Every Moment a Quest
I am waiting in the car outside my house for my daughter, Harper, to drop off her two monstrous-sized swim bags and pick up her equally heavy French Horn, and get back in the car. Her dinner—chicken nuggets and celery sticks—sits in the cupholders. We have precisely two minutes before we have to leave and drive to her French Horn rehearsal.
Two minutes is enough time for me to admire my next door neighbor’s front porch and yard—the wooden bench with a beige and navy pillow, the hanging plants, the lights like luminaries on the walkway. Two minutes is enough time for me to compare our yard to theirs—the porch that needs to be swept of leaves and cobwebs, the hydrangea bush that’s overgrown and heavy with dead weight that it still carries because Jesse and I don’t have the time or the energy to do anything about it.
Two minutes is enough time for me to consider the many deadlines, the many tasks, the many things I’ve said yes to, stretching myself thinner than a piece of tissue paper that’s been used too many times for gift-giving. Two minutes is plenty of time to pick up my phone and text Jesse to tell him that this schedule is brutal, but it is not enough time to have a conversation about it. There’s plenty of time to point out the stress—just never enough time to do anything about it.
Harper gets in the car, and I pull out of our driveway and go down State Street. These nights, with three-hour swim practices followed by dinner in the car, followed by a French Horn lesson, followed by homework, are rough—the most rough—for her. Tonight, while we move down State and houses are replaced with the Big 10 football stadium, basketball arena, baseball, field hockey fields, and a pool, Harper says over and over, “I’m so tired; this is so hard. I’m so tired; this is so hard. I’m so tired; this is so hard.” I think to join in. Maybe two voices will make it a prayer. But I keep driving, mmm hmmming to her refrain. Harper picks up a piece of celery, takes a bite, and looks out the window.
“Oh my gosh, look!” she says, pointing to a giant snowman on the side of the road. It is the biggest snowman I’ve ever seen and I say so to Harper.
“Me too!” she says, giggling. “Look at what they’re doing for arms!”
Several kids, University of Michigan students, are holding tree branches and trying to shove them into the sides of the snowman.
“There’s no way that’s going to work,” Harper says, still laughing.
“No,” I say. “Sure looks like fun, though.”
“Yeah,” Harper says, and then eats more of her dinner.
Tonight Harper is rehearsing in the church where she will perform in a few days. The church is across the street from the University, on one of the busiest corners in Ann Arbor. In an email the length of a short story, Harper’s teacher gave specific directions as to how to drop off and pick up our children: there is a specific side of the church we are to enter, with a specific door. We are to arrive at a specific time—no earlier, no later—because she will be waiting, otherwise the door is locked. The parking lot is small, and likely there is no place to park—another reason to arrive at our assigned time. I begin to review these directions out loud as we round the corner and pull into the church.
“I’ve been here before,” Harper tells me. “I know where I’m going,” she says, shifting in her seat.
“But I don’t know,” I say back and that is all it takes to set both of us off. Harper and I have short fuses, and they ignite at any hint of a slight.
“I can do it from here,” Harpers insists, shuffling her music together, and putting a hand on the door.
“Harper, I can’t stop the car in the middle of the street, and you’re not walking outside in the snow and ice and your French Horn and no winter jacket.”
“I don’t wanna be late,” she mumbles, lobbing herself on the seat.
Her teacher is right, the parking lot is miniscule. I can barely get past the three spots and to the door where I’m supposed to drop Harper off. “This doesn’t seem right,” I say, but Harper is clutching her music with one hand and clenching the door handle with the other. “This is good, Mom. I got it from here, Mom. I know where I’m going, Mom.”
“OK,” I say, putting the car in park.
“Bye, Mom,” Harper says, and gets out of the car.
“OK, bye! I’ll be right here in 30 minutes but if I’m not, you have your phone so call me but remember not to text because I’ll probably be driving and I can’t text back while I’m driving so it’s best to call, and don’t forget the service down here is bad, so if you can’t get a hold of me, don’t worry….” I trail off as she walks up the stairs and into the church where her teacher greets her.
The door closes and I move forward down the driveway. Except it’s not a driveway. I don’t realize this, or I refuse to realize it, I’m not sure. Once I confirm that I am, in fact, on a sidewalk, I consider my options: reverse down a narrow driveway that is narrow because it is a sidewalk and is thick with snow and ice, or go forward and as gently as I can, plow over a couple of orange cones and down a curb. I decide to move forward, figuring I’ll get out of the car and set the cones upright like the average citizen that I am. This is the plan I am determined to follow but there are students everywhere, and they’re all moving at the speed of turtles.
