway, I know that Cornell is a place of deep privilege which means it has an ugly past. And like...it exists in America. So definitely an ugly past. I felt weird about marveling at the buildings, because they are beautiful, and I have mixed feelings about how much I still want to work there. There is a job I am currently actively trying to become qualified for, because Derek fell in love with Ithaca and said we could move there when he's done with army. I feel weird about that, but I'll unravel my feelings on that at a later time.
Before we went to Purity, we stopped at a cemetery by Cornell. My grandmother died two years before I was born, so I never got to meet her. But I've had dreams about her my entire life. And I think...I think she may have been visiting me when I was living with my great grandmother. The door would open gently at around 3am every night, I would hear footsteps across the floor, and then the bed would sink down like someone had sat down on the edge of the bed. It never felt threatening, and i would always say hello, and then go back to sleep. I had thought it was my great grandfather, but it also crossed my mind it could be my grandmother. I wanted to visit her grave, but I had no idea where it was. When I was about 11, my mom, my step dad, my step sister, my half sister, and I visited New York to show my half sister to my great grandmother. While we were in Ithaca, my mom wanted to visit her mother's grave. According to my father, my mom has no recollection of the memory I'm about to share, but I know this shit fucking happened. My dad called my mom when we were on the Cornell Campus to ask her where my grandmother is buried. My mom told him she had no idea, she hasn't been since her mother was buried. Except that is not true. When we visited Ithaca, we went to a cemetery so my mom could visit her mother's grave. I asked if I could come with her, and she very angrily snapped NO at me. As a kid, I tagged this as anger. As an adult, I tag it as grief. But it definitely stuck in my memory. We went to a cemetery and we parked on a hill, which is nothing really of note, almost all of the cemeteries in Ithaca are hilly. I looked out of the car window, and I saw big buildings. I recalled them being the big buildings of Cornell. And the sky was kind of threatening a storm. I couldn't see my mom, I had no idea where she was. Some time later, she walked back at the front of the car, hands in her pockets. She was wearing a pink button down blouse, kind of baggy on her, and a pair of jeans. She got in the car and she said to my step dad, "she isn't here." And that's the reason I remember this happening so vividly. I heard her say that and I thought to myself, "Did someone steal my grandmother's grave??? Who would take my grandmother???" I couldn't outright ask what my mom meant, of course, as she had already snapped at me, and she sounded upset about what I at the time clocked as a grave-napping. So I never got clarification on what she actually meant.
I have speculated for years about it. As I eventually assumed, my mother meant she didn't feel her mother's presence at her grave. She isn't there meant my mom did not feel her spirit. I've jut let this be the running theory. I am positive that my memory contains the buildings of Cornell in the background of this cemetery where my mom made me think her mom's entire grave had been relocated to a location unbeknownst to her. There were definitely massive buildings in the distance when I was looking for my mom out of my window. I am 999% positive these were the buildings of Cornell. So when I went looking for where my grandmother could have been buried, I assumed she was in Ithaca City Cemetery. It is right next to the Cornell complex. You can see Llenroc (picture to come!), you can see so many Cornell buildings:
Ithaca City Cemetery is in the left corner, and looking out is the Cornell Campus. I would bet money that's where we were.
I felt a little perplexed that my mom told my dad she had no idea where her mom was buried. It made me think that I was perhaps correct in assuming someone stole her grave. That roving, wild gangs of whole grave movers truly were fucking up the memorial scene in Ithaca. While we were at Purity, Derek and I hit the Googler to see if we could find her. And after an hour....nothing. We found nothing. We looked up every single name for her we could. Davidson, Moran, Stanton. Craig. Sylvia. S.E. Craig. We found nothing. We tried where she was from, maybe she hadn't actually been buried in Ithaca. Wew came up empty on EVERYTHING. And after an hour of nothing, an hour of searching and being SURE she was buried in Ithaca City Cemetery, I decided to see if she was buried in Lakeview Cemetery. And sure as shit, she was. I couldn't find a location, but she was there alright. So we drove to Lakeview Cemetery to take on the monumental task of finding my grandmother's grave. She had a plaque rather than a headstone, so we would have to search through the entire graveyard, and we planned to do it in quadrants. We drove in to the cemetery, and I just have to preface this next bit by saying I am not making this up, I can't explain it, and it's 100% true.
