stories
a tale or two from the road and home
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My beautiful cousin gave us a wedding card with a quote from Lewis Carol written on it. “The best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures,” it said. A lovely little line from Alice & Wonderland. And as we close this part of the trip it comes to mind, because when I married Brad it is what I knew I would be getting. It’s what I know I’ll continue to get for the rest of my life.
I have a thing for the chimneys in France. The way so many of them reach out of the beautiful old buildings into the cotton candy clouds at sunset. It makes you feel cozy and romantic and maybe like when the wind blows through them it could whisper to you stories that rose from their hearths below long ago. Amazing how something as weird as a chimney can do that.
When I was a little girl I used to tell all of my babysitters that I lived in a castle. That the house we were in wasn’t my real house. That actually I was a princess who lived high in a tower on top of a mountain overlooking the ocean. I so vividly remember what it looked like in my mind, my imaginary home. And now I’m pretty certain I’ve seen it in real life.
Turns out, if you’re us, it takes about four weeks of international travel with children to hit a wall. To go from that this-is-all-so-romantic-and-exciting mentality to worn out and weary. We arrived in London with colds, which rapidly evolved into something more gnarly. And let me tell you, nothing makes you realize what a physical feat this all is quite like lugging a bulky stroller and sixty five pounds worth of small human by yourself down three flights of stairs to the London Underground with a deep and persistent chest cough.
Ketch has decided that his favorite city is Paris. To be expected I guess from a kid whose most frequently requested food is muscles in butter sauce with frites and who has been obsessed with the seeing the Eiffel Tower since we put together a 3D puzzle of it one day after preschool.
On the morning of the first day of my 37th year I awoke to the pitter patter of little feet. Two curly blondes smothered me in sloppy kisses and happy birthday mommas. I strolled the rainy streets of Belgium with my husband and my babies stopping for a coffee and a croissant at every bakerie we passed. There was a chill in the air and gloom in the clouds and fall felt wrapped all around us. I kissed everyone goodbye and wandered in and out of quirky shops alone. Bought myself a pair of birthday earrings. Sat in a warmly lit used book store amongst the tattered covers and listened to Tom Waits’ voice crackle. Sipped on cappuccino with fluffy hearts swirled over top and wrote and wrote and wrote about everything I felt. I blew out birthday candles with the people I love the most and ate chocolate cake with the most delicious $5 bottle of red wine. I spent the evening at a fancy pants Belgian spa and sat around in a steam room with a bunch of nude strangers (a weird but wonderful experience) and got a massage. It truly was the best day ever. Birthdays are funny things. Celebrations that mark the passing of your life. Pauses that make you reflect on where you’ve come from, what it took to get here, where that it is you’re going. I feel like I’ve taken a lot of big leaps throughout the years. Leaps that I thought would get me to the life I was dreaming of. Some of them were exhilarating and some of terrifying and some of them were heartbreaking and some of them were lonely. But I know now they have all been leading me to this point. I’m living that life I’ve dreamed up, and it’s better than I could have ever imagined. I’m so so grateful to be here. In this moment surrounded by these people. The leaps are worth it. Magic is real.
Brad and I have a habit of getting a little lit on our date nights, scheming up fairly ridiculous life plans, and then waking up the next morning and deciding to actually execute them. And while it’s probably not the healthiest of habits, it is certainly not one I would ever want to change, because it has led us to do some pretty amazing things. We both agreed that we cannot pinpoint a day this idea was officially thrown out or decided upon - but it was definitely discussed over many glasses of wine on nights with blessed babysitters.
You sleep as I write this. A little bundle of torso and limbs and fat squishy cheeks flopped warmly upon my chest. And I sit here and sip my coffee and feel your weight. Brush your baby hair against my face and smell your baby smell. This, us-ness, this you-piled-on-me-ness, this blur between where you end and where I begin is what feels most familiar to me these days because for six months now, I have held you. Snuggled you to my chest, slept with you in my arms. Breathed your breath and soaked up your sweat and felt your pain. Carried you in a front pack to and fro. Bounced you until the balls of my feet became sore and bruised against our hardwood floor. I have never been more in tune with another human being. Never felt so entwined with another soul. Sweet boy, your arrival into this world has been anything but easy, but we have been here together, you and I - and I have held you.
