Last weekend I spent time with my 15-year old daughter, Grace. She has spent most of the summer in Colorado, staying with her dad and working as a counselor at a day camp. I miss her so much it’s like I have an empty spot in my heart, and the unsettled feeling that I keep forgetting something. It’s hard, as a mother hen, not to have all your chicks in the nest.
So this past weekend I flew out to Colorado, rented a car and hotel room, and spent an entire weekend with Grace. She woke up early (!) and ran (!) to the airport to meet my flight.
She went to the trouble of planning an entire weekend of fun. We got started right away with coffee at her favorite coffee shop, breakfast at her favorite juice shop, and a quick stop at the hotel to check in and change into hiking clothes.
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Hiking, like running, is an incredible way to connect with a beloved person. We talked about everything while climbing the switchbacks of those mountain trails, reconnecting as mother and daughter.
I realized we were also connecting simply as people, and I had the odd sensation of seeing a familiar person with fresh eyes. She is growing up into an incredible person that I would choose to know and spend time with, whether we were related or not.
I had my first taste of how it might feel one day to visit my children at college, or in their first apartment, carrying all the knowledge and affection for someone you’ve literally known forever, but also the wonder and surprise of a new person unfolding.
We had dinner at her favorite restaurant, and stopped at a grocery store afterwards to buy water and provisions for a longer hike the following day. We fell asleep in the same bed, talking and laughing, like a sleepover. It was an experience I rarely get to have at my age.
After breakfast the next day, we packed my pack full of water, snacks, sunscreen, and warmer layers of clothing and drove to the trailhead. I hadn’t used this pack since my Mont Blanc adventure in July, and it was a wonderfully familiar weight on my back. I was back in my happy place, visiting my daughter in hers.
The trail went up, up, up for over two hours. We climbed up switchbacks, crossed meadows carpeted in purple and white wildflowers, picked our way over wobbly stones across rushing streams, stepped over fallen logs and roots, peed behind trees, and wove through ghostly white forests of Aspen trees.
We walked on the squishy padding of decomposing pine as we entered a significantly cooler section. Later, we crossed over boulders piled up from a landslide.
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Our conversations meandered as well, tracking through territory that felt both familiar and unknown. We agreed on the concept of “earned pleasure” and celebrated the top of our hike when we reached a glorious mountain lake.
We found a large, inviting, flat rock on the shore and peeled off our sweaty layer, pulling on warmer long sleeves to fend of the chill. We had a picnic of bars and dried mangos, taking turns sipping from the water bladder. A tiny chipmunk walked on my leg to try to steal a bite of mango.
When we both decided we were ready, we started back down the mountain. We hiked some steeper sections and ran down the switchbacks and through the Aspen forest.
We reached our car far too soon. I didn’t want our hike, or the weekend, to end. It’s frozen in my mind, like the snow at the top of the mountain that persists in spite of the summer sun, a remaining piece of the previous season of childhood, melting. I hope it trickles down, becoming waterfalls and streams, and pools into a lake where I can sit and reflect and enjoy for seasons to come.
Doing my favorite thing, and understanding that it is also my daughter’s favorite thing, is a double pleasure so decadent it’s almost indescribable. You might call it pure grace.
Kristin Armstrong is a mother, a writer, and a runner. She has written six books, including her latest, How to Start Running.
