We arrived in Bend in the late afternoon and I dropped the kids off at the hotel while I went to wash the car and fill the coolers with ice. When I got back, both kids had taken a shower and changed clothes (thank God) so I grabbed their empties and started a load of laundry. Samantha is a big fan of the store Buckle, and she spotted one near our hotel, so we dashed over to do a quick tour through the store a half hour before they closed. She found a pair of trendy “mom” jeans and asked me what I thought. I made the mistake of sharing my actual opinion, which seemed to make her want them all the more. I’m still learning to adjust to having a teenager.
I paid for the jeans. I still had to get the laundry into the dryer, so we hiked back to the hotel and both kids immediately plugged into their devices, grateful for the unlimited access to electricity and free from Dad’s constant admonishments that “when the battery is dead, it’s game over.”
“What do you guys want for dinner?” I asked, but they were both gone, lost in the blue glow of their iPads. It’s different from the early days of Man vs Machine, when they were nine and five. I wondered on our first outing if they were too young to really get it, the incredible places we went, the vast magical expanses of the country and the slow uninterrupted time that we had to be together in those spaces. Now I wonder if it’s not the opposite.
I think it gets progressively harder as we get older to slow down, unplug and be present in the moment. For myself, I find my thoughts wandering to what emails are piling up in my inbox, where we’re driving next, what’s for dinner. And now I see it in Samantha too. She’s thinking about what her friends are doing, what next year (9th grade) will be like. It’s not that those things aren’t important but if they crowd out the now, then they need to be recalibrated.
Not practicing what I preach, I thought about tomorrow. We had a mere 100 miles drive north to Mount Hood and then three uninterrupted days in the most spectacular creekside setting under old growth trees draped in moss. I reserved the same site that we had in 2016 and it offered just what I needed—nothing but the sound of water and the smell of a campfire.
I looked at them again, flopped out with their heads down. I opened DoorDash on my iPhone, ordered us a pizza and hit play on a playlist.
LA’s fine, the sun shines most of the time
And the feelin’ is laid back
Palm trees grow and rents are low
But you know I keep thinkin’ about makin’ my way back
I’m New York City born and raised
But nowadays I’m lost between two shores
LA’s fine, but it ain’t home
New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more
“I am,” I said
To no one there
And one one heard at all
Not even the chair
“I am,” I cried
“I am,” said I
And I am lost and I can’t even say why