LETTERS FROM HOME: A WHOLE NEW WORLD AND THOUGHTS ON PARENTING

April 7, 1994

Dear Scott,

Mom and Dad and the Betheas just left for San Francisco after spending four fun-filled nights and three days here in Garberville. The kids lost their senses of humor at times, this being their first trip across three time zones, but everyone of all ages did the best they could.

DC pitched a tent for the children in one of the rooms, but we discovered that indoor camping might not be the '90s kids' idea of fun. Early the next morning they claimed our bed in the name of cartoon-watching and hinted that the tent might be more comfortable if equipped with a TV and VCR.

Later Saturday we took them to Moonstone Beach near Trinidad, a landscape that does indeed appear to have fallen to Earth. Kyle climbed on the huge cratered rocks and his Florida-loving parents marveled at this frenzied surf that grinds holes in the peaks of the mountains buried beneath the sand and makes teenaged boys stare, mesmerized by the power of the waves they risk everything to ride.

Yesterday, we drove down to Mendocino, which is a sort of boutiques-by-the-sea town that still has enough charm to draw tourists an hour off the interstate over a rollercoaster road that had Mom doubling up on the Dramamine. Nearby in Fort Bragg we caught the Skunk Train, so named for the smell emitted by the locomotive that a hundred years ago pulled cars piled with redwood logs.

The current engine smells fine. The train's cargo is now vacationers who want to feel, if only through the rhythm of the rails, something of what that past must have been like. The conductor pointed out turtles sunning themselves on logs and a 1,000-year-old redwood and a nesting osprey. By flipping the lights on while we were in the tunnel, he also caught Sally "tickling" Doug. Much to the kids' delight.

Lately, DC and I have been taking heavy notes on the whole proposition of parenting, and this visit gave us some more questions to answer. How do you explain to a 4-year-old that she is being childish? How do you not admire the gleam in her 3-year-old sister's eye when she gets her way by sheer chicanery and push-buttoning tears? And is the 9-year-old brother who terrorizes them from time to time doing anything more than acting out the impulses that rise up in us adults before we bite our lips and soothe and mollify and make edicts? We find we are called on to love these parts of them even more.

At the very least, children are a hard lesson in patience, the kind creation must have with us adults as we make war and abuse each other. And most especially a lesson in acceptance. That unconditional love thing's so hard for us to get our arms around, and children force us to open them wider.

Carly and Kim rode with DC and me on the way back from Moonstone Beach. They sang "It's a Whole New World" from "Aladdin" along with lots of other songs they learned in preschool. Carly, who has been given a voice angels might envy, puts lots of vibrato and feeling into "World," as if she already knows how big that word is. Kim's voice is more earthly, the notes delivered with gusto and a drive to get on to the next one.

Together, they form a sisterly harmony that is not always harmonious, but that's the way it is. It's no less lovable.

If parenting were a sing-along, DC and I would stand in lime to become Mitches.

Mom says she can't remember us kids every being anything but wonderful. Funny how well we recall the punishments. Sally thinks parents must have a kind of amnesia about their children's true behavior. Mom says it must be like a mother's ability to forget the pain of childbirth. "If you remembered how bad it hurts you'd never have another one."

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian. He is currently on leave of absence and is living in Garberville, California.