The Mountain Adventure

We were somewhere in Texas and the mountains set off in the distance as a reminder that we aren’t at home anymore. There were several precursors to this realization: breaking down in Nashville, breaking down in Memphis, showering and sleeping where others had been less than 24 hours prior, eating out of the car, fatigued legs from inactivity, lots of tears and heart wrenching moments of Turner asking to go home or needing to hear one more time that Chi wouldn’t be at our new house. So while there were signs that we no longer even had a home, when those mountains appeared in the distance after days of Texas nothingness, I cried. Those mountains symbolized the passage into a new life. A life of school, being too busy to be the kind of mom and wife I want to be, a life where Turner would go to preschool and fall more in love with his teacher than with me. Tears slipped down my cheek. I didn’t want Andy to know I was crying…again. Those mountains were majestic in their far off beauty with nothing leading up to them to shadow their height or rugged landscape. The cacti dotted the rocky soil. The clouds clustered around the top, showering it with relief from the hot sun. I wrote this in the car when we first saw the Texas landscape change:

The mountains look cartoon-ish. The sun is blazing on the desert and the spiky vegetation only to be blocked in twenty feet circles by fluffy, white clouds. A shadow is cast lending one’s imagination to believe what s/he sees is drawn by hand rather than created by divine wisdom. Each segment of the dry Earth is alleviated from the direct sun momentarily by the passing of low marshmallows in the sky. It is stark, but refreshing to appreciate landscape finally. Thus far our trip has been marked by tribulations and our fatigue from these trials. Today our countryside has changed from small town nothing of Texas to the desert of what is to soon encircle our new life.

So I was writing about the landscape, tears fell because I was, again, feeling sorry for our family all alone in the great unknown, and then Turner took a quick sabbatical from his Cars movie (at this point in its second viewing of the day) to exclaim, “Look Mommy. Mountain. Yeah! Mountain.” Why was he excited about the mountain? I’m not sure. Of course, I’m not sure why I was so heartbroken by something so beautiful either.

“Yeah Buddy. It is a mountain.” I wiped the tears and faced him in the back seat. He was smiling and in an instance I was reminded why we were making this journey. “Do you like the mountains?” “Biiiiigggg mountain, Mommy.”
“Yep.”
“Look Mommy.” An arm that grew at least a foot last night points out the other car window. “Another mountain.” I look and shake my head. “A bigger mountain.”
“Yep. That is a bigger mountain buddy.”

Fast forward a week. We are driving around Tucson doing our best to cram all the errands we can into a day, as we’ve done for four straight days. Turner is cordial in his car seat for the ninth day straight. I’ve broken down and given him pop tarts, which I think he loves more than suckers. The mountains shelter Tucson from seeing very far into the desert. They surround the urban sprawl on three sides, and Turner points at the mountain at every turn and exclaims, as though it is the first time, “Look Mommy, mountain. Yeah mountain!” I’m remembering this fondly now, but after so many days of struggle and errands that turned into hours of waiting in line, in nasty chairs, in people’s offices, in the hot sun, I was not as fond of Turner’s exclamations at that point. He was, and is, so excited by the mountains. Now, as I reflect, I understand (or think I do) that God was gently pushing us to enjoy perhaps the best aspect of Tucson. We were spending our time worrying about every bad thing Tucson was and symbolized to us. I was lost in my want for something friendly and familiar. Turner was intrigued by the difference and beauty.

After Turner awoke from his nap today, he and I went on an adventure. He has been asking to go up the mountains since we first arrived. We haven’t had the time or we haven’t had a vehicle to go, but tonight we had both. So, Turner and I packed a dinner that we ate in the car (cold pizza, banana, pop tarts [yes, he’s still getting to eat pop tarts], and pretzels). Not exactly the most balanced dinner, but it was portable. We drove up into the mountain and with every hill Turner and I sang our “Going up, up, up” song. Every dip and downward sprint we threw our hands into the air and yelled “wheee” as though we were on a roller coaster. We did this in Lexington too and had abandoned it during our journey here. I figured it was time to remind Turner that trips can be fun again. We make it a little into the mountain (I have no idea what its name is) and we pull into a parking lot to go hiking. I ask if he wants to go hiking. I don’t know if he knows what that means but he jumps from his seat and asks, “Like you and Chi?” Now, Chiara and I went hiking once, and Turner did not go with us. How does he remember this stuff? (A question I ask a lot).

