girlonahalfshill

I am increasingly aware that the stories the boys and I will collect this summer are scattered – each of us remembering different bits and pieces, connecting to different moments with different people, some moments captured in this blog or that one, an Instagram post, a Facebook update, a text. A large segment of the summer’s experiences await publishing, dormant in the Olympus camera; intermittent blips in the landscape, periodic blind spots. Our hike in Denver, Mesa Verde, Covert Park at Mt. Bonnell in Austin, the Botanical Gardens. They all await download in August.

Other moments garner immediate applause: the Facebook posts, the Instagram pics. I’m striving to avoid spending the summer lost in my phone. There are many moments, though arguably not enough, when I choose to set the camera down in favor of being present and capturing the moment in memory.

I have hoped that the boys are ready to absorb a lot of this trip, that they’re ready for the history and geography, that some of the dynamic differences between the different states will seep in, that they’ll be left with a lasting appreciation for the vastness of the country and the variations. I am not sure how well the country as a whole will be represented. Our travel clusters around so many liberal epicenters: Denver, Austin, Nashville, Philadelphia, Madison… but there was our time in Oklahoma, we head to Houston tomorrow, we’ll be dipping into South Carolina and traveling through Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. Still plenty of territory yet to cover.

Tonight, before I gave up on the fading light and set my phone down, I snapped one last picture in the twilight on the bridge over the Colorado River. The photo cannot hope to do the scene justice. The skyline was lovely and stood proudly above its liquid reflection. The boys, Bryan and I soaked it in and watched the train sweeping by on our left.

This trip is unwieldy. It’s unreasonable and preposterous. There’s a reason that I haven’t published the itinerary – it’s slightly obscene, or at the very least, ostentatious or ridiculous. It zigs and zags. It has repeatedly refused compression or efficiency. It is impractical to multiple faults. And it’s wonderful. It is very, very literally a trip of a lifetime. It is the trip of my lifetime. It’s not the high point of my existence, but it may be the closest thing to a legacy that I have to offer my boys. It says, Life doesn’t have to be reasonable. It won’t be. It doesn’t have to make sense. Logic and reason are not to be sneezed at and should be embraced and turned to, heeded and referenced, but it is every bit as essential to recognize the moments to run amok, to explore, dig deep, get lost and to learn that these moments will shape us, change us. That we fall in love with imperfections, that beauty lies in the pursuit, exploration and foibles. That the emotional and social supports the rational and logical. That indulgence has its place.