AN OVERNIGHT TRIP

Dear Spike:

Last night, for the first time since you came into our lives, your mother and I left you with your grandparents while we went on an overnight trip to Park City.

It’s not that we couldn’t have done this before. We unreservedly trust them to take care of you. And, perhaps more importantly, we unconditionally trust you to be a good girl for them.

But the truth is that we genuinely like your company. So anytime in the past when people have suggested that we “get away,” we’ve always just sort of shrugged our shoulders and asked “from what?”

But last week your mother and I decided that perhaps we could use just a bit of time to ourselves. So we headed up Parley’s Canyon, went horseback riding in the Uinta foothills, played a round of disc golf at The Canyons, had a wonderful dinner at The Cabin restaurant and took a dip in the swimming pool at The Grand Summit Hotel. We slept in a gloriously comfortable bed and woke up this morning for a lovely breakfast at the No Worries Café & Grill.

And, with that, it was back to Salt Lake City.

We probably could have stretched it out a bit more. You hardly glanced up from the table when I walked in the door.

“I missed you,” I said.

“I missed you too, daddy,” you answered, although it was a rather rote reply.

Maybe next time we go away, we’ll try for two days. Maybe three.

Really though, I’m not chomping at the bit to “get away” again.

Your mother is amazing. She’s fun. She’s interesting. She’s beautiful. And I love her more and more every day. But everything she is to me is better because of you. And I know that she feels the same way about me.

That’s just the way it is with us.

Other people are different. That doesn’t mean they love their kids any less. They simply have decided that, in order to be the best parents they can be, they need some time to themselves. And indeed, it’s true that your mother and I walked away from our experience feeling like “we needed that.”

Next time we “get away,” though, it will most likely be with you at our side. That’s just the way we prefer it — most of the time, at least.

Love,
dad

BROUGHT SUCH BEAUTY

Dear Spike:

You awoke last night in your mother’s arms to the shrill songs of an legion of crickets, the gurgling of the Green River and — barely audible behind it all — a nightingale calling for moon to rise. Fainter still, the wind rustled through the stickly trees and bushes, making a sound like sandpaper on soft wood.

We’d spent the day with our friends in a tiny town across the Colorado border, before seeing them off in a tow truck this afternoon. We then pointed our wagon back to Dinosaur National Monument, where we were met by ancient petroglyphs, primeval fossils, jagged mountain peaks, rainbow-painted rocksides and this glorious desert symphony.

Yes, I thought, this is how camping should be. This is what camping should sound like.

And then, as if in reply, you began to cry.

And cry.

And cry.

And scream and wail and squeal and moan and shriek.

Innately, I wanted to soothe you. But quickly, I simply wanted to quiet you. It wasn’t a full campground — but it wasn’t empty, either.

No, I thought, this is now how camping should be. This is not what camping should sound like.

If there was ever a time in which I fully understood how much our lives have changed, it was in those moments, when your tears washed away the sounds of nature like the Green River washes through these sandstone mountains.

Yes, I was frustrated. But not for a moment did I wish it were not so. Just as the river has brought beauty to this desert range, so to have you brought such beauty to our lives.

The crickets, the nightingale, the wind against the trees — those sounds were here when the ancients painted these caverns walls. Those sounds will be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

We broke camp this morning exhausted and eager to return home. And as you slept, the whole ride back, we laughed at how contentedly you seemed to be slumbering.

Yes, I thought, this is how life should be. This is what camping life sound like.

Love,
dad

DAYS OF SUMMER

Dear Spike:

I knew this was coming. After all, your mother has spent almost every waking moment with you since you were born. It was ineludible that, at some point, she would recognize all summers must end.

She cried at the thought. “Do you think she will miss me?” she asked about the time, a month from now, when she will return to work. “Do you think she’ll be sad that I am not there?”

Of course, I told her, it would be so. I’ve seen the way you sleep, cuddled against her chest as she rocks on the rocking chair. I’ve heard the way you’ve cried for her to lift you from your cradle. And I am not so foolish as to believe my bottle and her breast are the same thing, for you.

