One good thing about a couple flight delays–hopefully only 1 delay/flight–is you have time to reflect, to people-watch, to enjoy a glass of cheap red wine. Even though I usually have a rule of no drinking while flying…horrible for staying hydrated…but here we are…. 32 ounces of water to come.
It really was a remarkable visit with my folks this past week, both for the relative ease of travel there and the increased ease of being together over a longer period of days than last time. I feel like I have a bit more grasp on how this rhythm will work, when I come out for such a visit. It’s important to me to prioritize my times with them while also giving them reprieve they would never ask for themselves amidst activities I always like doing anyway. I didn’t feel sure about this prior to my arrival, but now I do. My father connects primarily through conversation in which he can overdo it, straining his voice almost to laryngitis. It works best, I think, if I find moments of other-adventures-I-enjoy, which I then get to come back and share with them, reflect and reconnect.
This time, I found my “new CrossFit box” for whenever I’m there. I got to visit with a dear women-writing sister friend in her ‘home-turf’ of the Japanese Gardens, where she volunteers in a variety of ways, including tea-ceremonies. She is one of the most seasoned students in the area, after all. I got to visit with some of my parents’ friends-circle at lunches and a poet-friend I met last time, who is a deep-souled woman I resonated with immediately when I met her last time. I got to visit with my uncle for our “conversation he often cannot understand why/how it works” time, which I cherish however way opens for it. I missed time with my cousin Dan and his wife, Veronica, but will be sure to let them know when I’m coming next time. I just wasn’t sure how to balance the “times out” and “priority of my own folks’ time” after not being here for a while. Now I know, it makes it easier to reach out with potential planning.
We enjoyed a slew of familiar movies, of course, my own interpretation of which I explored with them. “Do you think we watch romantic comedies so very much because they are safe and predictable emotional things? It’s nice to feel, without the risk of uncertainties and newness?” I think the question startled my folks, but it wasn’t not true. It was a suggestive pondering, but it was helpful for me to wonder aloud about it. I hadn’t seen Hopscotch in probably over a decade. Frankie and Johnnie was a sweet return. Must Love Dogs highly entertaining and sweet. A couple short clips of things. Short Circuit was a real hoot for me, given I first saw it in a later-night, impulsively chosen showing with my dad back in the eighties. It’s campy by now, but it was a fun return for me both in a very young Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy, but also that memory of side-splitting laughter with my dad when I was in high school.
You never know what side of my mother will show up on any given day. One side is one that wants to hide from the world, visit with as few people as possible, rest in her chair with news-projects-phone; the other side is a fierce one planning unexpected adventures with a love of family and friends. Without more specifics, that was on display this visit. Makes me smile.
A sweet unexpected gift was this morning’s first-flight-delay, which created space for us to share in my husband’s preaching and then the live-stream-recording of communion-Sunday. It was an unexpected pleasure to share in holy communion with my folks before I left, with Word preached by Brian, communion elements shared from the glass-plate my grandmother Ruth used to use. She would have flinched at little shot-glasses full of wine for the sacrament–she was a rigid tee-totaler–but we love that ambiguity of sacrament that challenged her categories. “We” being most of my extended family today.
More will percolate up in these next days, I’m sure, but for now, in a flight-delay at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport on a late Sunday night, that’s a good start. It’ll be my 24th wedding anniversary in about four hours (or two hours, from Ohio), and I am looking forward to being home in my own bed, greeting my heart-dog Nala with a huge hug, and settling into a day of celebration tomorrow with my beloved Brian.
Life is a rich, complicated, wondrous thing…
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