Tour de Midwest

We spent the month of July in the Midwest- 3 weeks in Minnesota, and 10 days in Iowa & Missouri. While we traveled, I worked on an article for a parenting website entitled, “How to travel with kids- don’t”.

Post 3 hour flight to Minneapolis

We have traveled with the girls since they were born- pretty regularly, I might add. And while some trips are magical, most are not. Each time we pack up for another trip, I feel like I am playing a form of Russian Roulette: will this trip be magical or miserable?

Maybe it’s how my brain works- to categorize a memory as great or horrible, when in reality, it falls somewhere in the middle. Traveling with kids can take you to some of the highest highs- experiencing beautiful moments together. And it can also bring you to the lowest of lows- food poisoning induced projectile vomiting at the same time as explosive diarrhea, on the nasty floor of a hotel bathroom. But mostly, travel with kids brings you to a lot of ordinary, meh, moments.

The kind where kids ask how much longer at the beginning of a 10-hour road trip, the monotony of foraging for the apple pie Larabars in foreign grocery stores, the grumpiness that ensues over the course of adjusting to a time change.

How Alice really felt

All this to say, while I could write about our travels out of the magical lens, I can assure you they were not.

We spent a lot of time “traveling” on this trip, despite flying to Minnesota to reduce travel time. I think as a mom, I spend an inordinate amount of time planning and worrying about the transitions- the logistics of moving a months worth of luggage into the car, out of the car, into the airport, getting the family through security, going potty enough times before boarding the plane, getting off the plane, getting to the baggage claim without losing a child, retrieving a large amount of luggage, acquiring a rental car, moving luggage and children to the rental car, driving to VRBO, moving the luggage (AGAIN)….. blah, blah, blah.

AND YET.

We were able to see our families, and the girls got a lot of good quality time with people they otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to see. They camped with the Uppgaard grandparents, visited aunts & uncles, played with cousins, and spent a week at a cabin up in northern Minnesota.

We celebrated my Dad’s retirement at a truly magical surprise party. Fireflies made their appearance as the sky darkened and toasts were made. All the more magical? We got a babysitter for the kids that night.

On our last day in Minnesota, we learned Alice had COVID. And then I tested positive. And then Avery got it. Chad somehow remained immune.

Luckily, my in-laws had an exposure prior to our arrival… so we all holed up at their cabin in Missouri. We tubed, went on boat rides, and fished. I love running the hills in Missouri, but unfortunately, COVID dashed my running dreams.

In Iowa, we went to the county fair, watched the hot air balloons, visited the cows, looked at soybean plants up close (have you ever?), and played in the sprawling yard.

Iowa beauty

Throughout the trip, I read Jane Eyre. And a quote that struck me was, “There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”

And I think that quote perfectly sums up how I felt about spending a month with family. It was a month of being loved by people we don’t see nearly enough. It was a cram session of memories, a hustle to see all the people we love, it was lying on the couch late at night re-living childhood memories with my siblings, countless times of yelling, “Reel, reel!” as I watched Alice’s bobber slip beneath the surface.

It was a drinking from the fire-hose kind of trip. It was listening to four Nancy Drew audiobooks on car rides, it was Chad vowing he would never listen to another Nancy Drew. By the end of the trip, we were bleary-eyed and so ready to be in our own beds.

5am airport, bleary-eyed, and ready to be home

Or as I told Chad, I was so ready to be home so I could be grumpy, and let down my “on-personality mask.”

We have been home for three weeks. I got my grumpy out (sorry Chad), and have never loved my bed quite so much.

I will leave you with a poem I wrote on a dock in Minnesota:

Attention

The loon calls

As the last rays of sun stretch through the sky

Creating contrast, definition

Anchoring 

.

The trees with their leaves

Now black, against the horizon

Clouds above 

Waves lapping below

.

A bird trills

And a fisher casts his rod

Line, whooshing 

Horseflies dive bomb 

.

I am minute 

in this wild world

.

The sky is pink, 

Clouds purple

Horizon still pierced by rays

.

The colors are pastel,

The air is matte

Ducks swim home through the reeds

.

I am contributing nothing to this moment

But my attention

And for a moment,

All is right

MN Sunset

Wildflower

Country music gains a new dimension when listened to while driving through the country. The dirt roads, open fields, and endless blue sky add depth to the music; a new understanding. It’s one thing to hear it, another thing to be in it, completely submerged.

As we drove up and down country roads, the should-be exhaustion from a day filled with travel melted into calm. Our view was lit by a pastel sunset, hay bales, and cemeteries backlit by a gradation of colors. Black tree silhouettes stood firmly in the fading light. And I found my anti-country-music-self, humming along to Garth Brooks.

Dusk fell, and my eyes widened, trying to catch a glimpse of the fireflies that I knew were in the fields.

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We took our annual trip to Iowa and Missouri, where Chad’s family has a farm and lake house.

Again, I found myself running up and down the endless hills of Missouri, trying not to die on the uphill’s, and distracting myself with views that only country roads can supply.

I was surrounded by open fields of wildflowers with farmland in the background, dotted by hay bales- a stark contrast to the houses that sit 4 feet apart in Florida, every inch of ground being developed and marketed.

The flowers gave me a good excuse to pause and catch my breath as I closely examined them. I ran among the milkweed, chicory, Carolina horsenettle, and wild carrots.

Coming from flat Florida, my legs were not ready for the rolling geography. I ran, fully present to a moment that contained both pain and beauty, focusing on just getting to the next patch of red clover, the next crack in the sidewalk, the next.

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As my legs whined over-dramatically, I tried to distract myself.