I give him his responsibility (he has one everywhere we go). Since I don’t have pockets, I put the car key in his pants pocket and tell him it is his responsibility to keep it safe (the pocket velcroed shut). We walk to the water and watch it rush down the mountain while we stand safely on the bridge. I tell him it sounds like being at Grandma’s house. I start to get lost in this memory until he pauses from his vision and says “Grandmother?” I tell him no, that Grandma Bow has the creek at her house. A moment later I remember that Grandmother has taken Turner to the creek at her house too, so I correct myself. We tire of watching the water and we begin our hike up into the mountain.

Ventana Canyon has probably thirty miles of trails. Most begin from Loewes Resort with a 2.1 mile trail that serves as the feeder trail into the many, many others. Turner and I climb over huge boulders, squeeze through tiny spaces, splash in the water, race through the sandy passages, and watch the fire ants prepare for winter. He rides piggyback for about a ¼ of a mile up the mountain over some big boulders that were challenging for me to climb over with my long legs. Turner was content to ride once he failed in his attempt to climb over the first boulder that was chest high on him. We stopped and appreciated the sun setting in the distance. We admired the tall cacti that probably had been placed there by God himself (apparently cacti are one of the slowest growing plants in the world; it is illegal to do anything to any type of cacti in the state of Arizona because they are so slow growing). One cactus was at least thirty feet tall. A large hiking group ahead of us stopped and took several minutes’ worth of pictures of it, so Turner and I stopped and admired it for a long time as well since it seemed a novelty. We saw a bunny rabbit cross our path, but we couldn’t chase it into the prickly brush. A large Cardinal bird flew over and all at once I felt a piece of home. I was carrying my favorite little boy on my back, his hands clinging tightly to my shoulders, his breath in my right ear, his trust obviously in me, out in nature, soaking up the fresh air, enjoying the 70 degree temperature at 6:30 pm, watching the Kentucky bird grace us with a moment of familiarity. I put Turner on the ground and stoop to hug him. I thank him for coming hiking with me, for being such a great companion. He smiles and from no where in particular he says, “I love you Mommy.” And just as quickly, he is gone, rushing up the trail to achieve the mountain. “I’m hiking Mommy. Hiking the mountain. Com’ on Mommy.”

I follow him for twenty more minutes as we wind our way through the rugged landscape, never really getting close to going up the mountain but changing our elevation, according to the guide way in front of us, by 1,000 feet from Tucson’s center. When we decided to retreat home, Turner stops suddenly while a bird tweets in the bushes. “The birdies are talking to me.” Turner says this often when birds are making noise around him. I always inquire about the conversation, but he never has a response. We sat down on a large rock (I’m ever alert for snakes because the snakes here aren’t the snakes at home) and I ask Turner what the birdies say. He thinks. He listens. The bird speaks again. He thinks. He turns to me. “They say tweet, tweet Mommy.” Oh, well now that is cleared up. “You keep talking to the birds. It is much nicer to talk to them than to yell at them.” “Otay Mommy.” He had been yelling at flies and gnats throughout our hike as they pestered us. I tried to explain that flies didn’t speak English. I told him later they didn’t have ears. He corrected me and said everything has ears. I guess this is true; in some way or another all animals can use their senses in the way we use our ears. Finally, I just shoo the gnats away too and we run together to dodge them. Like everything, it becomes a game that he will always win. How precious is his life! I hope I can adequately share his moments with words so our families and friends don’t feel as cheated by our absence. We can’t apologize enough to you all for leaving. Yet, we can’t dream high enough for the possibilities for Turner. He will only know how to search for dreams by watching his parents struggle for theirs.