I’ve never seen two people happier to be together.

Yes, I’m certain you will miss having your mother at your beck and call. And yes, I know she will miss you, too.

Of course, the reasonable among us would recognize the futility of squandering our happiest moments by fretting over the inevitable. Then again, your mother has never made claim to membership in any gang of reason. Thank God for that, as I’m still here.

By way of trying to make her feel better about things, I reminded her that I was, in fact, not such a bad person to leave in charge of her daughter’s care as she returns to her pre-you duty of saving the world, one kindergartener at a time. I am reasonably responsible, after all. And careful, too (though you’ve taken to sudden squirms and random gyrations as you discover this wonderful thing we call “muscle control,” I’ve not yet so much as stuck you with a diaper pin or dropped you on your head.)

It was, of course, not fear of my parenting that had your mother in tears this evening but fear of how much she would long to care for you herself. And in this matter, there is little I can do to alleviate her angst. For it is simply true that all summers must end.

You’ll learn that, I reckon, at some point between kindergarten and first grade. In the first weeks of August, perhaps, we’ll get to speaking about getting you a new lunch box or purchasing a new back pack and you’ll suddenly recognize the finite nature of the lovely, long and lazy days of summer.

At some point, down the road, you’ll realize that summers not only end but are, in fact, never quite long enough. And at some point not long thereafter, summer will cease to be a vacation at all and simply be — as I am using it at this very moment — a metaphor for other joys of life.

Yes, my child, all summers must end. It is that very quality that makes them so wonderful to begin with.

Love,
dad

HAPPY THIS MONTH

Dear Spike:

I've been looking at photos from our recent trip — most of which picture you in the arms of wide-smiling family and friends from all over the western United States.

You made a lot of people happy this month. Well done.

Love,
dad

NOTHING TO IT

Dear Spike:

I leave tomorrow for southern Utah, where a wildfire twice the size of New York City has made a living hell of this Earth.

I’m a bit wary of this trip. I’m still not sure I’ve recovered, entirely, from our two-week sojourn across the western United States. It was a bear of a drive and I’m still a bit worn out, but I will never forget the weeks that you, your mother and I shared on the road.

You were absolutely remarkable. Quiet and content (well, mostly anyhow) you spent more than 40 hours strapped into your car seat like a tiny little lunatic in our tiny little asylum, as we drove fro Salt Lake City to Boise and from Boise to Bend. From Bend to Portland to Salem and back to Portland again. From Portland to Corvallis to Eugene to San Francisco. From San Francisco to Salt Lake City.

In some 2,500 miles, we crossed mountain ranges and deserts. We saw the Pacific Ocean and traveled through the Redwood Forest. We saw the San Francisco Bay and passed twice through the 45th Parallel — the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole.

You met, for the first time, your maternal grandparents and great-grandmother, your paternal great grandparents, four aunts, six uncles, your God mother and an admiring public so vast that its members could fill every seat in Fenway Park.

And for the first time, you smiled — a toothless, gummy, open-mawed grin on the front steps of the home where I grew up.

You weren’t the only one smiling. Our family spent just about every waking moment together. And I never grew tired of it.

You might think, after spending just about every minute of the past two weeks together, a night or two away from home wouldn’t be such a big deal. I’ve done this plenty of times before, after all.

It’s a routine assignment. I’ll pack up early Saturday morning and be at the fire by lunchtime. Two or three hours later, I’ll file my first report. Two or three hours more and I’ll have sent another. By late Saturday night my head and clothes will be thick with smoke. And I will fall asleep on my hotel bed without so much as taking off my boots.

On Sunday, God willing, I’ll be writing this blaze’s obituary. And then I’ll turn my car north and come home.

Nothing to it.

Except, of course, that this will be my first trip away from you and your mother since you were born. You’re growing so fast. You’re doing so much. I fear I’ll miss something while I’m gone.

And I know I will miss you, and your mother, very much.

Love,
dad