Happy Thursday! This week is going by SO much faster than last week. Thank goodness!
I’m hanging out on Just.Be.Enough today with a post about my family, but not the one I’ve posted about here before. My family is actually a little bigger, and I think it’s the hard stuff that reminds us just how special those people are.
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We (the collective we) do this all the time, don’t we? We say, “We should go away for the weekend.” Or, “I need a vacation.” We look wistfully at pictures of serene (or exciting) places and reminisce about the last time we had a proper vacation. And then we sigh and carry on.
I’m horrible about doing this. I work for an airline and the only time I used my flight benefits in the last four months was to go to Blissdom (which was handy, to be sure). People I work with go to Vegas for the weekend or to the next province for the afternoon. Or to Amsterdam for 3 days.
I’m not quite that ambitious, but we have talked about going to San Diego for a weekend. I’d like to go back home and see friends and family. I’d really like to book myself a tropical vacation but it might be a while before that happens. (Although… baby-moon? Maybe.)
As we were coming up to Easter I started to muse aloud about going away for the weekend. Just an hour from here, into the mountains. We needed a change of scenery.
So we went.
Frozen, but not for long.
As is typical, it was a last-minute decision. My mom had come to visit and my brother had gone to Australia (for two days – on flight benefits. See what I mean?) and my pregnant-with-twins sister-in-law was here on her own. So we decided to take them with us.
Somewhere in there, they're fly fishing under the coal bridge.
It took me a while to find a place that (a) had a vacancy and (b) would be able to sleep our odd assortment of family. But I found one, we shipped the dog to my mother-in-law’s and went.
We didn’t even do a lot – none of the adventurous things I had been pondering. We went for dinner. We went for lunch. We hid Easter eggs. And we walked.
A ha! O ho! Tracks in the snow. Whose are these tracks and where do they go?*
Out there in the silence, with occasional sounds of crunching snow, it’s easy to feel like a mere speck in the universe. Other things fade away and life’s most basic things are what feel important. Like sunshine and flowing water. Like tracks of animals who came before and who worry less about work-life balance and more about the balance of existence.
Every kid has to rattle a stick on a bridge once in his life.
And like the first time a small boy rattles a stick on a metal bridge.
Who was Daisy? And did she find peace in the mountains?
This environment suggests quiet and observation. It makes me stop and think. And it leaves me with a feeling I can’t describe.
No words necessary.
Which is fine, because sometimes no words are necessary.
*For bonus points, name that (very good) children’s book.
We lie in bed, cozy under the covers, as the light outside slowly fades. We read stories, talking about the pictures and why things work the way they do.
Credit: Roads Less Traveled Photography, Flickr
“How does that move?”
“Where did they get the wheels from?”
“What makes it go?”
After each question, a pause, and an “oh.” He’s listening.
He rubs his eyes, then my wrist. Still his safe spot.
“I want to hug you for finding my lizard,” he says, and he does.
“I love you, mummy.” His voice is soft and small. “You’re the best.”
When the stories are done and the lights are out, he is quiet but my mind is not. I think about what I did today.
Is that one little thing important?
Five years from now, will what I spent my time doing make a difference?
50 years from now, will it even matter that I was there?
These are the things I think about in the softening light.
***
My family has been in town and Connor has been sleeping in our bed for the last week. While it’s not something we would choose on a permanent basis (though more often than not someone ends up in his bed with him for at least part of the night) I do enjoy it. I love the little hand that reaches for mine in the night, his gentle heat and that barely-there-but-still-audible breath punctuated by small sighs.
It makes me think a lot about what’s important.
You know those people who always say the right thing and appear to leave lemon drops and lollipops in their wake? My friend Kir is like that. She has never said anything that hasn’t made me smile. Not ever. She litters her comments and messages with x’s and o’s and means every one of them. She is sweet and supportive and wise and I think sometimes we underestimate how important people like that are to the world.
I don’t anymore, especially not where she’s concerned. Every interaction with her feels like a blessing, and that’s why I was so honoured when she asked me to guest post for her Proud Mommy Moment series.
I’ve chosen to share something recent that is lighting up my life right now, and I’d love it if you’d visit me at Kir’s and read it.
Motherhood.
What some people would have you believe:
The reality:
Linked up with Memories Captured.
***
Next Monday, April 23rd, Be Enough Me is taking on the topic of labels with a special prompt inspired by Ashely Judd, called Change the Conversation.
It’s time to look past the obvious.
We’re inviting posts from voices everywhere to share your labels and who you are beyond that. The focus is whatever you need it to be – from our lives as moms, dads, parents, spouses, professionals, survivors, athletes and more. We invite you to join us, to celebrate our strengths, to celebrate our diversity, to celebrate our voices and change the conversation.
Join us on Just.Be.Enough next Monday for the very special link-up. We can’t wait to take the conversation by storm with our voices.
