Back from the wedding, Part I

Been back fro awhile, actually. But Monday was recovery from the weekend, and Tuesday I was incapacitated with mystery illness.

The trip as great, starting with the trip itself. Erin rented the car and came to pick us up, a little late, at 11 a.m. I'd burned my Ultimate Road Trip Playlist to two CDs. Actually, it wasn't quite my URTP, since I'd accidentally deleted the first part, and had to quickly reassemble it from memory. Among other things, "Everybody Gets Laid Tonight" by the Hammerheads got left off. But I put some new ones on I'd not thought of before, so it was okay.

Apparently 5 and 2 are the magic ages for long car trips. We hypothesized that it's to do with language; once you can make sentences, it's easier to entertain yourself with your thoughts. Regardless of why, the interruptions from the rear were minimal, and it was the most relaxing trip to her mom's we'd had since... well, since Grace was born.

And we discussed. We discussed everything. We discuss anyway, of course, over McDonalds while the kids romp in the playground, over coffee after the kids are in bed, over hot wings and beer while the kids try frantically to wipe hot sauce off their tongues (joke). But nothing's quite like discussing things on the open road, for five hours, while the Allman Brothers sing about ramblin' and the box of the everyday is left another mile behind as each minute passes.

We talked about our marriage. It was a weird thing. All either of us can figure is, our kids really needed to be born.

Grace was conceived months after we were married, in what may have been her first ovulation after we'd gotten the sex thing worked out, and we had her name ready for her from the very beginning.

While Erin was pregnant with Eve, a friend of hers joked that, to complement "Grace", we should name her "Nature"... then weeks before she was born (and we still had no name for a girl), Erin's best friend walked up to our table at McDonalds and said, "I've got it! "Eve"!" And hearing it seemed more like remembering than realization.

Then after Eve was born, it seemed like it was done. For Erin especially, there was a feeling of doneness, even though it was a great pregnancy and easy, stress-free delivery. The feelings and realizations that led to the end of our marriage started flooding in after years of repression, as a direct consequence of the pregnancy and birth of Eve.

And then, when it came, the pain was over in days -- it was almost as if we felt it merely out of a sense of expectation, of obligation. As Erin put it on the trip, and I agreed, it was like something from a fairy tale, as if we'd been sucked into this weird little world for a few years, and then our stay was over and we were dumped back into the real world. We'd been left marked by our stay there, and of course we'd brought back the girls. But we're both just beginning to remember what we were like, as aspect of us from that life fall away -- I've been thinking for awhile now that the monster thing, which started a comment of Erin's long before we were married, has gotten old and doesn't really feel like who I am anymore.

So yeah, we discussed. And though this may sound bittersweet as I relate it here, it wasn't that way; it was simply fascinating. And liberating. And wonderful to talk with her like that.

I'd made lunch -- smoked turkey and American cheese on a roll, and I'd made hummus and my amazing broccoli spread (didn't get to make pita, so we ate these on wheat bread as sandwiches and it was terrific). Several apples and bananas. We still had to stop for some snacks on the way, that's how road trips are. With the pauses for Grace to tell stories, etc, the two CDs lasted almost the entire trip.

We pulled in at 4:45, when the night-before-the-wedding dinner at Marty's (the groom's) house was at 5:30. We had a quick clean-up and off we went, me in my snazzy Bruce Lee shirt and jeans, to meet the new in-laws.

to be continued...