On a road trip

Across the frozen tundra...

To and fro

And home we go...

‘Twas the week before Thanksgiving and we headed out across the not so fruited plain. The land so flat and desolate, the wind howling and tossing our car around like a tinker toy. Stiff hands from gripping the steering wheel, stiff knees and stiff backs from sitting end on end for way too many hours with 95 mile gaps between rest areas, the prairie oases for the wearied travelers, we.

Ten mind numbing hours of confinement, fights over the tunes on the radio, and lectures on proper road safety etiquette from the one in the navigator’s seat, whispered between nerve shattering snores.

All this. All this to do our due diligence. To be good parents. The turkey wishbone tugged on each end by one sibling and then the other. We needed to be in two places at once and as Robert Frost once declared...”two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both...and be one traveler long I stood to where it bent in the undergrowth...then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear;though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same.”

Parenting, is about choices, and equanimity among siblings. Their demand and need. We somehow have managed to seesaw our way back and forth, but this time we were stuck. Both in need, both indeed, but if we timed it right, if the weather cooperated, and we kept our eyes on the road, perhaps, just perhaps, we could be where we were needed and return to when we were needed.

But in between, the long dismal stretch of highway. Tumbleweeds tangling up in our tires, and tumbleweeds tousling up our thoughts.

Demented mindless abstract cobwebbed thoughts that were seriously, in hindsight, rather funny. Actual conversations, meaningful conversations, about the most mundane trivia imaginable sustained our desolate voyage.

That and a bag full of peanut M&M’s.

We discussed the relative speed of the end tips of wind turbines, over 100 mph, although they looked as though they were barely turning, just as we were barely marking our sanity. We bemoaned our failure to ever visit the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, the Flint Hills, Dodge City, Kansas and the Garden Of Eden in Lucas, Kansas. Mind you, we did not stop, we merely complained that we had never been and I doubt that we will ever go, but in times of greatest conversational desperation. one will say anything to fill the time, to mark the miles, to keep the car on the right side of the road and to keep from strangling each other after too much time together in a small teeny tiny space, with no means of escape.

And so we drove on, into the light, the light of the setting sun, only to arrive home, and to pull up our parental pants, and meet head on the child left behind. In time. In place. On duty. Ready to listen to comfort and soothe. As it is written. On page 972 of the secret society safety manual of Parenting Guidelines, the one you and I have never seen, but know must exist somewhere as we have tried over our lifetimes, to uphold defend and honor, disregarding the pages and pages of footnotes and special exceptions to the rules...

...that change EVERYTHING in one single beat of a heart.

Now, in the quiet aftermath, of plotting and planning and timing and organizing, we sit stunned and silent amidst the Christmas songs on the radio and realize, as all parents do, that we....

Control Nothing. 

We only ACT as if we do.

For in this precious moment of silence,

we fully comprehend that parenting never stops.

Parenting is unconditional love. Nothing more.

But most certainly, nothing, nothing, nothing ever less. 

The Star Trek Enterprise Captain bellows in our ears that is time to ENGAGE. The Season is upon us and our walls are bare. The decorations lie dormant in their boxes.

Lights are tangled in mirth, and wagging their bejeweled fingers at our tardiness, our late-to-the-party inexcusable bad manners, at this mere weeks before Christmas, lack of spontaneous and combustible Christmas Cheer.

I have the irresistible urge to yell....Shut Up...but my mother taught me well...and her preferred shooshing statement comes to my lips...

...a magic mantra...

Be still. 

I don’t know where YOU have been, whether the gravy was lumpy, the company shrill and whining, or if perhaps you celebrated the perfect Martha Stewart, butter pats carved as turkeys, placemats hand stitched, turkey covered in hand rolled pastry, pumpkin puree soup drenched in fine liquour, extravaganza. However, if you relate in any way to Martha, perhaps you should find another blog to read, as I doubt Martha ever made the 600 mile trek WE did with a green bean casserole perched on her lap.

No, my friends, I am not walking in a Winter Wonderland nor decking the halls with boughs of holly. I am not sucking on candy canes, nor having visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.

I am in a Time Out.

I am instead sitting silently, hands folded in my lap, eyes shut, and searching my mental landscape for the perfect gift.

The perfect gift of a perfect memory.

A memory of a moment when I was happy. A place, a home, a town, a trip, a place, a space...a soft lingering memory of the gift we all endear...life.

A short, yet sweet, lingering of a time...

Very much worth your attention and mine...

Shut off the technology...abandon the obstacles...move down the road...shift gears and find yourself at the true oasis...

A rest area...for tired souls...a place to harken back to...a memory so warm and gentle it fills you completely.

Your senses, your heart...and especially your soul.

For each of us hold within our hearts, a memory of Christmas, so sweet and tender, that we are filled with a comforting joy...a resonance...a string on the harp echoing a soft refrain...to come home again. To return to the simple pleasure of a life well lived. To honor the blessings, to reestablish the faith, to open the window and let the freshness of the winter chill rosy our cheeks and return us to a simpler time when life was easy, when life was divine, when life was most simply...

The most perfect gift.

And so I will take you back with me...to that moment in time, when Cookies For Santa...was enough. When the dreams of our childhoods lulled us to sleep, reindeer dancing on the roof, packages under the tree, and the promise of surprises in the morning...

Go there with me...find that sugary sweet memory that sustains you when all else fails...retreat into time and wrap up the package..with a ribbon and a bow...

With your name on it..under the tree...

For as children and as a parent grown...there is only one gift that matters...

This gift...

This life...

Cherish it...

Hold onto it...

And never let it go...

No matter how many miles you may travel or wherever you roam...

The gift of life will follow you home...