As we drove up a road, I shouted to Derek to STOP THE CAR. He didn't stop where I wanted him to stop, and I kept turning in my seat and saying, no no, stop! Stop the car! He drove and parked up next to a mausoleum, and as Derek was parking, my dad started telling everyone to take on a section, and we would comb the cemetery until we found my grandmother. Derek hadn't even pulled to a full stop when I unbuckled and jumped out. I ran down the hill about an eighth of a mile from where Derek had parked. Where I first shouted to Derek to stop the car. I turned back, I could hear my dad directing everyone where to head to first. I saw Derek already looking at headstones where he was, Rhyann was looking, Alex was getting ready to look. But something in my gut. I was being pulled, so I followed. I stopped to look at a small gravestone that looked like it had split, but I couldn't even tell if it was actually a gravestone, or if it was something...else? So I stooped down to investigate it, and it sure was a headstone. I always feel so sad when I see broken gravestones. I wonder how long it's been since someone alive came and loved them.
But I had somewhere to go. So I kept going. I walked at a very brisk pace for another...30 seconds, maybe 45? And then I stopped, looked down, and there she was:
I found her. Or she found me. I can't explain it, but I made a beeline for exactly where she was. I didn't look, I didn't need to. I was pulled to her. Anybody there that day, my dad, my daughters, my spouse, will all corroborate that I found her grave in less than two minutes. The odds of that happening, for a place I've never been in my entire life, are slim. Lakeview Cemetery isn't small. But I knew exactly where to go. I am not religious, I'm not even spiritual. But I think I have a connection to something I can't explain, and that connection told me where to find my grandmother.
Her area had been recently mowed, within the last few days. The grass on it is yellow, so it wasn't that day. I wished I had had a squirt bottle or something so I could properly clean off her grave. It was funny, I had spent so many times wandering graveyards, looking at graves and wondering how long it had been since someone came and just sat with the oldest graves, because it was someone they knew or they just wanted to keep them company. And as I sat with my grandmother for the first time in a tangible capacity, I wondered when anybody had come and sat with her, just enjoying the Ithaca air and keeping her small resting space company. And I felt so glad to do it for a few moments, but also overwhelmingly sad. I kissed my grandmother's grave marker, and then I walked over to a bush of wildflowers to grab a bundle and put them on my grandmother's grave. I wanted to give her something beautiful, however fleeting that beauty would be. Rhyann walked with me and asked if that was what I was doing. I said it was, and she quietly grabbed a punch of her own, and placed them on her great grandmother's grave. We stood there together for a small moment, and I said goodbye, and I loved her, and then we left. It was a strange few moments. There was a weird sense of relief in finding her so fast, and a momentary heaviness from finding her. It's been decades since I dreamt of her, but I think she was there with me that day. I think she helped me find her, across whatever distance.
But I was still so confused about what my mother had said almost 30 years ago. "She's not here". It is an indelible memory. And my dad said she was positive that she had no returned to her mother's grave since she was buried in 1982. But I know we were at a cemetery when I was young, and I know she said her mother wasn't there. I've been confused about it and thinking about it almost non-stop. And tonight, I was googling images of both cemeteries. There is no way to see Cornell from Lakeview, where my grandmother is buried. Not a chance.
There aren't really any buildings of note from there. And I was just there, and truly, no brick buildings. My dad asked me if maybe I had misremembered. Maybe I saw a mausoleum. No. I saw the brick buildings of Cornell Campus. And the two cemeteries are pretty far from each other:
And tonight, while finding these and trying to find the EXACT view I remembered, it dawned on me: that both things could be true at the same time. I have a very distinct memory of visiting a cemetery in Ithaca. My mom swears to my dad she has not been to her mother's grave since 1982. I remember my mom saying, "she's not here". AND my mom told my dad she didn't know where her mom was buried. What if...what if my mom was saying "she's not here" because we were at the wrong fucking cemetery? I feel like the most likely way to explain both my memory and the strange thing my mother said is that my step dad took her to Ithaca City Cemetery because she wasn't sure which cemetery her mom was buried at, and after searching for her mother's grave and not finding it, she returned to the car to tell him that they were in the wrong place, except she said, "she's not here" instead.
