Equilibrium

It's funny, I often proclaim that I have wanderlust, can't sit in one place for too long, always want to see what's happening on the other side. We often talk about traveling around the world with Cora and a couple of backpacks, maybe set up house for awhile on some Italian pastureland, pause for a bit on the Adriatic, maybe get lost in some Peruvian village, head back here when we're tired.

Which makes me laugh right now because we just got back from Columbus, OH, and I am exhausted. A three-hour time difference and a weekend with family was enough to make me want to sit in our house with the blinds closed, huddled in my pajamas, peering out at the street occasionally to see if the weather has changed (right now it's raining, a totally typical mid-winter Seattle).

Even though I do love my family, I think most people will generally agree that family visits are still not always easy. Meaningful, important, heart warming, but not really easy. Everything stands still for a few days while members convene and reacquaint. Memories are exchanged. Brothers in their thirties wrestle in the kitchen while toddlers clamor for attention from the adults. Moms-in-law make definitive statements about toys and food and sleep, while helping with the dishes and offering to sort laundry. Dads-in-law talk about their newly retired life, going hiking and drinking coffee, and tasting wine and such. And the harried mid-level adults (that's us), the ones stuck in between childhood and seniorhood, in arguably the height of our life, cook food, care for kids, roll our eyes, tease each other and bond amidst the chaos, and try to forget about work deadlines, nap and writing schedules gone awry, and the need to question every nonsensical point that might present itself throughout the weekend.

There were a few great highlights, including multiple rousing rounds of Hokey Pokey at random times throughout the days, and we explored Cora's cousin's super cool fort and tested out all his fun toys, stacked blocks and struck them down, and generally hammed it up the whole weekend. That's one of the things I love the most about my extended family, everyone tends to be pretty silly a lot of the time.

When the last Irish coffee had been sipped, the last piece of pumpkin pie eaten, the last sleeping child put to rest, and our tired bodies were in bed waiting to arise for the morning flight, all of us were thinking about where we left off back home. So we exchanged hugs and love and set off back to our respective dots on the planetary landscape, where somehow everything that we do feels immensely important, and the routine of doing it is comforting.

There's definitely peace in the routine of home. Structured mornings and afternoons with familiar faces and places. Weekend agendas. And though everyday life can sometimes feel like a daily grind, there are still moments in there where you can just think your own thoughts--something which can begin to feel oddly compromised in a full house. Going home is a big bag of stuff--it's your own bed, your own food, and the comfort you feel from spending time with your immediate family, where you can tease and joke and get all silly, snap back and even get in a fight, without the world coming to a halt. The boundaries have been established, the balance made clear.

We also had a tough trip home which drained both of us. Cora came down with the stomach flu on the plane, about an hour before we started our descent into Seattle. We've never seen her throw up and she did it violently five times before the plane landed. She turned pale green and her head bobbed limply. We were stuck in row 26, trying to mop everything up and make sure she was still breathing. Toward the end of the flight, her eyes started closing and her head rolled forward and we were staring at each other in horror, wondering if this was one of those moments you never dare to think about. After several more bouts, a trip to the doctor, and a good night's sleep, she's better--still fighting a virus, but doing fine. I think the trauma of being stuck on a plane is what did us in. We're first-time parents of a usually healthy child, so we only have a little experience with the powerlessness we felt yesterday. Life is precious and mysterious and it's easy to go hum drumming through life without thinking much about it until your sense of reality is tested. It's one thing to feel sick and be able to identify all your own aches and pains, know exactly how you feel and the amount of water you should drink to feel better, but it's totally different with a child. They just look at you and cry. It's awful.

Her illness falls into a theme or idea that has been on my mind these days: the fragility of moments. Not necessarily in a sad way, either, but in a way that reminds me of chance encounters, chance moments, the realities of being human...of living an intentioned life amidst things we can't control. I guess we can really just try to control what we can: our thoughts, our intent, our forgiveness and humility, the sincerity and consistency of our love. It requires a certain equilibrium to pull it all off, an ability to be strong in multiple ways.