Friends and Fireworks

This past July 4th holiday, Dallas and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to spend the weekend out West with friends. I've lived over forty years on the planet and for some reason, it had never occurred to me that emotionally healthy, well-adjusted and involved people tend to raise emotionally healthy, well-adjusted, secure children. Nice people, nice children.

Imagine that.

"Nice" is such an anemic word. I know this. It doesn't even begin to describe the unselfish and generous nature of our friends but strangely, it's simplicity seems apropos in characterizing complex and interesting people who are choosing to live mostly uncomplicated lives. My friends have got their priorities straight and it shows. We were so impressed with the teenagers and the young adults that we met. They were polite, well spoken, centered, responsible and....happy. I was in awe with how my friends balanced their expectations for their children with the ability to allow them to forge paths of their own. Obviously, they had figured out the magic formula because their kids were a joy to be around.

Besides the lessons in great parenting, Dallas and I got to experience some of the most beautiful scenery that you can imagine. It reminded us of some of the places in and around Queenstown, New Zealand.


The trip was one that Dallas and I had been anticipating for MONTHS and the night before having to fly back home, we were savouring a spectacular view of the night sky, flush with the Milky Way and teeming with stars.

"Top five," Dallas remarked. I had to agree.

We do that. We rate things.

It's a way for our type A personalities to compartmentalize our life together and to note those experiences that change us somehow. This trip was like that.

As I write this, I am sipping on a glass of wine. It is mid afternoon. How naughty, right? Probably, but our holiday weekend served to remind me how crappy I am at savouring the small things. Since we've been home, Dallas and I dessert a few nights a week on dark chocolate and red wine. It's conducive to relaxed conversation and an appreciation of what is really, really good in life. Que syrah, syrah, kids.

In the northwest, the weather is temperate and on the eastern side of the Rockies, the roads are not choked with cars.
Life is slower.


Porcupine races are held. There are wide open spaces dotted with sagebrush, wildflowers and evergreens.
Hummingbirds come to play.

As do deer.

Multiple times over the weekend, Dallas and I asked each other what the HELL we were doing living in the dust bowl among the refineries and in the suffocating heat when all this beauty was just a fingertip away.

See, that's a condition of our existence. Dallas and I have not lived so much as we have survived. We put the blinders on and slogged forward. Priorities got scrambled among the mortgage payments, the careers and the unquenchable thirst for MORE. We allowed ourselves to forget about stars and mountains and the taste of unadulterated water until recently.

Beauty matters. Leisure matters. A not so casual game of cards with friends and laughter and bubbles, matters.

Our trip out west was a gentle reminder, in so many ways, of what Dallas and I value most.

Top five. For sure.