Away We Go: Storm

Less than six hours from home and less than twelve hours into eighty six days of being on the road, we landed hard.

It began with a toy not packed. Midway there was a shirtless, furious seven year old stomping alongside a park road alone. At the end there was a thunderstorm worthy of its Texas roots.

There is no way to predict these things. Today may be a good day. This minute may be a neutral one. None of it will last. Which is impossible to remember when you're being kicked in the shins by a human that occupies a large part of your heart.

It's hard to believe that he was screaming in glee while bombing down a mountain bike path an hour ago. That he was the one who rationally told his brother to use his words so we could understand why he was upset. But I suppose it's hard to believe I was someone who used to wear high heels and sing opera (neither especially well).

Perhaps he was taking a page from the size of Texans hats. Or maybe it was being in the desert again after a few months away. Or maybe the anxious energy bubble that had surrounded me for a week had expanded to include him too. No matter, a toy left at home led to narrowly dodged gravel, six sets of spectators eyes, and a reminder to myself that no amount of physical consequence was going to fix this. 

Time and breath. Both so indistinct. Elusive and ephemeral and exactly what we need to mind. It took all of my 42 years of experience to keep the burning anger and the choking fear of larger things thrown or said that I knew were going to come in the future. I barely had a lid on it. How could I expect his seven years to confer enough wisdom and control too? How could I hold his hand through this monster of a dark tunnel?

I knew from the past that we had at least an hour in front of us. I needed to get him away from people because too much of my decision making would come from how others perceived this. To give us both the best chance at success, solitude was the answer. One of the best things about camping was that getting outside was easy therefore our brains had the best shot at success.

So I tried. Of course that meant he headed right towards the road, then down it, then into a parking lot. Granted, there were fewer people here in this canyon in northern Texas than there would have been at, say, the football game down the road, but enough of a crowd to ratchet up the number of things I was concerning myself with.

So he walked and ran and stopped and I did too. I felt a little like a hunter. I guess I was, trying to find the angle through which I could deliver some kind of reminder of how secure and loved he was. Even though that was the last thing I felt. But I signed on to caring for undeveloped humans so that meant pushing through this too. Not the way I wanted to spend our first night on a much anticipated three months in the West.

But there we were. It ended almost exactly an hour later. By ended I mean we were in the vicinity of our camper and I finally gave up trying to communicate. I had tried all manner of words, including telling him how I thought he felt and why, asking him to name his feeling, remarking on the birds in the bushes, asking whether he wanted his shirt back. All met with a furrowed brow and a mouth set to silent rivaled only by the by the most recalcitrant of teenagers. I followed close enough so that I could intervene if there was an actual emergency. Also wondered if an actual emergency might be the thing to whisk him out of this funk. What kind of person sort of wishes for a crisis? Apparently, desperate ones. Like me.

Closer to our campsite I let him be. He could go find out this desert’s teeth on his own. He could experience the howling wind and the rain that was so close I could smell it. I was out of patience and energy and laid down so that the only thing I could see was tent fabric, soon covered with drops hurled all way from above the canyon walls.

I hoped the storm would flush our brains of the sharper parts of the evening. That if I did get awake in the dawn hours, these feelings would have less of a grip. Maybe I’d even forget some of the details and in doing so be able to smile along with him.

A few of these things came to pass. A few did not. Now I knew that in Texas, everything is bigger - including the meltdowns.

Inspired by events in Palo Duro Canyon, Amarillo, Texas.