The Backseat

My husband and I are sitting in the backseat of what used to be our good car which has been handed down to our son. Cole is practicing the route to Council Bluffs for when he turns sixteen next month. This will come in handy for things like soccer practice and apparently dates, he says. Our baby is almost sixteen. Ready to escape.

Our eldest daughter stayed at college this summer, opting to make money and hang out with young adults in a fun town. Since she is waitressing, it's difficult for her to come home on the weekends. And if she happens to come across a free weekend, she'd prefer Chicago over Earling. Go figure. Anyway, I was determined to reunite our family nucleus, so on the 4th of July we met in Des Moines for lunch. We skipped barbecue and fireworks in favor of Chinese food, the bookstore, an action movie, and of course ice cream. (There were actually quite a lot of us celebrating our patriotism this way. I guess that's why they call it America, baby.) Anyway, the day was peaceful and filled with laughs. I felt sad when my daughter departed for Iowa City, since there are fewer and fewer times we get to be together.

When the kids were little, we'd always attend the Dunlap 4th of July parade. It was (and still is) the quintessential Iowa parade: billions of tractors, marching geese dressed up like cowboys, fire trucks who like the sound of their own horn, melty tootsie rolls, and pretty horses who practically wave to the crowd like beauty queens. Then one day as I was instructing everyone to put on their patriotic Old Navy tees before the parade, they asked, “Do we have to go?” It was Independence Day, and they were testing their independence. Sure they were older, but still pretty darn young. My heart tugged a bit, and I realized there would be many more moments like that. I had to adjust to the facts. The kids would continue to grow up. They would continue to have their own interests. They would choose what they really wanted to do, like miss parades. Effectively, they'd be the drivers of their own lives. 

I'm not sure I love sitting in the backseat. But I'm getting used to it. And to be honest, Baby Driver was pretty freaking entertaining. And as long as our kids never outgrow ice cream, they will always be the young toddlers in my heart.

"Kids! We're taking you to parade!"

"Just kidding. How about a movie?"

Best Days

Optima dies...prima fugit. Translation: "The best days are the first to flee."

This particular theme of Willa Cather's My Antonia struck me last weekend as I finished re-reading the novel on our trip to the Iowa Games. It was almost eerie.

best days of our li-i-ves

Cole is a pretty happy kid. But when you set him in an environment with his buddies to play soccer, swim, and watch sci-fi movies... he's beyond euphoric. We could hardly convince him to eat a cheesburger–which is basically his fuel. He was too busy hanging with the guys.

When all the festivities came to that screech of a halt, and we found ourselves on the ride back home, I noticed Cole's glum expression.

"Sad, buddy?"

"I just didn't want it to end."

optima dies...prima fugit.

When I asked him the other day how he would've ranked the weekend, he told me he was waking up every day, wishing he were still at the Iowa Games. He said he's feeling nostalgic. Nostalgic. And he's twelve.

It certainly seems our memory tends to look back and pick out certain times of our lives as the best days. Now that my daughter is edging closer to entering college, I'm constantly telling her how this will most likely be the best time of her life. While it's been twenty-some years, I think back to Iowa City so fondly. The smell of the trees. The scampering squirrels. Walking by the Iowa River to class. I might've even attended a party or two.

The mind seems to do wonderful tricks, doesn't it? Because I'm almost certain my college days weren't quite so picture perfect. My mom might attest to a few teary phone calls. Being completely broke is usually not a lot of fun. And I'm pretty sure I didn't ace every class, like I intended. But I rarely think about those times. I usually divulge my memories with those times when my senses were most happily engaged.

With no disrespect to the estimable Willa Cather, (who actually quoted Virgil), I'm not so sure if the best days are the first to flee. I think it just feels like it at times. Just the other day, I was feeling pretty nostalgic about last summer...and those certainly aren't my first days! As a matter of fact, I'm really looking forward to a few other things (mainly trips) that I have planned for me and my family. Is it possible to be nostalgic about future events?

I was listening to a 90-year-old author on NPR the other day. She was asked about the favorite time of her life. She said her favorite decade was in her fifties. This response certainly could be different for everyone–especially when you're in your nineties. But as I think about how my life has evolved, I have to admit, I'd probably say the best time of my life is right now. Unless a time machine is invented, this is what I'll tell my kids they need to believe every day: The best time in your life needs to be now.

Buddies!

Taking Alex to the Movies

I'm excited. Alex seems to like me again. She has always loved me, but something has changed within the last couple of weeks. Like, she's asking me, like, what should she wear with this shirt, or like, what shoes go best with this outfit. AND, the other day she even asked, like, what my favorite movie was when I was a kid. (I'm a female born in 1969, so obviously my favorite was Grease.)

Anyway, just as I thought we had made it through those rocky, independent years between the age of six and nine, she threw me a curve ball.

"Mom? Are you and Dad gonna, like, going to the same movie as Lexi and me?"

"What? Of course!"

She sighs. "Like, Drillbit Taylor is showing in the other theater though With Owen Wilson."

"So. Nim's Island looks good to me!"

Another sigh.

Sensing my daughter's discontent with my response, I accomodate her. "I tell you what. Dad and I won't sit by you and Lex."

She accepts the terms.

As soon as she and Lexi receive their concessions, and before we receive ours, they shoot off into the theatre to secure prime 2nd row seats among their other friends. I spy an opening in the third row, directly behind her! Perfect.

"Ugh! Oh, Mom. You are,like, so lame." She didn't quite get the joke, I guess. So, I am sent back to my husband who looks quite comfortable in the assigned parents' section. "We're getting old, Hon."

"Yep," he states happily devouring the buttered popcorn.

But I'm a bit saddened. Watching the kids' expressions was as much fun as watching the movie. Well, at least I shouldn't miss any lines in the movie. Or have to take a potty break. Maybe.

But guess what? I can still hear her cute little laugh. Even from the parents' section. It makes me happy. No matter how old she is, her laugh makes me happy.