After months of planning and preparation, my daughter’s Big Day arrived and–it seemed—departed in the blink of a mother’s teary, happy eye. I adore my son-in-law, who I dub the Best SIL Ever for more reasons than just his good choice to marry my daughter, but a wedding is still an ending in some ways, especially if you’re a single mom who raised your kiddo nearly all by herself. So what’s a tearful new mother-in-law to do, but head north, to the breathtaking beauty of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, specifically the Platte River area.
It’s raining as I drive north, and I ponder how to best get the tent set up by myself without getting it or myself too soaked. It is nearly dark when I arrive, and too wet for me to bother with a fire, but too early to just pitch the tent and go to sleep. I have had the same small 2-person tent for many years I got at Target for $20, and to my surprise, has held up quite nicely for a tent that I figured would last maybe one season. Two shock cords make it super simple to get the tent ready, and as I get my sleeping bag, clothes, and reading materials situated, the rain turns into a deluge.
I hunker down with my book and listen to the rain, thinking about the look on my daughter’s face at her lovely wedding, and cry big wet happy emotional mom-tears. Eventually I realize that all the wetness on my face isn’t dripping just from my overly full heart, but also from the ceiling of the tent. After all the years, this is the first summer I forgot to water proof my gear, and after being in the elements so many times, the tent definitely needed some help to repel the water.
It’s an easy fix and gets my mind off my “blues” — I simply drape a plastic tablecloth that I had leftover from the dessert table, and had luckily tossed into my camping gear last minute — over the top of the tent, and voila, no more drips. I’ve brought that same tablecloth with me now on each camping trip since and been glad to have it several times. I remember thinking to myself, “What on earth will you do with that, Lisa?” but I’m so glad I listened to my gut and not myself (however that works).
In the morning, the rain is quiet but steady, yet I’m able to make coffee and breakfast over my little campstove, tucked under my umbrella I have balanced in the crook of my arm. Canned white potatoes fried in butter are a camping favorite of our family, which I’ve determined is probably because of their high sodium content. I am not a “sweet” person, meaning my flavor pallet of choice is savory, specifically salty. These potatoes were a staple on the many camping trips with my daughter over the years, so I indulge myself with a little fat and salt to get my day started, and head out for a walk in the woods.
There is something about a forest during or just after a shower….the dripping leaves, the hushed dampness of the forest, and the smell of the earth rising up make me feel simultaneously young, invigorated, and reverent. Even as I begin to cry again – this crying! I had no idea that the aftermath of the wedding would be such an intensely powerful event. I simply cannot stop crying for long. I am not outright sobbing, but the tears just stream as I walk the peaceful trail to the shore, the steady raindrops falling from the brim of my raincoat’s hood.
By the time I get to the water’s edge, the storms (both the internal one and the external) have mostly passed, and I find I am just exhausted. I sleep on the shore in the wet sand, listening to the waves, for what feels like a long time. I awake soaked through, and stare out into the water, in somewhat of a daze, as wave after wave rolls in and crashes at my feet.
Eventually I’m hungry and head back to the camp, where, after making lunch, I take another nap, but not before crying a bit more (really? more tears?!), and when I awake this time, I feel more refreshed and laugh at myself a bit. Such weepiness. I shake it off and head out to discover more nature, and am not disappointed.
This pattern continues — cry, sleep, hike, cry, sleep, et cetera, intermixed with cooking, reading by the fire, and sometimes biking instead of hiking. The weather begins to clear a couple days in, and my heart is feeling lighter. I’ve met the “neighbors” who rolled in during one of the torrential downpours, and because the kind woman was peering worriedly into my streaky face, I confess to my fragile psychological state, saying limply, “My only daughter just got married.” She laughs, pats my hand, and says, “It takes about a week”. A mother of two married children, she’s been through this. Her words bring comfort somehow and off I go on a weepy-but-healing bike ride.
I find a marsh (or is it a swamp? I’m never sure of the difference), that seems to go on for a long distance as I pedal along an old two-track trail. The sounds of the marsh (or swamp) fill my ears and make me think about ecosystems and insects and other things that start with vowels…but I steer clear of that train since my daughter’s name also begins with a vowel, and redirect my thoughts back to my immeidate surroundings. “Be here now, Lisa”, I remind myself. I walk the bike along the edge of the water and listen, and breathe.
I made plans for this trip two or three months before the wedding, knowing I would want to recuperate, but never realizing just how emotionally exhausted I would be. Another example of trusting my gut, even if when my brain doesn’t realize it is. It’s probably a good thing that my guy opted out of this trip I think, though it would have been nice to have his comfort in my more extreme moments of being a weepy mess. Weddings are lovely, a symbol of new beginnings, the merging of lives, and my daughter and her husband’s wedding were just that — lovely, a fantastic beginning. I had been feeling acutely the “ending” part of the equation: the person for whom I had poured every bit of my focus toward raising and loving for the past 19 years now had another Number One. I was no longer the primary person in her life. Of course, that means I succeeded as a parent – it’s just what I had hoped for her, and certainly her hubby is the very best man for her new partnership.
It is also, of course, a new beginning for me. I now have a son-in-law! I’ve never had a son before (though I was convinced during my pregnancy that my daughter was, in fact, a boy, primarily because I feared if I had a girl like me I’d be in for a wild ride). But that’s another story for another day. I now have two wonderful children to share things with, and they are so much fun to be around. I also get to focus on me again, after almost two decades not doing so. I am about to turn 50, and am ready to figure out My Next Move.
I also realize that a lot of my emotional melancholia of the last few days is related to what I am coming to accept as the ending of my own love relationship. We were engaged, then we agreed to call off the engagement but continue to date each other exclusively, and yet, it is slowly fizzling out, like a small campfire in the rain. There have been huge warning signs for months now, and events at the recent wedding only contributed to fuel the neon. I’m not ready to give him up, but I see that the end is coming. After another “good cry” – this one purely about my relationship – and another nap, I revive myself and resolve to enjoy him while I do still have in my life, and to remember to be thankful for the wonderful times we’ve had. It’s so easy to focus on the bad times; I’ve spent months doing just that – hoping to “fix” us by identifying what needed to change, but all the while pouring my energy into what was wrong, rather than building up what wasn’t.
My last jaunt down to the beach I find the sun is shining, all the clouds have cleared, and the beautiful Sleeping Bear Dunes are visible in the distance. I head over to the mouth of the Platte River where it flows into Lake Michigan (what I affectionately call the Big Lake), and I get to see a momma duck (or bird of some sort) teaching her gaggle of babies how to surf the waves and ride them out into the open, away from the criss-crossing currents of the rivermouth. She is so confident, so persistent, and her little ones – well over a dozen in her charge – are all at varying levels of skill and ambition. Some zing past her, while others get lost several waves back and have to hustle to catch up. The momma seems to never waver; she is alone out there with her brood, and seems to know they simply must learn to swim, to navigate these waters, that it is her main focus to help them swim free of her.
