There is nothing like a 700-mile road trip with your kid and your dog -- three women out on the open road armed with Diet Coke, pepper spray and a bag of leftover Halloween candy. It was the best weekend trip ever. I picked Schmoopie up after school and we hit the highway, giddy with anticipation and pleased with our independence. We arrived in the middle of the night after a harrowing last five miles--a straight-up corkscrew incline to the top of a mountain on which the cabin of my dreams is nestled. It is a gorgeous piece of property in the Smoky Mountains adjacent to the Smoky Mountain National Park (so nice to have friends with money) but when my ears started popping as the engine whined and I prayed we encountered no vehicles coming the other direction because the road was not wide enough to accommodate two vehicles, it was a little tense. Luckily the girls slept through it and I had Todd Rundgren singing reassuringly in my ear bud which helped. Thank you, Todd. And Jesus Christ, can it be any more pitch black? Haven't these mountain people heard of street lights for god's sake? But the stars were so brilliant and huge up there that it was as if an angel had leaned down and sprinkled them all over the mountainside, like a sugary canopy just over our heads we could touch without even standing on our toes.
So we staggered into the cabin and collapsed in a heap, pausing only to turn on the heat. But when we awoke the next day--heaven. The leaves were at their absolute glory of explosive color and when Schmoopie got out of bed and opened her shutters she gasped then shrieked in delight at the sight of the valleys and mountain slopes she could see from her window -- all afire in purple and yellow and gold and orange, as if someone had snuck in and thrown buckets of florescent paint on everything as we slept. The trees vibrated with color and the constant breeze sent a slow, steady shower of leaves whispering down on our heads as we walked in the woods, explored creeks, fed the donkeys the neighbors down the road raise and collected every variety of leaf we could find to press in the books on the mantle.
We talked about boys and bras and periods and the pros and cons of thong underwear and death and kissing and The Great Gatsby and the way my grandmother baked every Saturday, lining the counter-tops of her kitchen with mounds of bread dough covered with damp linen cloths, the smell tantalizing every cell of my body as the dough rose and aromas wafted from the oven-- and everything else that a 14-year-old girl might want to discuss with a mom who is not totally uncool. We built huge fires in the fireplace each night and snuggled on the couch and sipped coffee and painted each other's toenails. At one point as I watched her feed carrots to the smallest of the baby donkeys it occurred to me that she is everything I never was as a teenager--she is my hero and I love her so much. She will leave us too soon and I want to cram as much time with her into our crazy-busy lives right now as I can. This is the stuff that matters.
(like my dad--the dude in the blue visor) and my kid (the schmoopie next to him in orange shirts) with 5,000 of your neighbors may sound kinda kooky but it's been a tradition in my family for 27 years. We have not missed one Turkey Trot in almost three decades. The GITB and I did the one-mile mosey. But it still means I get extra pie. 'Cause, hey, I walked a mile this morning, dammit.
