Houston, Texas. My father lives here. I never planned to visit Houston; in fact, it was the last place on earth I ever would have gone. But, for reasons I cannot yet fathom, I changed my mind and my carefully planned itinerary, and took a long detour and drove to Houston.
I was born and raised in Chicago, but spent a good part of my “formative” years in Houston. You know, the really pleasant teenage years….bad cloths, loud music, rebellious. I was a willful and stubborn kid. Its possible I had some positive qualities too…they were just hard to come by given my preoccupation with asserting my independence and wearing a sort of “smarty-pants” attitude on my sleeve. No doubt it was a real challenge living with me. But the real problem in our household is that there were two of us…nearly mirror images of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Physically, I look more like my mother, but I think and act a lot more like my Dad. As sure as the sun rises every morning, there would be a clash between my Dad and me. “A clash" is of course an understatement, friction eventually came to define our relationship. As the child, I was the recipient of my Dads often harsh and immovable positions. At the ripe old age of 17, I packed up my bag of hurts and left home. I finished high school, became a single mother and put my self through college…all the while stoking my internal drive with the mantra of “I can do this...he'll see”. I was hoping to earn some love and respect.
Fast-forward 30 years. I now have a great family of my own, my career took off, I live in a charming town in New England, I traveled all over the world, and have a circle of friends whose company I truly enjoy. I love my life. The only thing that has slowed me down is the weight of that damn bag of hurts I keep dragging with me. It actually got a bit heavier over the years. Over a relatively short period of time, I lost my mother, my younger sister Cindy and one of my older sisters, Linda. I stuffed all that tragedy in the bag too. I keep that old ugly bag mostly hidden away in some dark corner of my soul. I think no one knows about the bag...but I'm not so sure.
I wasn’t sure what I would find once I got to Houston. I hadn’t been back in over 5 years. Silly me, I was even a bit nervous. For moral support, I called a few of my old friends who still live there and made plans to visit with them. I even looked up a friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years and also made plans for a visit. As I drive down the street where I used to live so many years ago, I thought the place looked great. The trees were much bigger, lawns and gardens more mature…it was all very pleasant. I made my way to the cul-de-sac where I saw my Dad waiting for me. I was pulling the trailer and he was there to help guide me up the driveway (hopefully without taking out a mailbox or tree). My Dad looked the same, yet different. He was older….86 years old now. He’d had back surgery a couple of years ago, which didn’t do much to alleviate his back problems, and he limped a bit. Time was marching on for my Dad. As I considered this, I realized time is marching on for me too, and my time with my Dad. He walked me through the house and the yard. A hurricane had recently visited its wrath on Houston, and we surveyed how well his property had survived…a few branches down, and part of a fence in ruins, not bad, not too bad at all. When we went into the house, well that was another story. It looked like the hurricane had hit the inside, with a vengeance. It hadn’t, my Dad just doesn’t like to waste his time on housekeeping. A vacuum cleaner stood in the middle of the family room as testament to an attempt to tidy up a bit. My Dad opened the door to a spare bedroom for me to use and then winked at me and said “this was your room, wasn’t it”…yes, indeed. Memories flooding in like the falls I’d seen in Yellowstone several weeks earlier.
Dad, Tony and Family 10/2008
I won’t take you through a blow by blow of my visit. I was only going to stay 3 days, and I stayed a week. I found a mission in returning my Dad’s home to some sort of order (I’ll admit, this required professional assistance). My husband Scott, flew to Houston to join me and was promptly put to work on mending fences. My Dad delighted in all the fuss. I got him his first cell phone..he loved it as he loves all new gadgets. We had dinner with my sister Linda’s son Tony, his wife and children. My Dad hadn’t seen Tony in quite some time, so it was a bit of a reunion…for all of us. I met with some of my Dad’s friends and watched as he held court, taking center stage and entertaining everyone…something that used to drive me nuts as a kid, I now found pleasantly endearing. One evening, as we sat on the sofa to watch TV, I observed that his favorite things to watch were also mine….science, nature and the arts. What started out as mission or obligation, unexpectedly became a labor of love.
I spent some time visiting with my old friends. Whether we were reminiscing about the past or talking about the here and now, it was as though the years disappeared and our camaraderie was as easy today as it was 20 years ago. I was having a really good time, my first in many, many years in Houston. Thank you Barbara, Kelly, and Greer...you guys are great!
During my last night, I talked (and laughed) with my Dad until 3AM. It was unquestionably the best conversation I ever had in my life, with anyone. It was filled with the really important things; our life together as a family and our relationship, the will to leave a lasting legacy, the importance of friends and being the best person you can possibly be. Forgiveness and generosity in all things were visited...frequently. It was honest, raw and filled with the wisdom and reflection of two people who have walked many paths, too often without each others company. I will never forget our talk, not in all my days.
When the time came to leave, I dawdled about…finding things to do to delay my departure. The truth was, I didn’t want to go. Still, I packed up the car, kissed my Dad goodbye and pulled out of the driveway. I looked at him in the rearview mirror and saw a man that I loved and respected….he was always there, I just never looked with my eyes completely open before.
I checked in on the old bag of hurts, it weighs a lot less….
