Last fall,
my husband and I took our toddler son on his first road trip north to Grand
Marais to see the autumn colors.
Before we
became parents, my husband and I were into the whole North Shore camping
bit. My husband is a photographer and a nature enthusiast and I’m a
poet and a writer, and we’ve always entertained dreams about some
magnificent collaboration — an award-winning Boundary Waters photoessay or a
compilation of breathtaking photographs with poetry to accompany each image.
Problem
is, unless you count the time we drove up the Gunflint in our poor excuse
for a minivan (our son in utero and inflicting intense morning sickness and
exhaustion upon me), this past fall was the first time we have traveled
North together.
You see,
our son is an intense personality. According to my husband, the boy is
ruthlessly self-centered, damn him, and demands constant satisfaction.
Car trips are not usually well-tolerated, and patience is not one of the
child’s virtues. When we force the issue, we are punished with screams
of the highest and most eye-twitch-inducing decibels.
Of course,
the Grand Marais trip did raise challenges. We endured a
hyper-embarrassing tantrum at a breakfast diner in town that included
jelly-lacquered hands pressed against a window pane and some kind of insane
drum solo with a pair of forks. At a gift shop, I turned around just
in time to see him pitch a round candle across the store like a baseball.
Then there was the choking spell in the car that resulted in a handful of
bologna and puke for me.
But I have
to say, all things aside, the trip was worth it. The boy tossed rocks
into Lake Superior for something like two hours. We took some
beautiful walks, stopping to examine berries and leaves and rocks with the
kind of scrutiny only a small child can sustain. My husband and I
played poker in our tiny hotel room until I beat him out of all his pennies.
The three of us spent hours in the hotel pool, submerged in warm water while
the wind rapped against the windows outside. And, after accidentally
clocking me in the jaw with his cast-iron skull, my son repeated his
first-ever swear word.
I realize
my son is probably not old enough to remember this trip, not cognizant
enough to later recall the slow blinking of the lighthouse, the small
whitecaps on Superior, or the sharp colors of the changing leaves.
However, I do believe this experience will shape him in an unknown yet
important way. Maybe, when he’s older, he’ll smell autumn leaves and
be overcome with a sweet sense of warmth that, for reasons he can’t quite
explain, hearkens back to his youth. I am occasionally awash with
feelings like that, nostalgic emotions that I can’t explain, but that
somehow shape me just the same.
Jelly
fingers and bologna puke aside, my husband and I did good. We exposed
our son early to the rigors of the long road trip, the fresh air of the
great outdoors, and the hours-long wait while Daddy peers through his
camera, watching for the moon to rise above the bluffs.
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