Ancient Canoes and Timeless Lessons

Today I flew on an airplane with my 3 children…and read a book.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice from Dear Sugar was the title. A compilation of letters and replies from her advice column found in The Rumpus.

So perhaps that’s why I picked up the proverbial pen to write something a few people might consider advice, but what I’d like to think of as an honest reflection that holds a few lessons which might land and feel and apply differently to whoever is reading this.

Back to the airplane.

I have three children, ages 2, 4, and 6. I’m still in those years that when someone tells me to savor this stage of parenthood, I simultaneously know they’re offering truest wisdom while also holding a keen awareness that if I open my mouth I might say something I regret. Like “Shut it lady” or “Then feel free to take them off my hands for a bit.”

I’m still in those years, yes, and yet I read a book on the airplane.

One year ago, I could not imagine I’d ever be there. I’d never be that mom on the airplane who wasn’t shushing a crying baby or desperately trying to find the wipes in the diaper bag or apologizing to the [almost always exceedingly kind] person in the seat next to me.

For our latest trip, we decided to visit our old stomping grounds in Ketchikan, Alaska for a friend’s wedding on New Year’s Eve.

None could’ve predicted it, but as I just noted, the airplane rides from Florida to Alaska and back went pretty smoothly. The kids mushed their brains on iPads since they have the capacity to focus on games and shows for extended periods of time, and no one peed their pants except for the one who is allowed to because he’s still in pull ups.

They played make believe with new friends in the airport play place for 2 straight hours during our layover and ate airport tacos without unfolding them and dumping the contents on their shirts.

But a few other things happened this trip too.

They woke up at 2am, 3:45am, 4:30am, 5am, and back down to 4:45am during the 5 mornings we woke up in Alaska, thanks to the time change. They did not understand that other guests were sleeping at these ungodly hours. They didn’t understand why breakfast wasn’t immediately available. They didn’t know why the cable TV in our hotel room didn’t work like ours at home where they get to choose what they want to watch.

This was extremely stressful.

At one point I let our just-turned-6-year-old leave the room 60 seconds before us because I simply couldn’t stop him and I told him to read the signs of the native artifact art displays on our floor until we came out.

When we emerged not a minute later with jackets, gloves, hats, snacks, and two other babies in tow at 6:30am after 3 hours of whispered begs for inside voices and no throwing and stop slamming the bathroom door and please stop rubbing daddy’s hair gel on your face…we found our 6 year old talking to the hotel manager.

She informed me that our son had reached through the second story banister to access the impossibly large, ancient, and irreplaceable canoe - the most treasured artifact in the hotel which hovers above the lobby, strung with rope and wires - and proceeded to swing it violently until they noticed the near wreckage from the front desk and shouted for him to stop.

How this all transpired and he was able to gain momentum with a thousand pound canoe in 60 seconds is something only he and God will ever know.

After I promised the manager he’d never be out of our sight again, talked to him about what happened, and called upon every parenting expert’s wisdom to not get wrapped up in centering myself in response to my child’s behavior (easier said than done because I was horrified and embarrassed), we proceeded to load 3 hungry, wired, and whiny kids into the rental car to make our way towards breakfast and beach combing.

We then had a lovely morning. We ate bacon and spent lazy hours spotting seals, uncovering crabs, swinging on ropes, and wading with our rubber boots. We pretended to call to eagles and picked out perfect shells to gift the kids’ teachers. We held hands and ate macarons from our favorite gift shop and exclaimed “float plane!” every time one flew past.

This whole trip was amazing and exhausting and perfect and maddening. It was the worst and the best, full of mom guilt and shining star parenting wins.

If someone says “Was it worth taking the kids to Alaska to visit?”, my answer is a resounding YES. Not because the trip was easy or we didn’t have extremely hard moments, but because we get to choose what to simmer in.

We can simmer in the nearly shattered ancient canoe, or in the way my 6 year old put his arm around his little sister at the beach.

We can simmer in the too-harsh words spoken in dead tired desperation, or the joyous stroll on the cruise ship docks with hot chocolate.

We can simmer in the nonstop redirecting and scolding and feelings of defeat while visiting a beloved friend’s house with tired kids intent on tantruming and breaking things, or we can simmer in the authentic connection, reassuring empathy, and hospitality of people we miss so dearly.

Just like offering me the chance to read on an airplane, someday my kids won’t try to destroy ancient native artifacts or take off their socks in the car so we can’t find them or yell POOP repeatedly at 3 in the morning.

There is good and there is hard. On trips and in life.

Is it worth it? Was it a good trip? Was it a good life?

That’s entirely up to our choice of perspective.

I’m happy to say that yes, it is and it was and it will be.