Hair Washing Memories

 

(My boys on a similar trip a few years later.)

 

Many summers ago, my father, my two sons, who were about fifteen, and I spent a week canoeing in the backcountry of Ontario's Algonquin Park.  One acquires a layer of uncomfortable grunge on such expeditions, and so I planned to clean off in the water about midway through the trip.

 

 

(A portion of Algonquin.  I think that on this trip about which I am writing we were up in the square jutting north off the map.)

 

 

We camped on a small peninsula jutting into one of the hundreds of lakes marking Algonquin and, as the sun began to set, I eased a canoe into the water and paddled to a nearby stretch of rock for some privacy.  I lathered myself up as completely as I could while remaining dry, and then slipped into the frigid water.  My goal was to rinse hair and body as thoroughly and speedily as possible so that I could clamber back onto the rock and dry off before I was frozen into a pillar of ice, never to look back.

 

Afterward, there would have been fleece clothing and a campfire, packs hoisted into the trees to discourage bears, and a night curled up in a tent.  A routine evening, its memory merged with others.  But I do recall clearly the beauty of that cold bath in a remote lake as the sky lit up with streaks of evening sunlight.

 

That interlude was what I thought about this morning as I engaged in the arduous task of wheeling my scooter to the kitchen sink, washing my hair, wheeling to the tiny half bath to sponge bathe the rest of me, and wheeling to the living room to dress. 

 

I have nothing to complain about on this icy day of yet more snowfall; I am warm and safe inside.   But I decided that I much preferred to daydream about Algonquin while I bathed than to focus on the effort it takes to accomplish the same thing this month!

42-48/60

All three kids are actually in this photo, along with my last stepmother.  Josh is in the foreground ~ canoe trip in the backcountry of Algonquin (Ontario).  (I had told my dad after a couple of trips that we needed to schedule in days off for relaxation!)

 

 

Getting closer to that birthday . . .

Like all families, we had our difficulties.  During my forties, as my kids moved through elementary and middle school and into high school, there were some bumps in the road.  OK, more like craters and mountains.  We had some triumphs with our careers and our children's lives ~ Josh was able to live in France for a year, for instance ~ and we also experienced some real disasters.

I have no idea why some kids glide into adulthood and others careen forward and backward and sideways.  No idea at all.  I do know that the latter path is  hard on parents and siblings.

 

A friend of mine spoke to me in desperation one day.  One of her children was in serious trouble; a colleague's son had just been admitted to an Ivy League University.  Another colleague, congratulating the other mother, had exclaimed, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!"

"What kind of tree does that make me?" my friend queried sadly.

"A gorgeous one,"  I said.  "There is no telling or predicting this s--t."

Here's what I finally concluded.  Some parents are luckier than others.

So profound.

Some parents get to engage in what on the surface seems to be a nonstop sequence of applause for prizes captured, championships won, scholarships granted.  (Even for those parents, the surface is often merely just that ~ a glimmering sheen concealing family traumas and dramas.)  Others are dealt the early morning calls from the police station, the unexpected pregnancies, the new jangle of acronymns ~  AA, NA, etc. ~ the afternoons in trauma centers or the mornings in chemo rooms, the string of failing grades, the endless sequence of 504 meetings.

We got a hefty dose of both sorts of categories.

Eventually I came to believe that sometimes we are offered opportunities to learn more ways of loving deeply than are usually available. 

I think my song for those years might be Hotel California ~ "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Josh

I've had reason to think about Josh all morning.  Not that I don't, always and every morning. Theoretically I am putting together a report for tonight's meeting, figuring out a direction for Sunday's sermon, developing a new idea for a retreat that I'm leading in a few weeks, and procrastinating the eventual trip out into the five degree day.

But mostly I'm thinking about Joshie, and looking at pictures.  Herewith, some of which some of you have seen.

In the fall of 2004, with both boys not returning to college until the end of September, there was time for an early fall backcountry canoeing trip with my father and his wife.  She would be diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after the trip, in part because of questions raised that week by her coughing and weakness, but in September, all were full of good cheer as they loaded up in our back yard:

 

It's cold in Algonquin in September!  I'm not sure how it was that Josh was charged with the task of setting up the tent; maybe Matt was at work on the other one:

 

 

 

Matt, looking prepared:

 

 

For a couple of days, the boys left the older folks relaxing at the campsite and headed further into the park on their own.  Josh was evidently in charge of navigation as well, and so they promptly got lost:

 

 

Josh, pretending to know where he was going:

 

 

Matt, paying the consequences of misadventure, in mud up to his waist

 

:

The triumphant return:

 

 

It's good to remember when life was really, really wonderful.

A Belated Celebration of Canada Day: Images of Algonquin

Josh - 1999 - Almost 15 and about to start high school.

Brothers - 2002 - Almost 18 and high school seniors.

Josh - 2002 - We convinced my dad that we should stay at one campsite 

for two nights for some R&R.

Loading up for Algonquin - 2004 - My dad and his wife, Jewel, 

and Matt and Josh. That year, the trip was for just the four of them.

Josh - 2004 - Almost 20 and a college sophomore.