Friday, October 16, 2009

“TRAVEL” MONOTATION - one image, one word, meditation - A daily visual meditation with one word to create space for personal reflection.Created by Spencer Burke. http://MONOTATION.com - Some images are available for personal use on a variety of products (journals, note cards, prints and wearables) at http://www.zazzle.com/MONOTATION*
originally posted by monotation

so i've been writing this post in my head for a week now, and i had all these great, witty things i wanted to say, things i wanted to observe about my upcoming trip. and then time got away from me and i have to be at the airport in less than an hour so i'll just have to be brief.

i'm heading to virginia today for my grandma's 90th birthday party, which is tomorrow. and leading up to this event, i've been so excited. i've bought new clothes (fall-ish ones, which i won't be able to wear around here for who knows how much longer), i thrifted a beautiful samsonite hard-shell suitcase at a yard sale at the end of our block last weekend for TWO dollars, i have had visions of me, looking like something out of an anthro catalog, walking down the runway, aforementioned suitcase in hand, looking glam and polished.

at first i had no idea why i was having these fantasies. maybe i'd just been looking at too many anthro catalogs for inspiration (because lord knows i can't actually buy most of what they are selling).

so i thought more about it. did i really need a break that badly? well, if you have been around my 2-year-old lately, then you would probably say yes. but no, that really wasn't it. had i just been working too much and needed a forced break from it? (because i'm not taking the laptop--gasp!) well yes i have been working way too hard lately (just ask my kids, who are incessantly bugging me to "get off the computer and play"), but that wasn't it either.

then i realized what it was: i just needed to be a "grown-up" for a couple of days. because what excites me the most (of course i'm excited to see my family) is going to an airport (by myself), drinking a latte (by myself), putting on headphones and listening to music (by myself without anyone asking me how to make a robot or why the sky is blue), reading a magazine from cover to cover, reading a...wait for it...book even?!, taking a carry-on with only my clothes in it (instead of my clothes plus diapers plus sippy cups plus wipes plus a tacklebox full of toy cars plus elmo board books), and having (uninterrupted) grown-up conversations all weekend long.

that sounds like heaven. and it made me think about the things that mothers sacrifice, whether we like it or not, to be moms. like coolness (because, after all, who can push a cart-plus-race-car-combo at the grocery store and look hip?). or like sanity. or fresh, unstained clothes. not to mention sleep. let's not even talk about that.

but really, solitude. and i'm not a person who needs lots of solitude. but i think this weekend, more than anything, i'm hoping that those quiet moments during travel will refresh my soul and allow me to just be a grown-up.

in exchange for this, of course, (because there is always an exchange) dad will be playing mr. mom and giving up any solitude whatsoever (along with probably most of his sanity) so i can be gone.

so he deserves a triple latte and a night or two off when i get back for sure.


5 comments:

Amy said...

I hope you have a wonderful trip and feel refreshed when you return. And how about a shot of your "anthro" look! I am sure you look superb!

Kristi Drennan said...

amen! enjoy!!

Elise A. Miller said...

I get that, down to the $2 samsonite. Being cinematically childlessly chic. Mythic.

Karin said...

so living vicariously through you.

sew nancy said...

yes!
i get this completely.
i want to be the girl in the catalog too