Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Moon of the Cold Month<\/p>\n
Kate sees this trip as vacation; I don’t.\u00a0 Family related travel, the bulk of what I do, has a different purpose and feel.\u00a0 It’s about relationships and the hard work necessary to maintain them.\u00a0 It has the flavor of duty, but duty in a positive, not an obligatory sense.\u00a0\u00a0 The hard work has its pleasures, yes, lifting Ruth up in the air as she giggles, helping Gabe push his toys around on the floor, but it also has its rough edges.\u00a0 A relationship with a sister, troubled since birth, breaks bad in a new, more intense way after she becomes pregnant.<\/p>\n
The parents of young children face a plethora of challenges, too, noise and activity levels after a hard day at work, insistent demands for attention, keeping the kids safe indoors and out, little time for themselves separately or together.\u00a0\u00a0 None of this is new, this is the ancientrail of child-rearing, but it is one meant to happen in an extended family.\u00a0 In our case, as in so many, many others, children and grandchildren live in one state, grandparents, uncles and aunts live in another.<\/p>\n
This means that much of the work of the extended family must happen in short bursts like this one for face to face time, and then over new technologies like Skype, less satisfying, but much better than the phone.\u00a0 Face-to face\u00a0 allows temperature taking, a sense of the lived reality of day-to-day life, while Skype gives a brief glimpse into a sometimes hectic moment.<\/p>\n
None of this was ever meant to be easy and it’s not.\u00a0 It is, at the same time, the most satisfying and long term work most of us have in this life; it certainly is in mine.<\/p>\n
All of which is to say that I could use a vacation.\u00a0 You know.\u00a0 Turn off the cell phone.\u00a0 Turn off the e-mail.\u00a0 Stop the newspaper and the mail.\u00a0 Board the dogs.\u00a0 Get on a train and maybe a ship.\u00a0 See something new or something outdoors.\u00a0 Kick back.\u00a0 Read.\u00a0 Workout.\u00a0 Climb on a ruin, or wander down a forest trail, see a new museum.\u00a0 That sort of thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Moon of the Cold Month Kate sees this trip as vacation; I don’t.\u00a0 Family related travel, the bulk of what I do, has a different purpose and feel.\u00a0 It’s about relationships and the hard work necessary to maintain them.\u00a0 It has the flavor of duty, but duty in a positive, not an obligatory … Continue reading Family Time<\/span>