I rest my head against the steering wheel and let out a sigh. I was going to use this time to write.
I do not like these moments, when I stare down writing like Harry Potter faces Voldermort, or Bilbo, Gollum, or Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, or Rachel Green, Saks Fifth Avenue. I don’t want the thing that makes me feel strong and good to be the thing that turns me into something greedy and anxious. I don’t want to resent the thing I desire, the thing I believe is within me, and I don’t want to resent the other good things in my life that keep me from it.
I lift my head and study the orange cones and the students. I cannot move forward. I put the car in reverse, then slowly and carefully drive backwards down a sidewalk.
///
I am standing at a light, my backpack heavy with the weight of my writing hopes and dreams. It turns green, but I don’t move. Two college girls walk across the street holding ice-cream cones. I watch them walk across the street and disappear onto campus. The light turns red, but I don’t need its directive. I turn my back on it and head to the ice-cream shop.
The shop smells like sweet cream and childhood, and it’s no longer January, it’s some summer day in a time when words like “rush” and “to-do” don’t exist. But that is a fantasy, and this, staring at a pint of chocolate peanut butter ice-cream and thinking Hadley and Harper would love it if I brought some home, is reality. I show them how to work hard. I show them how to step up to the dreams they have. I don’t show them the fun there is to be had in living. In saying, “Stuff is gonna be late.” Or, “Stuff is not going to get done at all.” Or, “I thought this was a driveway.” I don’t show them there’s opportunity to choose the fun, the random, the break. I don’t show them because I don’t show myself.
I’m nearing 50 years old and I’m not all that sure I can teach this mutt new tricks, but tonight there is enough time for me to order an ice-cream cone for myself, and ask for two more cones with sprinkles and a pint of ice-cream for my girls. It’s plenty of time to slide into a booth and enjoy every last sugary bite while I look out the window.
///
Back in the miniature parking lot, Harper comes outside at the same time as two ladies. All of them walk my way, and as Harper opens the back door to put in her French Horn, the ladies stop in front of my car. One of them puts her hands up in a, “What are you thinking?” gesture, and I realize I’ve parked them in.
Here is where the Callie of thirty minutes ago would say, “I’m so sorry!” Here is where she’d hop out of the car, run around to the other side and put Harper’s horn in the car to show that she’s truly so very sorry and working so very hard to hasten their wait time lest they stand out in the cold in their heels and their pearls and their fur any longer. Here is where she’d whisper yell to Harper, “Hurry up! These ladies are angry!” Because the Callie of thirty minutes ago can’t stand to be in the way. It is her greatest fear. She can’t stand to make people upset, to inconvenience them, to hurt them or be inconsiderate. The Callie of thirty minutes ago is probably still very much alive, but Ice-Cream Callie is also here, and she stares at the ladies while Harper slides into the front seat, and buckles in. Ice-Cream Callie says, “Guess what? I got you and Hadley some dessert for when we get home,” without taking her eyes off the women, who stand there watching her, like Fates studying their prey.
“Mama,” Harper says, and I know she’s feeling better because she’s calling me, “mama.”
“Yes?”
“I feel so much better now that I’ve practiced,” she says while we slowly roll away from the ladies’ parked cars and their fury.
“I’m glad,” I tell her, and we make our way home.
///
Hadley is in the living room when we pull into the driveway of our house. She lifts our dog’s paw in a wave. Harper hops out of the car and makes a move to open the back door, but I tell her to leave the horn there for now.
“Let’s have ice-cream, first,” I say.
She does not argue, and together we walk into our home, exhausted, but content from having spent time practicing something hard; something new.
This essay was written using the Hero’s Journey stages, and presented at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin last month. The motivation for writing is Callie’s belief that even the seemingly mundane moments can be looked at as quests, if we are curious enough to have a look. It also comes from her belief that we have been created in God’s image, and creativity is our inheritance. So everything she writes is an offering back to God saying, “Here’s what you gave me; here’s what I did with it.”
If you would like to write your own Hero’s Journey essay, download these prompt cards Lara d’Entremont designed.
For more inspiration finding quests in small moments, reading Langston Hughes’ “Thank You, M’am.”
For more of Callie’s writing, follow her on Substack.