August 2007
Editor's Note
Yesterday afternoon I stood waist-deep in Lake Wallowa in eastern Oregon, hesitating before I slipped from the dry summer heat into a wash of chilled lake water. We are on a 15-day road trip to Colorado, and we’ve detoured off our route for a few days at this idyllic spot, reminiscent of a 1950s resort town.
Now I sit in the cabin we’ve rented, with an early morning mountain breeze chilling my bare feet. My husband is off on a bike ride, and our two youngest – the children in our family who can still be talked into road trips – slumber in the Murphy bed.
Whenever I take a vacation, thoughts that have been kept
submerged by the ping-pong pace of daily life, rise to the surface, like
bubbles in a lava lamp. As I sit here, a memory wells up of another time
I stood in a lake, another summer morning when I awoke at first light,
no alarm clock necessary.
That August morning almost a year ago, I slipped on my bathing suit and
tiptoed out the door of the Orcas Island cabin where we were staying.
It was my oldest daughter’s wedding day, and as I crossed the cold
grass, I saw the bride-to-be standing waiting for me, wrapped in a beach
towel, with her younger sister next to her.
My daughter Sarah possesses a mighty ability-to-plan-and-execute gene
that is either deeply recessed or missing altogether from her mother’s
DNA. One line item in her breathtakingly thorough and thoughtful wedding
plan was to immerse herself in the waters of the lake at dawn on her wedding
day. It was her adaptation of the Jewish mikveh – a ritual immersion
in water marking important transitions in a woman’s life.
Sarah went in ahead of me, and we hesitated waist high in the water. As I stood there dreading the cold bath, I gazed at her 28-year-old shoulders braced to take the plunge into water and marriage and thought about how many times I had watched those same shoulders set themselves in a determined stance before taking a brave step – starting with the day she took her first step as a fiercely determined 11-month-old. She dove in the lake and I followed, as I have so many times.
One of my biggest misconceptions before becoming a parent
was that I would be the one leading my children to new places. There has
been some of that, but mostly they’ve taken me where I may never
have ventured, both emotionally and into the world. Tomorrow we’ll
pack up our bags and continue on, a journey inspired by my lonesomeness
for my 26-year-old son and a desire to check out his current home in Aspen.
No doubt in the coming days your children will take you many new places,
both inside yourself and when you explore the world together.
As I sit in the cabin at Lake Wallowa, there is no trace of autumn in the breeze coming through the window. But I know it is lurking up in the mountains, so we had better get going. The start of school is around the corner. I hope we all can savor those places our kids will take us in the last weeks of summer.
Ann Bergman, Editor/Publisher
abergman@seattleschild.com
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