It's early September and we are going camping. After over five years away, we (Dan, our daughter, our dog, Lacey, and I) are returning to our Shadow Bay campsite at Waldo Lake. This was our place each August during our daughter's growing up years. Here Lacey experienced her first adventures in the wild and nearly had the pleasure of eating a live chipmunk (it got away). Here our five year old daughter had her first small, inflatable raft and rowed herself to the miniature island off shore. We discovered frogs; we discovered picnicking and swimming at an inlet bay cove where the crystal speckled water reflected the clearness of the sky above; we discovered floating butterflies...we discovered life.
Time has a way of disappearing behind the clouds of our days. On September 1, the daughter turned 22; on August 24th, Dan turned 61 and on August 18th, I turned 64. We call this birthday season, and have always celebrated for the three solid weeks. This year, we thought we would come together for a kind of birthday reunion, thus the camping trip. Since our extremely loyal and saint of a dog Lacey is 14 (98 in dog years) years old, we figured this would be her last camping trip. Her arthritis makes it difficult for her to hike long distances and so we planned to take turns being with her.
I've learned that events planned can rarely be “planned.” I have this foolish tendency to envision how I want experiences/interactions to be but have to remember to simply let go into the moments that present themselves.
Our daughter calls the day before our trip. She asks for medical advice and I tell her “come home and we'll take care of you.” On my side of the phone conversation, I silently smile, thinking I might get a chance to be a mother again. I make her an appointment at our clinic, for the next morning. Whether we go camping or not is not as important as our daughter's health. When I see her that evening (noting how she exaggerated the nature of the malady) and especially after her visit with her favorite nurse practitioner, I know it will be OK and that we will be able to have our Waldo Reunion. What I don't expect is a return of her teenage-like, sulky moodiness.
Is the umbilical cord between mother and child ever really cut? I feel every nuance of the dark shadows crossing my daughter's face as we set up our tents, organize our “kitchen” and swat at the mosquitoes. My heart is heavy when I want it to be light. Feeling my intense concern, I'm sure the daughter simply needs to wallow in aloneness. I become too motherly, as I usually do, and wallow in my own alien emotions. I revert to words as bandages rather than giving intuitive, caring space. We are back to the push-pull of a mother and daughter's struggle for separation when all I want this birthday season is to cherish our small window of being together.
By early evening, while there is still daylight, we stroll the forest paths, sharing early memories of kayaking the lake's expansive, bluest waters and hiking the perimeter with the young Lacey who once energetically ran back and forth with us on the trails. Waldo's magic is seeping through our feet as we reenter our camp and my daughter and I build a bug-repellant fire while Dan begins to prepare dinner. We thought if we waited until September the bug population would have dwindled to nearly zero, but they are exerting with a vengeance their will to hang on. There is a bit of irritability in the air, a tease that says nothing is perfect nor will it ever be. My daughter's sadness has become my sadness. I want desperately to shake off my over-sensitive, vulnerable nature. Instead I'm swatting at mosquitoes and wondering if we will make it through several days of this.
Our simple pasta dinner tastes miraculous, as only meals eaten around a camp fire can, and the wine has given us a mellow glow. Our daughter's face has softened as she brings out a guitar. She asks if we mind if she plays and we are flattered she would let us into her musical world. I am sitting across from her as she begins to strum a few tunes she has composed herself. She has her father's musical gift of knowing music from the inside of her soul rather than from notes on a page. As she plays, singing with a louder more mature voice, I feel the gift she is giving us of being able to understand her words.
We are sitting in a circle, Dan, Aspen and I, surrounded by these tall, majestic, silhouetted trees up the hill to our left and Waldo's sunset, lapping waters down below to our right. A golden moon is slowly making its way between two of the pines and even the mosquitoes have bought into the evening's hush. I am intently watching Aspen's now-beaming happy countenance as she hands Dan the guitar for his turn at our family serenade. All our voices become woven together in the singing of old, familiar songs. The darkness, the vision of my dearest daughter and her love of music, Dan's focus on his own skilled strumming, make it easier for the tears to come. Stop crying, I tell myself. Stop being so dramatic. But I can't help it. Here is the moment I've been waiting for. Here is the moment I want to remember. As if on cue, a flash of rain-portending lightening trembles through the sky. The tears flow freer as I reflect upon how much I love living, how much I love my family, how much I will miss these magical, unplanned moments of life when I die.
The next day Lacey and I stand on the smooth sandy shore and wave as Dan and our daughter row out towards the far end of the lake. I feel as though I am saying a forever good-bye as I quickly pull Lacey along the bark strewn paths to the next clearing and catch another glimpse of my beloved family. Where in the beginning their paddles had bobbled and clashed, now the daughter and dad are in sync. And I ponder how much more alike in take-it-as-it-comes personalities these two are. With Lacey beside me, I write and read and sense something is missing. A resolution of life's ever present sadness? An embrace of the change to joy? How sadness and joy are merely the flip sides of the same coin?
The husband and daughter return with the daughter wet from head to toe. “She jumped into the nearly ice cold water,” tells Dan admiringly. It's like our daughter has been baptized by her swim, for as I look into her vibrant, contented face, I can see she has been reborn. Later at twilight, with the comfort of the trees, the stillness of the waters, the shadows cast by the boulders, my daughter and I meander and meditate on memories gleaned from the passing years.
“Do you remember our fictional frog stories and how on our evening flashlight walk we nearly stepped on those little frogs?
Do your remember rafting to and spending all day on your island?
Do you remember trees catching on fire?
Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
Can I add another memory? Can I add this story of the golden, harvest moon?
© 2011
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