Across lines.

Hello!

Is there a word for coordinating one’s daughter’s monthly orthodontic work in a city that is three hours away, over mountains, across provincial lines? And then adding a pandemic to that enterprise so that it includes calculating risk factors, making sure we will be able to get back into our province, driving there and back in a day?

Here are two words: extraordinary work.

In Thailand’s terrible fourth (Delta) pandemic wave there are only a handful of provinces that are experiencing single digit infection days and ours is one of them. As much as it is in our power, we feel responsible to not disturb that trend. So we drive three hours, get some dental work done, eat some food, pick up one or two things, and drive back, touching down as little as possible.

And somehow, somehow, because I am with the best people I know, it still manages to be magical, dusted with light, sparkling, and poignant. Is everything poignant now? Will it always be so? Kenya is the one with braces, but this time I scheduled dental work for two other kids as well, so four of us—Kai, Solo, Kenya, and I—drove over the mountain together. Have we ever gone somewhere far away in that precise constellation of family members before? I don’t think so. Our life has been so home centered in the last year and a half. We are travelers who have found ourselves suspended. So these three children in a car together for a day felt interesting, new, exploratory.

There is nothing like a great sea change to make you appreciate what you have.

Kai and Chinua are leaving in less than ten days to start Kai on his new life as an adult in North America. His journey has a few steps, starting with living with dear friends of ours in California while he waits for his Canadian citizenship certificate to come through. Chinua is accompanying him to help with the practical aspects of becoming independent. And Chinua will visit family (big sigh of happiness). It has been four years since we have been in that part of the world and we feel the ache of the distance and length of time away.

The trip is coming up quickly so as we drove, I soaked it all in. The landscape is all jungle now, overgrown with vines in every shade of green. The air is unbelievably humid. It is hard to remember the burning arid air of a few months ago. It’s also hard to remember a time when Kai and Kenya were having difficulty getting along. The rifts that occured with stretching and finding identity as teenaged close siblings have healed. It is a balm to be in their presence. They have learned to hold different opinions with respect for each other. They have learned how to listen and how to laugh things off. 

And I don’t want to forget any of the moments of these journeys. The way we danced in the car to our choice of Daft Punk radio, especially at the red lights that took the longest to change, danced until the car was shaking. The laughing and the way they always point out my odd choices of words or behavior. (Ever present.) 

I have to turn my eyes away from them, they glow so brightly to me. I have to turn the intensity down a full half rotation. This is casual. This is the normal way that life goes. Of course Kai knows how much we love him. We want him to fly and to be free. We want him to expand.

I hold back the tide so it doesn’t overwhelm him. So it doesn’t make this part of his life all about me. This is what mothers do. This is extraordinary work.

Last month when we went to the orthodontist, the constellation was Leafy and Kenya and I. It was also beautiful, in a different way. Leafy and Kenya’s friendship is sometimes almost symbiotic, a completely different thing. Relationships are living, in a way, a creature of their own, and theirs is a fluffy thing that skips rather than walks. 

We saw a man driving a motorbike in front of us, wearing a vinyl backpack that looked like a black geometric turtle. I said “It looks like the Elon Tesla truck,” at the exact moment that Leafy said, “It looks like the Cyber Truck.” 

“Is that what it’s called?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

Then, a full five minutes later, he murmured, “The Elon Tesla truck…” to himself in what can only be described as awe for how someone can be so jumbled. (That is the age of mother I am now. It’s a milestone.)

 I don’t want to forget the way they meet each other’s eyes over something like that, or the feeling of walking while surrounded by people who are as tall or taller than me, as Chinua says: we made a forest of people. I don’t want to forget the occasional pangs of sorrow in my heart over this flight. These remind me of my love, of all the years we have all loved one another in our home. These have been some good years, they have been the most extraordinary, best work.

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