Or, in our case, it begins with Amtrak baggage clerks (crusty Boston guys with soft hearts) taking compassion on this mom and son team, sending us to the First Class lounge.   Sam is pleased with the free newspapers, soda and treats. I'm loving the free wifi (not sure I'll have that after this) and the fact that they will escort us over to board 15 minutes before every one else loads (you know, women and children first).

So far, so good.

We're doing it.

We're boarding the Lakeshore Limited in Boston on Monday, arriving the next morning for a day in Chicago, then traveling on the Southwest Chief to LA, arriving Thursday morning.  I haven't figured out yet whether I am certifiably INSANE to do this (we'll know soon enough!) but I'm also not sure when we'll ever again have a span of days like this, a reason to do it, and Sam's enthusiasm for this kind of trip with his mom. So we're going for it.  At the very least, we'll have some good stories and Sam will remember riding the train across the country with his mom when he was 11.

It did give me pause, I'll admit, when we were in the orthodontist's office for an hour and a half on Monday and the wait just about undid us. We were rolling our eyes and practically moaning--when will we be done? there's nothing to do--and we even had books with us! Joke's on us, I guess!! Next week that little hour and half will seem like an appetizer--no, a bite of an appetizer--compared to the 65 hours on the train.  Hopefully it doesn't end up being our own personal Throw Momma from a Train situation.

So here's my confession: I'm completely romanticizing this adventure.  And I'm okay with that. I have this vision of the Orient Express (minus the murdering) and quality time with Sam.  Maybe I'll begin a novel, a la J.K. Rowling's train scribblings that launched Harry Potter!  Maybe Sam can make a movie! And I'll come up with new insights about life! Plus I'll finish my pre-dissertation work and...and...we can do speeches at every stop to crowds of waiting blog readers, patriotic bunting behind us! I know these are fanciful--I do know--but it's been part of the fun of the planning and anticipation.  

p.s. Do you think it's going overboard to ask G to come and run alongside the departing train with tears in his eyes? With maybe a 1940s suit and a fedora? I have my handkerchief all ready for waving farewell.

During this Independence Day weekend I have been remembering that 4th of July three years ago when we watched Lauren's ponytail swing through airport security on her way to work for Aunt Sue in Ireland.

This week she celebrated her (semi)independence by getting on a plane bound for LA (where she met the rest of her group) and then heading to the South Pacific.

She's been planning this for 7 months, completed the AYS applications, raised money (thank you to you dear family and friends who contributed), wrote lists and packed in preparation for this long-dreamt-of adventure.  She'll be gone for 16 days, with a group of young people (ages 16-19) + 4 parents + 1 expedition leader. They will be building a library in Tonga, working on other service projects, learning, serving, discovering. And some fun thrown in there, too--they stopped in Fiji for a day of snorkeling on their way to Tonga, for example. Definitely working hard and playing hard.

. . .

I have been remembering, too, those pesky Braxton Hicks contractions that plagued me in the last part of my pregnancies.  Life has a way of warning us, of designing rehearsals into our systems so that we can gradually prepare ourselves for the real deal.  I've come to think of these adventures and field trips as another set of Braxton Hicks experiences, just preparing me ever-so-slightly for the time when she--they--get on the plane and fly away into a new life. Ever since their births, the leavings just get longer and more distant, more thrilling and bittersweet.  But it's what I signed on for and I have to remind myself that healthy, sprouting, + blooming independence is a thing to celebrate, not mourn. Right?

I'm writing this from the hammock in our back yard--with wireless access!--and am feeling pretty decadent. Greg has fallen asleep on the bench on the patio, a book open and face down on his chest. Louie is keeping watch from under the bench. The kids are doing homework for tomorrow at the table inside the open door, the long weekend suddenly screeching to a halt as the realities of deadlines and assignments suddenly appear.  (School's not out until June 21st for us. Sigh.) We've made a pact to stay out here for as long as we can because once we go inside, the weekend's officially over.  Someone will want dinner or clean clothes or to talk about the 5872 things we have on the calendar this week as school slowly winds down with one recognition assembly/concert/game/event after another.

Yesterday afternoon, after church and naps, we decided on the spot to take a Sunday drive to Wingaersheek beach in Gloucester. We read out loud in the car up and back, flew a kite in the breeze and watched the sun set. I was so happy with our spontaneity.  And with the lovely, glowing light--the gloaming. Sometimes I look at these faces and am just smitten with motherlove.

And then sometimes, like today, we have silly + emotional showdowns in public at Subway over who owns a certain pair of earrings (+in the process the earrings end up on the floor and no one will pick them up) and the smitten-ness is tempered with a sprinkling of irritation and eye-rolling. It's a fickle pendulum, this mothering thing.  Just when you think you've got it right, you don't.

But still.  I'm dazzled. By who they are + are becoming, by my wide gaps in competence and my abundant weaknesses and occasional bursts of doing it alright, by the delicious aching laboratory these years are. Most of the time we are both kites and kiteflyers: we soar and swoop, rise and fall and we hold on to each other, hoping we all stay both aloft and anchored.  No wonder it's a tangle sometimes.

As luck would have it, my brother Matt planned to come east from Denver right during the same weekend G and I were planning on heading to NYC.  So Matt stopped by Boston, visited the kids, and then drove to the big city with us. G was busy during the days with a conference but the four siblings managed to get together a bit for a rare together time.  So hyggli, so lucky!
 

 How could I resist? Thank you Mr. Elbow Toe.  So true. 

 Matt, Nancy, and I went to L'Ecole, the restaurant for the French Culinary Institute where students run the show. It was lovely. (Thanks to stephmodo for recommending it.)

We walked all around the city (I think I walked 12 miles one day), did The Highline, went to a couple of movies, ate at Hampton Chutney, browsed windows and a used bookstore, talked and talked, attended evensong at St. Thomas Cathedral. 

Yesterday I was on my own so I spent the day at the Met and in Central Park. And I might have gone to Pinkberry for breakfast and dinner, ordering my favorite: original with mango, raspberries, and pineapple.

G was international law guy by day, handsome companion by evening. We ate and wandered and talked and laughed and slept in. Twas a good few days.

As for re-entry? Number one on the to do list: get a replacement retainer for Sam. Louie ate the old one yesterday, if you call 6-days-old "old."  How many jobs does it take an 11-year-old (or a dog) to pay off a new retainer?  We'll find out soon enough!