Andy and I spent this most famous of Canadian long weekends in Skaha, a rock climbers' paradise located in sagebrush-Ponderosa pine country near Penticton, BC.
The boys spent the weekend in Victoria with their dad.
This is the second year in a row that Andy and I have driven out to meet our friends and spend the weekend climbing rock, hiking, talking, laughing, and drinking the odd beer. Not to mention basking in the heat.
Andy says I do all right on the rock seeing's how I hardly ever climb otherwise.
Maybe that's because I'm always climbing something in my life.
Particularly where it concerns living the part of my life which doesn't include the boys.
I remember the pain in Andy's eyes when he first realized that this sense of loss I felt when the boys were not with us was not something fleeting, and that it was hard for me to enjoy myself when the boys were not with us. He told me it made him sad that he couldn't make me happy all the time. I was surprised that he took it so personally. This was, I thought, about me.
Well, this weekend, it was not so much about me. It was about seeing the quality of the bigger picture: Andy and I enjoyed each other's company in a way that many couples with kids rarely do; the boys experienced that part of their life that doesn't include me. I was able to lose myself in the enjoyment of company, comestibles, and cragging. It was all right to enjoy myself even though the boys were not there.
We're back home in the coastal rain. The sun and heat are just memories imprinted on our tanned skin. My fingertips are abraded from clinging to gneiss crimpers. My toes are sore from being jammed into minute little sedimentary divots on the rock wall. Andy's building a fire. Emu cat is exhausted after tearing around the house to celebrate being released from our travel trailer. Magic looks like she never moved off her pillow beside the fireplace. The boys are back tomorrow.
"What would it look like," psychologist Allison Rees asked me, "if you were okay with these separations?"
It would look a lot like this weekend.
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