weekends Archives - Page 3 of 5 -

Home, Interrupted

July 3, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

We went home for the weekend. Home? I’m not actually sure if it’s the right word anymore.

We were there just over a month ago — my first time back since we moved — and while there I visited a friend.

“How does it feel to be home?” he asked. Then paused. “Is this home?”

We were sitting on the grass in the bright sunshine outside Starbucks. The shopping centre I had been to countless times hummed along, ignorant of my six months’ absence. I looked around.

“I don’t know.” I pondered. “I think so. Yes.”

But is it? I didn’t really feel that way when we got back to where home is now, at least in the literal our-house sense, and I have torn through the nuances of that question many times since.

Is home where we live? Or is it where I grew up?

Is it where my family is? Which part of my family?

Is it wherever I damn well say it is?

I have answers to none of those.

“We’re going home tonight,” we told Connor on the night we planned to leave. I pictured our current house, with the trim color we don’t like and plan to change, and our bedroom, which I love, with its new dark furniture.

That’s where my small but growing family resides. My mugs are in the cupboard and Connor’s toys are in the bath. My husband has nurtured the lawn. My dog has his spot, which, lately, is on the bath mat (whether someone else is using it or not).

My siblings are nearby – two of the three, anyway. My sister and her husband, after way too long being a province away, now live 20 minutes from us. My brother and sister-in-law are about to help double the head count of the next generation by bringing twin boys into our lives. (And if you think I’d miss the day-to-day of that, you’re nuts.)

But my parents are still where we left them, living in the same house they’ve been in since I was 19. Connor misses them, and every time they visit I’m reminded of how important it is for them to be part of his life.

This last trip back was for the 4th annual joint birthday party we have with four kids who have known each other since they were born. They are Connor’s friends, and he doesn’t know a life without them.

Except I suppose he does now, because they are no longer part of his everyday. He talks about them as though they are, though these comments are punctuated with heartbreaking missing-them statements and “Can K come over?” questions.

This year’s party was perfect. The weather co-operated and the kids enjoyed the slip ‘n’ slide, and there were only a few parental interventions required. We snacked, we drank (some of us more boring drinks than others), and if you had asked me if I wanted to stay in that backyard with those people forever I would have said yes.

But we have chosen to leave that backyard, both literally and metaphorically. I often question whether it was the right decision, and yet when I’m back in my hometown it doesn’t feel like home.

For the most part, I don’t miss the city. But I miss the people something fierce, as though a part of me were missing, and it has quite unexpectedly left me feeling homeless in a way I could never have anticipated.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: admissions, family, weekends

Away

May 1, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

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.

Filed Under: Happy things, Photos · Tagged With: family, favourite activities, living life, perspective, photos, weekends

Reset

April 9, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

The last couple of weeks have been rough. After Michael’s accident we had family members flying all over the place, which my anxiety really didn’t like (especially when it involved putting my 72-year-old father on a plane for a 24-hour trip to Australia). He got there all right, but then Michael passed away and we started an overwhelming game of Should We or Shouldn’t We Go to Australia for the Funeral.

We didn’t go.

It was agonizing. I couldn’t imagine not going, and yet I couldn’t quite figure out how we’d make it work either. I’ve been so sick so far this pregnancy that a 24-hour trip seemed like the World’s Worst Idea. I could have gone, of course, and would have, but we also didn’t want to totally overwhelm everyone by showing up a day before the funeral with a three-year-old in tow.

In the end, we decided we will be the second wave of support and go down in a few weeks (with my other sister) when things have calmed down and my sister and brother-in-law are trying to adjust to their new normal. In the meantime, we’ve sent texts and messages—by the hundreds, it seems—and if waves of love can reach that far they’ll have had an ocean’s worth.

Now the funeral is done. Friends and family have spoken words of love and Michael’s school mates formed an honour guard for him as he left the cemetery. Those of us here have had our own moment to remember him and we now exist in that space between blessed closure and enduring disbelief. We continue to ask why, but an answer never comes.

Until today, half of my family was in Australia (more than half, actually). My brother also went for a quick down-and-back to help my dad and youngest sister travel comfortably home. (Working for an airline has its benefits.) Much to everyone’s relief, they’re just arriving home after another 24-hour trip in a very short span of time.

There is no pause button in this life. And try as I might, I haven’t been able to find any sort of rewind button either. So for the moment, I have chosen to hit reset. Instead of being in perpetual limbo—waiting for what?—I declared Easter weekend a weekend to go out of town. We got out of the house, where we’ve been sitting waiting for the phone to ring or the next text message to wing its way across the world, and spent some time in the mountains.

More on that later, but in the meantime I’ll say this: It helped.

Filed Under: Hard things · Tagged With: anxiety, family, perspective, The Universe, weekends

Let’s Go Fly a Kite

March 20, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Filed Under: Happy things · Tagged With: family, favourite activities, photos, weekends

Toddler is My Co-Pilot

January 15, 2012 by Farewell Stranger ·

Having an extremely observant 3-year-old is not necessarily always a good thing.

I had promised Connor an adventure yesterday, so we hopped in the car and headed to a park nearby where, if you’re lucky, you can see porcupines. Big ones. The problem was I wasn’t sure exactly how to get there.

Connor noticed, and the conversation went something like this:

“Mommy, why are we turning around?”

“Because I turned the wrong way. The park is in the other direction.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then comes out with this:

“Mommy, we shouldn’t drive without Daddy because he knows the way.”

Oh ye of little faith.

We drive a little longer.

“Hmm,” I muse aloud.

“What?” he asks.

I’m starting to regret telling him he should admire the view instead of having a book on my iPhone.

“Mommy’s just not that good at finding the way in new places.”

“Do you have a map?”

“Yes, I have one on my phone.”

“Well let’s use it.”

As if it were the most logical suggestion in the world. Which it is.

Stubbornly, I drive a few more blocks.

“C’mon, let’s use the map,” he says again.

Fine.

“I’ll keep an eye on Finley,” Connor says, as though we’re going to get stranded and the dog in the back is going to need comforting.

Meanwhile I get the map to tell us how to get there—I was close, ha ha, as long as you ignore the fact that I’m going in circles—and we continue on, much to Connor’s relief (and the dog’s too, I’m sure).

I really, really hope he gets his dad’s sense of direction.

PS We did get there.