Someday my love, when you ask me to tell the story of the day you were born, I will say this…
Once upon a time, a boy came to the earth. And the moon and the stars and the sun and the planets all had to stop what they were doing for a moment, to make space for of the enormous amount of magic he brought with him. It was like the whole universe stretched a little that day – and we all felt it. Time stood still. And when they placed that boy on my chest, I got to absorb a little of that magic.
Sometimes I get nostalgic, thinking about our old life. The one that was just Brad and I. Waking up on Saturday mornings to the roar of a jet boil and the smell of coffee brewing. Gazing up at the morning light streaming through a dew-covered tent and feeling the cool, mountain air on my face. Afternoons spent hiking or climbing or floating or skiing or whatever the hell we wanted really, with the only thought of logistics being which one of us was going to make sure there was beer in the cooler for afterwards. Laying in bed at night, scheming about which country we’d be able to get to next. Before the thought of traveling abroad brought up horrific thoughts of ruined nap schedules in 6-hour time-zones.
Motherhood is a mess.
A beautiful, disastrous, wonderful catastrophe. A land of sleepless nights and spit up covered shoulders and locks of hair tangled in tiny fists of drool. An oh-so-sweet and ever-so-exhausting place - where I am very ungracefully learning to live.
I won’t ever presume to speak about anything universally regarding motherhood – because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the four months I have been at it – it’s that the ride is different for everyone. Everyone has their own highs and lows, their own badges they must earn and battles they must wage - whether it be with the gods of birthing or the gods of breastfeeding or the gods of sleeping. And I think the moment you feel like a mother, the moment you experience that big huge love that you never knew existed – it varies. I wasn’t one of those women who got all weepy at the ultrasounds (even though I totally thought I would have), and even when I was 8 and a half months pregnant, I still felt a little like sort of an imposter wearing the “momma” shirt I was gifted at my shower. I’ve heard for some women it happens the second they see that little pink plus sign. And for some, it doesn’t happen until months down the road when their baby starts to giggle at them with intention and still for others its hazy – a becoming that happens slowly over time.
Babies babies babies. For the last seven months babies have been topic of conversation in little blue house on 318 West Geyser St…because you see, in just few weeks or so, we’re going to have one of them.
Thirty-one million, five hundred and thirty-six thousand seconds.
Or eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours.
Or three hundred and sixty-five days.
It doesn’t matter how you measure it really. One way or another, an entire year has unraveled through the fabric of time - into a pile of memories made and lessons learned. For us, it was a pretty big year. Our first year. The year we sold our possessions and quit our jobs and set sail for the unknown. The year we spent getting lost and meeting fascinating people and sleeping in unsanitary places in uncomfortable positions. A year that was crazy and beautiful and amazing and terrifying and completely and utterly life changing.
In eight months we had traveled over 51,000 miles. Boarded thirty-seven planes. Twiddled our thumbs through twenty-five bus rides. Collected sixteen passport stamps. Slept in one hundred and eight different places. Exchanged money in dollars, baht, kip, rupees, dong, pesos, sols, bolivianos, marks and euros. Learned to say ‘hello’ in nine different languages. We had savored thirty cent beers. Devoured exotic curries. Adventured through remote jungles. Gazed at impossibly tall mountains. Become accustomed to doing laundry in hotel pools. Survived food poisoning in extremely inconvenient places. Mastered the art of successfully carrying a dozen eggs four miles down a dirt road in the back of a tuk tuk without the luxury of a carton.
When we look back on our travels, there will be certain things that stand out from the rest. And I'm sure some of these will be the beautiful places we’ve seen. For instance, take Dubrovnik, Croatia, where we walked the city walls of the most perfect, almost make-believe, castle city that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Or in Split, Croatia, where we walked through dungeons and sundial rooms of ancient Venetian-themed palaces.
This is a big world. And traveling for a year translates into a lot of decision making. There is the big stuff - Where should we go? For how long? And all the details - How to get there? Where to stay? And of course, what to do? By the time you pull the trigger for one destination, it is time to start researching the next.
