Car Games & Conversation
By: Julia Kennedy
Tags: Mental Health, Grief, Loss, Emotions, Mental

As a treat on weekends when I’d accompany my mother running errands we would go to a hole-in-the-wall American-Italian restaurant in town called Franconi’s. There’s not much special about this place. From the drab color palette on the interior to the generic ‘Italian’ paintings that hung minimally on the wall, or even the gumball and toy machines near the counter that never seemed to need to be refilled, it was textbook average.

It’s these habitual places that become special over time. On these outings we would grab lunch together, nearly always ordering the same thing. As a kid, I wasn’t the most adventurous eater, so naturally, I would order the very beige meal of a plain hot dog and a massive side of cheese fries. Mom ate relatively healthy, and retroactively I appreciate that she never made fun of my food choice even when I should have grown out of the nutritional crutch of anything covered in fake nacho cheese.

After ordering, we would sit and catch up — talk about what was going on with each of us, anything that might have qualified for breaking news in middle school; passing the time with nothing more than conversation and doodling on paper placemats.

Mom would reflexively get a pen or two from her purse and we would trace the faint embossed floral pattern on the edge of the placemat. We’d play games like tic-tac-toe or hangman, and laugh at how hard it is to write letters upside down. If I was struggling to uncover the magic phrase that would save this stick figure drawing, she would simply keep adding accessories to allow the game to go further, and for this stick figure’s final moments to be at their most fashionable.

On rare occasions when there wasn’t a pen at the bottom of a purse we’d play what most people consider car games. These still hold a place in my heart, much to my husband’s dismay but he humors me on long trips. My favorite bar-none is an alphabet-style game where you fill in the sentence, “My name is [blank], I live in [blank], and I sell [blank],” with words that correspond to a letter, and then the next person the next, so on and so forth. It’s why I know there is a city in China called Xiangtan. On particularly anxious nights when my mind can’t seem to slow down hopping from one thought to the next, I still play this game silently to myself. My brain appreciates the single task to focus on, and I’m usually drowsy by V.

The best memory I have at Franconi’s was playing “I’m thinking of a color, and it starts with [blank],” for lack of an actual name. Usually, one person would pose the question to the other, and soon enough I became a middle school kid with the color vocabulary of someone who holds a BFA. On this particular day, Mom must have been tired, because she started straight at me and said: “I’m thinking of a color, and it starts with orange.”

I blinked, took a moment and responded, “Is it orange?”

“Yeah!” Mom responded enthusiastically.

I laughed, told her what she had said, and that phrase became the response whenever we would ‘brain-fart’ in the future.

What I love most thinking about all that time sitting in the booths at Franconi’s is the feeling of being listened to. Even if on the same visit I wanted to complain about trivial things, ask big questions, and play silly games, she would listen and respond genuinely. As I grew older and the topics of conversation became more adult, the tone never changed. The same care and consideration was given to middle school drama, college woes, and everything in between.

Listening and responding genuinely is something I want to give to my son. Active listening helped strengthen the bond between us and encouraged more open communication. I learned there wasn’t anything to be afraid of telling my mother. My thoughts, feelings, and opinions had value, an idea so ingrained that it made those angsty teenage years a little easier. Eventually, when I was on my own and the world considered us both adults, I knew not only did I have my mother in my corner, but I had a friend there too.

I think that’s what I miss most.

Let’s play some word association — go through each letter of the alphabet and think of one word that reminds you of your person.

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This post first appeared on jskennedy.net on 1/30/2020.