I myself can't imagine not being able to remember where a beloved parent is buried, but I also have not had to experience that, and grief does strange, unthinkable, unrelatable things to us. That scenario seems the most likely to me. Doesn't help me explain knowing exactly where my grandmother's grave was, but I suspect nothing will.
We drove back to Ithaca City Cemetery and visited Llenroc:
Which truly is a beautiful building. It looked like they were doing renovations, and a few doors were left open, so I got out of the car to see if there was a place for me to enter. There was not. It looked beautiful in there, though.
As the day dwindled down, we wanted to utilize the last moments of daylight, so we went to upper Buttermilk. It used to be that there was a road you could drive up all the way to the falls, and my favorite part of that drive as a child was when you had to drive through the river as it flowed over the road. I had my 5th birthday at the park area at the upper falls. My dad's friend swung me around and around and around, my mom and dad had a friend named Nils....Nills?...that came and ate minnows with beer chasers. Yuck and yikes.
But now, you have to walk all the way up to the falls. There wasn't any time to do that on this evening, so we just got out to look at the falls at the bottom...of the...upper falls.
A spectacular mermaid location, no? Then again, everything in Ithaca is a spectacular mermaid location.
Even this way, with the creek barely flowing, would be great for mermaids. I would not have had the time to do it, but I am vaguely regretting not hooking up with any models, or putting out a client call, and doing a shoot or three while I was there.
The first half of the hike up to the falls looks like this, and the smell is so earthy and wet and it's intoxicating. I dream of this smell.
I found this adorable little thing!! Derek said he knew what it was, but I forgot and he's sleeping.
Look at these gorgeous falls. MERMAIDS. Also just regular beautiful.
There's Rhyann, getting all up in everything. I love this about her. So much of her reminds me of me.
That night, when we got home, my dad was really tired and didn't feel like cooking and wanted to have leftovers, and Derek and I had been hoping to have a dinner date to ourselves. I haven't gotten to go on a date in Ithaca, and I really wanted to do that. The kids were hungry, but didn't want to go with us, so Derek and I decided to go to Kimchi by ourselves and bring some food home for the kids.
Kimchi did not disappoint, though it was pretty standard, easy to eat for non-Koreans, fare. But still absolutely delicious.
Those fish cakes are easily some of the best I've had, and the sprouts were divinity.
Derek got japchae with chicken (even though he ordered beef). He said that it was very, very tasty, and that my japchae is just as good.
I got a miscellaneous tofu dish with a sauce that tasted too oyster-y for me to eat due to the sugar.
I also got the most amazing steamed egg with chive and carrot and all it needed was kimchi. DELISH.
Derek got a bibimbap, because why not?
This is an understated dining affair for us. We usually order five entrees each, and then a few appetizers, but everything on the menu was pretty standard fair, so we opted out. We ordered the kids a few things to go, and made our way back home. But not before I got the compliment of my life. Normally, everyone talks about how young Derek looks, because he does. For 45, he looks exceptionally young. Not that 45 is old looking, we were just talking about this the other day, but he usually gets pegged at like, 355. So YOUNGER THAN ME. But not today, fucker. Today was my turn. The woman taking care of us asked how many kids we have after we ordered for them. We said we had two waiting for food at home. She asked how old they are, and I said 19 and 15 (I tend to age up when there are fewer than 6 months to a birthday. So I am 38 now). And she looked at me, SHOCKED. She looked at Derek a little less shocked, but looked back at me, jaw fully dropped, and said NO! You are too young to have children that old!!! And when I tell you I was fucking delighted, I mean it. I was so god damn thrilled. I never get told how young I look, or that I look too young to have a child that's in college and another one in high school. It made my day.
So we took our food home, fed the kiddos, watched some Stranger Things, and then went to bed.
Oh!!! Edited because I forgot to add my camera photos to the blog!! Not that anybody would miss them. They are not my best.
I think I am failing my primary Ithaca directive.
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