Momster of the Year
A crowd had gathered around a rising spectacle, and I could see young children shouldering their way through the crowd to get a better peek. Naturally curious, I did the same.
In the middle of the crowd was my twelve-year-old, Owen, with his hands wrapped around the belly of a gigantic toad — the crown jewel of his nighttime adventuring in the woods.
Each summer, our church family takes a weekend to fellowship together in the mountains. This year’s camp was a fairly short drive from our cottage but boasted wildly different topography than the river valley, irrigated orchards, and sage-brush-scrubbed mountains we call home.
Much to the children’s delight, this camp came complete with glacial rivers to swim in, waterfalls to climb to… and big, fat toads to chase in the moonlight.
Seeing Owen’s delight in showing others his prized catch, I felt immediate shame for the Momster I had become the day prior to our leaving for camp. In between packing the cooler, preparing the gardens for our four-day absence, frantically responding to emails before a weekend of no service, and a feeble attempt to water away the 100+ degree temperatures, I had single-handedly poisoned the aroma of our home.
I arrived at our cabin, a wonderful home with bunks and bathrooms to spare, full of tension and self-pity.
Oddly, the toad helped turn the tide.
“The Peace of Wild Things”
”When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Late at night, with galaxies of mountain stars above, Stuart wandered back to our cabin with Owen — dirty, sweaty, and buzzing from the day’s adventures.
“This is the best place in the world,” Owen exclaimed. “It has showers AND toads!”
What more does one need?
Owen thrust his arm in the air, waving back at his friends while he continued the short, dark walk to the cabin:
“G’night, guys! That was a ‘toad’-ally awesome day!”
With the first of the day’s coffee in our cups, the sun still hiding behind the steel blue mountains, Stuart and I curled up on the cabin’s front porch and shared tales from the weekend in the mountains. It afforded us a few days where the fatigue and despair of the world were left behind. In their place were sunsets and dragonflies and the smell of pine drifting through the impossibly warm air.
Instead of newsfeeds, we heard talks on joy.
And instead of phones, we held toads.
We celebrated simple pleasures like sunsets and showers.
We sang psalms.
We took refuge in the cold glacial swimming holes and in each other.
We felt the peace of the wild things…
…resting for a time in the “presence of still water”.
(I apologize for having no pictures of the toad to share… but alas, hands were busy doing many more wonderful things.)