I wondered how long it took for the flowers to spread across the fields. I wondered if certain wildflowers are more likely to grow next to each other- like friends.

I wondered if they were scared, when they took root. I wondered if their end goal was covering entire fields, or if they just focused on the beauty of the square inch they occupied.

One wildflower is beautiful. But a whole field? It’s next level.

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It wasn’t until we were back in Iowa, bumping across the dirt roads that I spotted one, then many, fireflies rising from the ground. After tucking the girls into bed, I stood at the window, watching as they lit up the night.

One firefly is awe-invoking. But a whole field? Next level.

These moments, for a suburb girl, are pretty magical.

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On the plane ride home, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t have noticed the wildflowers if I hadn’t been stuck in the oxygen-deprived, gasping search for air as I ran up and down the hills. I wouldn’t have seen the fireflies if it wasn’t dark out.

Sometimes, I purposely put myself into these uncomfortable situations. Like when I laced up my running shoes and coaxed one foot in front of the other. Other times, I find myself in these situations as inevitably as day transitions to night.

Dark, but with beauty.

I’m intrigued by the combo. It seems they are often paired together, dark moments the perfect backdrop for the beautiful ones. Darkness, accentuating the light.

I don’t know what it means exactly, but I do know that we all experience darkness in one form or another. So the next time you find yourself in the dark; whether self-inflicted, or inevitable, find your wildflower or firefly to focus on.

Find your light.

Laura

PS- including links to my recent work published outside of this website:

You Don’t Need Another Parenting Book

Mom Jeans

I’m Not the Mom I Intended to Be

Letting go, Letting in

Everyone from a state that experiences winter knows that in the autumn, the leaves fall off trees. Right? Right.

But have you ever wondered why the leaves fall off? Or what prompts them to begin falling in the first place?

It all begins with a cascade of hormonal changes in the tree. Chlorophyll declines, as do auxins, signaling to the tree that it is time to begin the act of self preservation: cutting all unnecessary energy expenditures that could be fatal in the frigid winter. With shorter days and less daylight, leaves are no longer worth the energy they require to maintain.

The leaves change color as they lose the chlorophyll that normally keeps them green. As they lose their chlorophyll, the tree stops receiving signals that the leaves are healthy and cuts them loose.

This, my friend, is the science of beautiful fall colors and large leaf piles.

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The afternoon sun back-lit a blue Ford truck loaded to the brim with items that had filled our Minnesota house. I brushed the dust off my pants, half relieved that we had managed to complete the task, half anxious at the thought of parting with these goods.

We were in Iowa, and had just spent the morning sorting through our belongings that had been in storage for a little over a year. When we came to Florida, we only brought two car loads full. We had rented a fully furnished condo, and by fully furnished, I mean down to towels, kitchenware, even Christmas decorations.

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And now here we were, back to look at the objects that made up most of our daily life back in Minnesota. Objects that we had packed up, not knowing where we would land or when we would see them again.

We did just fine without our “stuff”. Thrived, actually. But the moment I saw our boxes, I couldn’t wait to rip them open and soak in the presence of inanimate objects. Objects that I couldn’t even remember.

Mainly I loved looking at everything because it stirred old memories that my brain had filed in the deep abyss of unnecessary memories.

I hugged a quilt that my Dad’s employee had made as a gift for Avery prior to her birth. The quilt remained on her bed from the moment we weren’t concerned about SIDS all the way up until we left Minnesota.

I found the 3 candles that I bought right before Chad and I got married. I purchased these candles to decorate our little downtown Minneapolis apartment prior to our wedding so when we returned home from our honeymoon, it would look Christmassy.

The scent of these candles evokes immediate thoughts of fireplaces with cackling fires, cozy sweaters, and the excitement of Christmas preparations.

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We went through each box to determine what would be helpful in our new home; more so, what we couldn’t bear to part with. As for the rest, we cut it loose, knowing that its baggage outweighed the benefit.

We pared down our belongings from a trailer-full to 17 boxes that we mailed to Florida.

It was another goodbye. It was a goodbye that was easier than hugging family and friends goodbye, but a tough one, nonetheless.

Having a trailer full of things in storage back in Iowa had been like a security blanket. Mentally, I was able to tell myself that there was still a good chance that we would return home, and settle down in the Midwest, close to family.

The goodbye to our stuff was a goodbye to a hope for a future in the Midwest; an alternative life path that always played in the back of my brain.

These leaves were no longer helping us. Instead, they were an energy expenditure that was no longer beneficial for us to cling on to.

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After shipping off the last of our things in storage, we drove from Iowa to Minnesota to celebrate my brother’s wedding.

I soaked in the beauty of a Minnesota fall. The leaves were a magnificent array of colors. The air had a crisp feel to it.

I moaned. Chad raised an eyebrow. “I just wish we could live here in the fall, it is so gorgeous.” To which he retorted, “Yeah, but it only lasts 3 weeks and then the leaves are gone and it’s negative 30 out.”

Certainly, he has a point. The tree’s do lose their beautiful leaves. And it is sad. They hunker down for a bleak winter, looking rather barren without their leaves. But by spring, they wake up from their dormancy and create buds, flowers, and leaves.

Maybe the trees have something to teach on letting go. They do it every year, saying goodbye to the leaves that make up a large part of their appearance- of how we identify them- of who they are.

Sometimes we have to let go to survive. Sometimes, a part of us that was once helpful and healthy is no longer, so despite our positive memories, we must cut it loose.

Sometimes we have to let go to create space for what can be, and what will be. We have to let go to find space to more tightly hold on to the things we love.

Happy Fall, y’all,

Laura