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Romantic Weekend Getaway
by Karrie McAllister
We had just finished ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. The cabin table was brimming with playing cards, coloring books, and a board game with too many pieces.
There isn't too much to do but entertain yourself when spending a weekend in the woods with two small kids, and some mothers might cringe at the fact that there is no TV and no parks. Just miles and miles of springtime Ohio forests with deer hoof prints pressed in every inch of soft mud and a soft glow of green in every direction. Yet each chance we get, when there isn't a swimming lesson or a birthday party, we head to the family cabin which by most standards is in the middle of nowhere. We have learned well how to entertain ourselves, and how by doing that we have made our family life all that much richer.
Regardless of how rich life is, it seems every afternoon around 1:30 my morning coffee must officially run out. It's then, with a full tummy from lunch, that I insist we all lay down and read some books. "You don't have to sleep, just rest" I tell my four-year-old, knowing full well that by the end of the second story, she'll have those sleepy chemicals running through her princess body.
Today, being a Saturday, was no exception. By the end of the second story, both children were breathing in that slow deep way that lets me know they've entered into dreamland. And I was well on my way, too, but something woke me up. Something peaceful and yet exciting.
The chance at solitude. I drug myself from the warm bed and headed to the kitchen.
My husband donned his muddy boots and headed out the door to tramp through the woods and listen to those inner natural instincts he ignores during his work week at the office. I turned off the radio broadcast of a sports event and put on a pot of coffee trying to flush that sleepy feeling from my veins. While Mr. Coffee bubbled and spat, I dug into my bag to pull out a favorite CD. I smiled. No one is here to complain about it. No one will request someone else or say something unappreciative of my music.
I sat in a big chair that can comfortably hold me and both of my children and noticed how different it feels without them in it. Roomier, yes, but not quite as snuggly. I sifted through the bag once again, past the Franklin books, the tiny book about dinosaurs, and the big book of fairy stories, all the way down to a favorite book of essays that I've read at least three times already. My husband can't understand how I can read the same book over and over, and yet he's never bothered to read it once. "Just this one essay," I plead. "It will make you think and sweeten your life."
The essay, called simply "Romance" is written by Robert James Waller. I suggest it become mandatory reading for every person who might forget, from time to time, the good taste of your mother's spaghetti, the good feeling of a dog laying on your cold toes, or good literature on a particularly pleasant afternoon. You will learn that this definition of romance has nothing to do with love, but instead is an indescribable feeling. You can know this romance, but never be able to understand it.
By now the coffee is done, and I pour in extra cream to treat myself. I flip to my favorite song on the CD and sit down in the big chair just as the acoustic guitar starts playing. Steaming coffee in one hand, my book of Waller in the other, and nothing else. Nothing.
I am taken back to my college years when after living with my best friend for three years, I moved into a single dormitory room, experiencing solitude for the first time. I tended to wake up really early, even after being up until 2:00 a.m. writing papers on sedimentation rates in the desert or the formation of coal bodies millions of year ago. My late nights were not romantic. My early mornings were. I spent them with good music and the best coffee I could afford, reading something I didn't have to. I had the pleasure of being completely alone, even in a building full of people, and having no sounds but the ones I made. It was rare and precious.
My dorm room was indeed mine and only mine. I surrounded myself with things important to me, which I always thought was extremely important, and I still do. Back then it was a pair of snowshoes, a poster of a jeep driving through the mountains, and a copy of the words to the Wreck of the Old 97 written out by my dad. I've still got all of those things, but they are tucked away. Now as I look around I see my kids' artwork taped up all over the walls. A number of princess dolls are set up along the fireplace. A tower of blocks has recently fallen down all over the floor.
Times have not changed that much – I am still surrounded by important things.
During my second cup of coffee, the CD ends, and instead of simply going to the next disc, it stops playing all together, almost for a reason. I'm left with silence and the thoughts of what makes a life romantic swirling through my head.
I remember again the early mornings in college, and I rethink my afternoon. I look up at the door where my children are napping. Their silence has offered me an hour to sit and think, free of disturbances, about romance in my life then and now, and I realize that life's sweetness does more than change. It grows, building on itself.
It is important to me to share what I've learned with my kids. I know they'll have to figure it out the hard way, most likely, what impact romance has on their lives and how much they need it to survive.
I enjoyed my time alone with books and memories in the big chair. I've got it all warmed up and ready to share with the two little bodies upstairs that I hear beginning to stir. After all, they are what makes my life full. I know this because I have their pictures hanging all over the refrigerator.
Still drinking as much coffee as she did in college, Karrie McAllister is a mid-western mom who hopes her kids will somehow turn out normal.
Her column, Small Town Soup, appears in local newspapers as well as online at SanityCentral.com, and is a stretch from her pre-motherhood days of coal mines and earthquakes.
Karrie adores any type of adult conversation and can be reached at KarrieMcAllister@aol.com.
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