Notes from Away: Prepping for Takeoff; Beginning a Descent

By Thursday night, our bags were packed and waiting by the door. Two rolling bags. My son’s and mine.

We had a morning flight yesterday. Before most trips, the bags would have never come to rest in the front hall. They would have gone from final zip-ups in bedrooms straight out the door to the car. We were both looking forward to this trip though, and when you’re excited to go somewhere, the packing is prologue and not just preparation.

So, our bags were packed early. They were ready to go, and so were we.

Me, personally… I’ve never been so ready.

If you read my entry from a couple weeks ago, The Other Side of the Tunnel, you’ve already heard all about this trip. To say I have been excited about it is to do it the most grievous of understatements. I don’t think I have ever looked forward to a vacation more.

I’ve been looking forward to this trip with a wholeness of heart. I’ve gone places I was excited to see. I’ve stayed places I was excited to stay. This trip though, it is just different. It is more and bigger. It is a trip of only five nights. It is bigger than the duration. It is a postscript so very long in coming. I would feel right down in my soul if it were only that and nothing more.

There is something more to it though. Even before takeoff, my son and I were already in a descent.

All of parenthood is a descent that begins at takeoff. Our kids get older and grow up and move out and move on. We get but the short window of their childhoods to live in the great present of their time at home. In a few weeks, my son will be starting his sophomore year in high school. This summer is already on the wane. After it, I get but two more before he graduates. That’s it. What seemed like an endless supply of ‘next summers’ is now down to two.

In theory, there will be a third summer before he goes away to college but that one is a transition. It is bookended by living with me on only one side. The other bookend is an end scene. In it, there will be me first standing at the end of a driveway and then stepping out into the road to watch as taillights pull away and then fade until gone.

As a father, I have always felt the passage of time acutely. I have never not felt it. When my son was little, it felt like the soft pull around your ankles of ocean waves lapping up on shore and then receding. Now… now it feels like an undertow up to my calves.

I feel it. I feel the time not just slipping through an hour glass like sand but pulling like a tide. So, I take all of the time I can get to be away with my son. When I get it, I cherish it. I look forward to it and am then present for it. Afterwards, I replay it and remember it.

I tend to the memories of trips like this one and keep them green. I walk among them and tend to their buds and smell them all over again. I’m a memory gardener, and these trips with my son are among my favorite flowers.

So, this trip… it is just gold. It will be gold if it goes perfectly, and it will be gold even if it doesn’t. The gold is in the taking of it. That is the preciousness.

And I will tell you, that feeling is the absolute best entry-point to a trip. It strips away the cruciality of uncontrollables. It makes snafus and setbacks and busts into mere notes from away. Anecdotes. Scenes to laugh about. Part of the story not the ruining of one.

The thing I most love about traveling my son is that we both just lean back in the cool water with outstretched arms and let the current carry us where it will. That yielding with grace to whatever will be makes for joyful surprises. It is what landed us at a minor league game in Birmingham, Alabama, on a beautiful day as the home team won on a walk-off double. It is what put us in Birmingham in the first place.

It is what landed me in the lobby of a hotel in Beverly Hills with a cold beer and time to write today.

Thought I’d use the time to post a first entry. If you’re interested in coming along for the rest of the trip, I’ll bring ya. If not, no worries. I’ll return to our regularly scheduled broadcasts soon enough.

For those interested in riding shotgun, I owe ya an entry on the getting here. It was, oof, an adventure, but per all of the above, adventures make for good stories. I’ll get to that one next.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this:

This trip… I loved it before we even left.

I love it more already.