I spent last weekend out in the country at the King and Queen’s house.
The roads changed as I drove out of Atlanta. First there were the superhighways: twelve lanes of traffic flowing fast, the cars like a school of minnows on caffeine. Next there were the highways, where traffic thinned and drivers pushed the speed limit while watching out for cops. Then the road branched to a four-lane divided highway. After driving past Buford, all remnants of Atlanta’s focused, bursting energy died behind two Cadillacs with wheelchairs on their license plates drag-racing past Habersham. Finally, through the fog of the rainy north Georgia day, I turned onto a quiet neighborhood road and followed it to a gravel road. I’d arrived at my parents’ country home.
My parents left a sunny stuccoed six-bathroom castle with a pool, guest flat, and manicured garden for semi-retirement in the country, downsizing to a small home there. Throughout the driven, sleep-deprived college years, throughout the years spent grasping for threads of a quickly vanishing narrative of worldly success, this country home was a place where my mind slowed down again to a reasonable pace. I found my head was clearer here and my dreams came back into focus.
My father the King, who used to be an air ambulance pilot, now works at the airport. He owns and manages the business, working for himself as a small-business owner and entrepreneur as he usually does. His favorite part of his work is always people. People who fly in and fly out, people who wander out to see airplanes for fun, people who drop by to visit him and just want to talk. His favorite thing, I think, is doing small things to help people. He also loves men of history and reads through many thick biographies each year. I go out to see him since he works every day there, usually asking questions about my car and talking (sometimes arguing) about life and politics.
My mother the Queen can usually be found goading my youngest brother through his high school curriculum, cooking something healthy, reading the latest health research, doing cardio in the gym, or finding beautiful things in thrift stores. She is the reason the house’s floors gleam and the one bathroom is not disastrous. She loves having tea parties with friends – I usually give her pretty teacups for her birthday, and she collects them from all corners of the world, so teacups peek out from all the house’s nooks and crannies. I always have tea when I’m home, making it in the big white ceramic pot and pouring it into my favorite of her cups.
My sister the princess Mackenzie bounces in and out of the house these days, no longer the home-bound highschooler: she is enrolled full-time in college classes, runs cross-country, gets involved on campus, has a boyfriend, and works part-time. She comes home at midnight and leaves at five o’clock in the morning, and that’s barely exaggerating. My mother says she has the energy of a squirrel.
My brother the prince Asa is back from finishing his solo thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, and beginning to emerge from the blissful haze of abundant food. He works part time and is starting to plan his life… although what exactly that will be, no one else is allowed to know yet.
My brother the prince Asher, my youngest brother, has grown enormously tall in the past few years and now towers over everyone in the family, waving giant limbs like a preying mantis as he articulates very strong opinions about religion and politics. He’s the confident prince who’s not really worried about being wrong or striking off in a completely unusual direction. For instance, he’s the only one of us who’s at all interested in video games computers… leading us to believe he may have been switched at birth. We’re not quite sure where he came from.
The royal dog doesn’t exist at the country home yet, although they’ve been planning to get one for about four or five years. When that happens, though, it will be a German Shepherd. It’s impossible to imagine our family having anything but a stubborn male German Shepherd.
I spent the weekend not doing anything, really… simple pleasures were highlights, like eating pizza and watching Hogan’s Heroes from our full DVD collection. I got up Saturday morning and made thick pancakes we ate with delicious fresh strawberry jam.
It’s my privilege to travel frequently. As I write, I’m sitting in a beautiful part of Maryland that’s on the edge of spring. But I still daydream… idyllic, thoughtful weekends in the country with such a wonderful family aren’t things to be taken for granted.
~ The Dauntless Princess ~