Whiteshell Lake, Manitoba. Aug 6-7 (~1,700 miles traveled) . In my last post I mentioned that I believed I was getting the hang of all this. I am at this moment sitting at a picnic table in a campground a few miles from the Ford Dealership in Winnipeg. You may be wondering why I would chose to locate myself near a Ford dealership when I have the great outdoors at my disposal. Well, it seems it was my turn to be given a lesson ..or two. While the beginning of this story doesn’t start off all too well…it certainly ends on a positive note…so read on.
I arrived yesterday (Wednesday) in the early evening at the Whiteshell Lake Provincial Park in Manitoba. The weather was fantastic, about 78 degrees, sunny with a light breeze. The park attendant had already left for the day by the time I got to the park. My name with a campsite designation was pinned to the door. I should add that this a very large park, encompassing several miles, and quite a few lakes, etc. As there were no campground maps to be had, I got back in my car and started driving around looking for my site. Thus began “a series of unfortunate events”. I soon discovered that this particular park has a number of dead-end roads throughout. After a few rounds of having to back up a 23 foot trailer in a small space populated with kids, dogs, boats, cars and other campers, I’d had enough and parked on a hillside corner site that was vacant. I got out and started walking the campground in search of my site. I vowed to always walk the campground instead of driving aimlessly, kicking up dust and disturbing the other folks. I eventually found my site, and walked back to my car and trailer. As I approached the trailer, it became clear to me that I had picked a poor place to park it. I was going to have a difficult time backing down the hill, making a sharp turn and avoiding the trees, picnic tables, fire pits and other campground amenities (which I now was beginning to view as obstacles). I vowed never to park in such a place again. To make a long story short, I soon became frustrated with the backing up, moving forward routine and only gaining a couple of feet of movement in the right direction…at some point the trailer was at a 90 degree angle to my truck (never a good thing) and I decided to just push back a little more and, well you guessed it, disaster struck. The trailer jack-knifed; the edge of it hit and shattered a rear-window on my truck. The sound of glass breaking does have a way of disturbing the tranquility of a campground. After some colorful language and a
nother vow or two of things I would absolutely never do again,
went slinking into my designated campsite leaving a breadcrumb
trail of glass shards.
Pelican Island
Back at the campsite I began to contemplate the impact of this little accident on my future travel plans as well taking a closer look at the “damage”. Every time I got near the broken window, more glass shards would fall…it was as if the truck was continually berating me for the incident. Disgusted, I went back in the trailer to make dinner and ponder my options.. After about 30 minu
tes there was a knock on my door. I opened the door to find women from
John Lopes
(car fixing, joke telling loon spotting phenomenon)
a nearby campsite who had come to invite me to join her family and friends around their campfire. This was the first social invitation of my trip, and I must admit that I was a little taken aback and could only respond with “oh, thank you, but I couldn’t possibly. You see I had a little accident and I have to attend to a window that’s been broken”. She asked to see it, so I brought her over to the truck and started explaining what happened. When I next looked up, several more people had come to look at the window, including her husband, John. What happened next is truly a great chapter in the kindness of humanity. Within moments, all these people started to go to work on truck. Removing all the broken glass, sweeping up the shards that had fallen to the ground, vacuuming the inside of my truck, and taping plastic on window frame, etc. When it was all done, I joined them around their campfire. I must say it was an eclectic group of people. There were people from Poland, Ukraine, Portugal, the Philippines (?) and me. The fire was ablaze in the center, casting a warm glow around everyone. John was a non-stop joke machine. When he wasn’t delivering a perfectly timed punch line, he was regaling us with stories about others mishaps at the lake…my own becoming merely another funny footnote in this summers chapter. Between the warmth of the fire and the camaraderie of my new found friends…my troubles seemed to just slip away. At some point during the evening I heard, what I thought was the haunting sound of a loon. I asked others if they heard it…they had, and indeed it was a loon. There are many of them at this lake I was told. I’ve never seen one and asked when the best time would be to catch a glimpse…I was told dusk is probably best, but that they are visible throughout the day. Excellent I thought…I’ll be sure to try to get a look before I leave in the morning. It was after midnight before I made my way back to my trailer, my footsteps considerably lighter than a few hours earlier.
Next morning I went down to the lake at 5:30, camera and binoculars in hand, with my constant companion Maya, trotting along. I waited and watched for an hour or so, sipping coffee and watching the morning mist lift from the lake and slowly disappear. I could hear loons, but I could not see them. It was getting late, and I needed to make the drive to Winnipeg to have the truck fixed. I went back to my campsite and started packing up to leave. John strolled by on his way to the lake and 
asked if I needed any help, or if I’d be interested in a morning boat ride around the lake. I passed on the boat ride (duty calls) and thanked John for the memorable evening. Just as I was about to take off, John came back and said…you sure you don’t want to take a boat ride…I spotted a couple of loons. Perfect. I grabbed my camera bag, and walked
The Elusive Loon
down to the dock and hopped in the boat. In seconds we were skimming across a lake as smooth as glass. John pointed out the loons…a mother with her two chicks..one of whom I was told she adopted. I had the opportunity to watch them for quite a while. We also drove around the lake and I was shown various landmarks, including Pelican Island (the locals call it something else..has to do with all the droppings…I’ll spare you) and another pair of loons. John dropped me at the dock and invited the Gibson clan to visit them at their home in Manitoba anytime. A fantastic morning by any definition.
I vowed never to turn down on offer to share a campfire again.
Water beetle in the morning light.
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