Up!

Travelling with a baby is so easy. I got this.

My overly optimistic brain boasted as I packed up a 22.5-pound car seat, a Thule off-road stroller, a pack and play travel cradle, dozen wardrobe changes, 6 bottles, 20 ounces of fresh breast milk in an insulated container, five stuffed animals, four rattles and a couple pacifiers.

I admit it now, I was cocky.  

For decades I was a single guy with a ‘no pack, no plan’ approach - rigid about my ‘never check a bag-nothing in the overhead’ rule. Once I flew to Madrid without even a toothbrush or change of underwear.  I had mastered winging it.  Travel for me was about exploring and escape.

When my son was born, everything about travel changed. Especially my compass.

There was only one place I wanted to go. My birthplace. The small untouched stretch of Oregon Coast.  I like to say that its saltwater runs through my veins. I wanted my son to experience the essence of the place even before he had words to try to describe it.  I wanted the light breeze that dances just above the morning waves to brush against his new skin, the fresh salt air to seep into his soul and the roaring sound of the undertow to become his default soundtrack for planet earth.

Mostly, I wanted him to spend as much time as possible with my aging parents.

My mom calls him extra because he was totally unexpected. There is a 19-year gap between him and the youngest of nine other grandchildren. Over the years I watched my nieces and nephews frolic in the farmland and run on the beach of my childhood home. Nothing can prepare you for the feeling of watching your own son traipse through electric green grass, moo at the cattle gathered to meet him, hold your parents’ hand as they read to him from your favorite book and hug a ragged stuffed animal he found in your childhood room. 

The minute we got the go ahead from the doctor and the social worker (he was being adopted and the paperwork took many months more than we had expected) we were off.  As my friends were embarking on journeys to trendy beaches in Tulum and Icelandic hot springs - I boarded the plane to from Burbank to Portland.  (Travel tip: Skip LAX. Burbank is like Mayberry - easy in and out)

“For me, travelling to somewhere new was replaced with traveling to somewhere meaningful.  It became less about exploration and adventure and more about meaning and connection. ”

This wasn’t just travel – it felt like time travel – I was catapulted back to my childhood.  We stretched out in my favorite stretch of forest for a tree hugging hike, stood on the iconic beach rock where I had contemplated marriage, suicide, divorce – where I felt the first feeling I would be a father though I had no clue how. 

We visited relatives – where he was hugged and kissed and swung around by aunts and uncles and cousins - what seemed like hundreds of new hands and faces. 

The jewel of the trip was a coastal drive along the 101with my dad. We treked to the small fisherman’s village my son is named for and where my father was born. There’s a long bridge that separates Oregon from Washington and just over it, a small glade of land called Eden Valley where they settled from Sweden - farmers there, farmers here. On this green rich fertile landscape, they put down their roots.

As with most travel - the seemingly unimportant unplanned moments make the journey memorable. That afternoon as we drove back, we drifted in and out of conversation, swinging back and forth between the mundane and the meaningful.  He had made this trip countless time but for sure this was the first time he pulled over at sunset - and overlooking the Pacific Ocean fed his 3 month old grandson a bottle.

I watched the two of them become a shadow as the sky yellowed and we experienced a moment I will never forget.

Here at the end of the earth - I thought about the edges of life. Beginnings and endings. I thought about all that had to transpire for this moment to occur. This is the kind of travel that doesn’t get memorialized in scrapbooks or stored in the icloud to download later. It gets imprinted in our unconscious memory. 

A few weeks later, we returned to LA and in my utter exhaustion, I exclaimed, I’m never doing that again. 

But we did. Again. And again.

We made this same trip nearly every month that first year of his life. By the 4th of 5th time, we were down to one bag and a stroller checked at the gate. I breezed through security in minutes - handing over the breast milk to the agent beforehand so that it was tested and cleared to go before we were through.  He was smiling and waving at the gate agents and TSA. We were pros.

Takeoffs and landings were playtimes and I had learned who to ask for help when I needed to go to the bathroom or when his favorite ball rolled down to the front of the plane.  And as far as packing - I didn’t obsess about it.  When you are traveling with purpose, it doesn’t matter what you pack or how you prepare. You just show up and the journey is something that happens inside of you as you go outside of yourself.

He was a frequent flyer by the time he was 21 months but then the pandemic hit.

We are not able to travel, the way we used to. The quick decisions and light planning are over. I am so grateful that we over-traveled early on. Now, it seems like we were stocking up on memories - the way the rest of the world was stocking up on toilet paper. 

So we waited - with the rest of the world - to leave our homes.

It took 3 months, a couple negative COVID tests before we were back on the road. But this time it was a very long 17 hour drive with a toddler, a dog and half dozen face masks before we were back in the place we love with the people we adore - but that journey is another story - and a whole other blog.