My oldest son and I had the privilege of a non-traditional Thanksgiving with a rare 72-year old bird. We will call him Dad. Last summer, I had the privilege of another three generations trip with my Mom and daughter.
One of my favorite coping strategies for this thing called #adulting is travel and escapism. And when you combine these things with a parent and a child, it feels like a genie came out of a bottle. Pure effing magic.
Our trip with Dad was great. After the loss of his wife, he remains humbled and honored — and in true Dad fashion, incredibly hopeful about the next 20 years. We honored her by going to one of her favorite places, Quebec City, and into all of her favorite shops. We also honored her by eating food and climbing steps that she would never have wanted to do. We made some rad new memories!
Traveling with three generations is the ultimate reminder of convergence of age and truth. As we get older, truths change, and new truths emerge. And it is great when they converge. I love this picture of Charles tying Dad’s shoes in which he responded, “how in the hell do you tie shoes like that?” Left handers, Dad. Left handers are awesome.
It was magical to be sandwiched by two men who are navigating two very different phases of life. Both are dreaming and planning — but with age and truth as very different bookends.
Youth gives us the luxury of having no timeline. With age, our dreams and plans require more of a timeline to ensure we can squeeze it all in.
Youth gives us the luxury of naivety. Anything and everything is possible. Age gives us the wisdom to know that regardless of what happens, it will be the right thing.
The truth is that dreaming keeps us alive and thankfully not all of our dreams materialize; but the right dreams always do.
Age and truth. I am grateful to have experienced some of my favorite bookends with some of my favorite people on earth — Love you madly, LCK & CKC.
p.s. And for those of you that believe in signs from the angels living and working amongst us — we stayed in two low budget, non-traditional places. We had room #38 and then room #308. Debra was born on October 3 and died on November 8. Alleluia, friend.