Carrie Link

"And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings, this he said to me: 'The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.'"

Eden Ahbez, 1908-1995


At this very moment I am typing while my overly tired, highly emotional and couldn't-be-cuter thirteen-year-old son is two feet away watching some show on TV designed for preschoolers.

I feel loved, and so does he.

Now.

All summer I've had a vacation planned, my idea of a vacation, anyway. A trip to Sisters ALL ALONE. A whole week of just me, myself and I. Solitude. Silence. Serenity. My "you've almost made it through the summer" reward.

I've had a canvas tote bag sitting on the floor of my closet for two weeks. Every time I thought of something else cool to do on my vacation, it went in the tote: I Ching coins and book, Do-It-Yourself Tarot, a book on following the way of Mary, a step-by-step pilgrimage, if you will. I was going to wake up in the high desert air after a uninterrupted 10-hour a night sleep, throw on a bathrobe to cover the chill from sleeping with the windows wide open all night, and turn on the coffee. Then I would sit on my meditation cushion and do one woo woo thing after another, after carefully recording my deep and prophetic dreams from the previous night.

Rojo had been hip to the plan for weeks, even doing a big, "YES!" when I told him Woohoo was going to the lake with a friend for a week, and I was going to Sisters, and it would just be the three generations of men at home: he, Daddy and Elmo.

Saturday he was fine, then suddenly burst into tears, "I am sad you are leaving." He's never articulated his feelings so clearly and directly. That seemed to pass, so I continued loading the car and eventually left, arriving late afternoon in Sisters.

Sunday morning I rose with the birds, was deep into my woo woo, basking in the fact there were six more days of this stretched before me, and getting excited to go for a walk, then coming back to do some real writing, after months of pretty much B.S.

The phone rang. STM. "We have a problem here. Your little boy misses his mom. He hasn't eaten anything since you left. He won't stop crying. I think you need to come home."

I threw everything back into the canvas tote, quickly made the bed, tossed food into an ice chest and hit the road.

So it is that Rojo and I now have a week together that will be one thing, while I'd planned on another. It will not be a week of solitude, silence and serenity.

Instead, it will be a week of solidarity.