I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t love my mom so much I’d still be in Greece. Basking in the sun at some little cafe overlooking the ocean - perfectly content to never return…
I mean it’s a bit of a dream, really. A land of olive trees and ancient cities atop marble mountains. Beaches fit for mermaids and secret pirate coves. The home of Athena. Apollo. Poseidon and hisTrident. Achilles and his heel.
I’ve wanted to learn to surf for like…ever…
When I graduated college my dad gave me a wad of cash and a hand-written note that said move to California, buy a board and pursue your dreams…or something along those lines.
And while I managed the move to California part, I never quite got the surfing bit down. It was so much more terrifying than it looked. If you made it past the onslaught of whitewater - there were the forty or fifty jacked up dudes getting all moody and territorial over waves - and then there was the nosediving, the crashing, the not knowing which way was up or down, the jagged rocks, the feeling like you were drowning, the bonked head, the scraped feet, the sinus cavity full of salt water, the hallelujah-I-made-it back-to-the-surface-gasp for air. Only to get crushed again by the second wave of the set rolling in. Enough to make you drag yourself to land sniffing and snorting - and totally un-psyched to go back.
Fresh off a few particularly horrific travel days that involved multiple ten hour bus rides, gastro intestinal distress (I’ll spare you the details on that one), sprinting between border crossings at 13,000 feet to collect forgotten passport stamps and nearly getting left in the middle of nowhere - we were pretty stoked to check out Peru - and stay in one place for a bit. N’let me tell ya, Cusco, certainly didn’t disappoint.
I never - not in a million years - thought I would be able to say I spent part of my honeymoon in a pigpen in Bolivia.
But alas, how life can surprise you…
“Amigo, hold this.”
Immediately, I regretted stretching out my hand as our tour guide placed a charged stick of dynamite into my palm. The rest of the group backed away in disbelief. McKenzie stayed by my side long enough to take a picture before retreating herself. After lighting a “3-minute” fuse and jamming the stick into a hole in the wall, I hurried towards the others up the narrow mineshaft - our guide calmly taking his time behind me. About two and half minutes later a burst of the wind from the explosion echoed by us. This was not your typical mine tour.
McKenzie and I both took a pinch of coca leaves from a plastic bag handed back from our driver, Orlando, and stuffed them into the sides of our cheeks. The leaves, Orlando explained, helped prevent altitude sickness - (they’re also the same ones used to make cocaine). In a matter of one day we had gone from sea level to 16,500 feet. And after watching another guest get carried back to the Jeep and in rough shape, a hard sell wasn’t needed. It wasn’t as if we would be drug tested anytime soon.
If my sister was a city, she’d be Valparaiso.
Colorful. Artsy. Messy. A little bit complicated. With a heart bigger than life itself and personality that sparkles as the sun goes down.
We haven’t planned much of this trip. We might have a broad idea of things we want to see or places we want to visit, but a lot of the time we’re flying by the seat of our pants, figuring things out a week or a even a day in advance. And it’s cool because it gives us freedom. The freedom to change our minds, to redirect our course on a whim. If we like a place - we stay, if we don’t - we get our butts on the next bus. We’re not in a rush to have it all figured out. We’ve let a lot of it surprise us along the way. And I for the most part, l really like surprises.
Oh Argentina! The land of mouthwatering empanadas, six dollar bottles of Malbec and sky piercing, story book worthy mountains.
I mean, really…could it get any better??
I had a friend. Ugh. The past tense thrusts itself hard, into the deepest pit of my stomach. But I did. I had a friend. She wasn’t the kind of friend that I had spent my childhood with, or met for coffee on Sundays. In fact, I didn’t even know her all that well.
I thought we would have gotten used to bus travel in southeast Asia. We had been on buses that broke down, had our seats given away in front of us, gotten shoved into isles jam-packed with cargo, and had things stolen from right underneath our seats. We have winced as bus drivers wedged, braked, and barreled through oncoming traffic.
With cuts and scrapes still coloring my body from our first motorbike crash, I was hesitant at the thought of getting back on an unkept scooter to drive my wife on Laos’s crumbling backroads. However, I was even less interested in the alternative of experiencing the Bolaven Plateau from the back of a tuk tuk with exhaust fumes filtering our views of the passing countryside.