MountainMornings

Every time we travel, I learn something new. For instance, I’ve never heard of a sneaker wave. We’re not talking Nike variety, this is a particular kind of ocean wave that is like a mini tsunami. It usually follows a relatively calm number of regular waves and sneaks up on you, rolling beach walkers out to sea.

On this trip to California I’ve been getting a lot of sneaker wave feelings. Sitting at Twohees on Father’s Day watching a clown make balloon animals for the Twins; touring the Rocker and Kiki’s new house with their contractor: watching the girls play in water fountains at the botanical garden, suddenly my eyes well up. All the feelings just bubble to the surface and I’m lost.

Thinking about my son’s determination as a child, his ability to focus and his undeniable talent as an artist. Did I know when he would spend hours with his friend in our garage making stop motion films that he would grow up to lead a band in our garage?

And that band would take him around the world and land him in LA to make music for the film industry.

And did I think that in his 40s he would become the sweetest girl dad and the kindest husband? Parenting is such a crap shoot. We do the best we can at the time, and for some of those early years I was not as present as I should have been. I wasn’t happy leaving the Berkshires and living in suburbia. But eventually I came around, and found my tribe and started writing for a different newspaper.

I threw the baby Rocker birthday parties at the beach. I encouraged his curiosity. And I made tiny pizza bagels for the boys in the band and told the bass player to read Dune, never knowing that my son would work on the movie trailer. That he would compose music for Spielberg’s Disclosure Day.

Now I look at the Twins toddling around, both playing a harmonica while learning lots and lots of words like: Wow; Monkey; Car; Fish; and best of all NANA! Oh and when one girl gets excited, and starts to scream, the Rocker looks her in the eye and asks her how she’s feeling?

“HAPPY” she says.