Spring break- that beautiful, sacred time in the life of students (and their teachers!). Planning anything has been difficult this year, but I gambled on a campsite at Garner State Park back in the fall, and I am so glad that I did. After a long, dark winter, with Dallas firmly in the rear-view, I exalted as I caught my breath.
The beauty of travel is you can choose what you take with you and what you leave behind.
Trauma creates various coping mechanisms within us, some conscious, some not; some healthier than others. Work has always been one of mine. During times of stress (cough: pandemic teaching), my tendency to overwork re-asserts itself as a fatalistic drive to do more so that I think less: an unsustainable cycle that I’ve spent much of my adult life breaking.
Workaholism is socially acceptable- even laudable. That makes it a dangerous habit. And, while I’ve learned so much due to my inclination to juggle jobs and obligations, the resulting balancing act ends, inevitably, in painful collapse. I know better, of course, but knowing better isn’t always enough.
As my children grew, I began plucking my spinning plates out of the air: with my kids’ childhood flying by, I realized if I didn’t go easier, I would miss the magic. I would miss them. While I shed extra jobs and part time gigs, I found intense joy in the healthier work of raising my children. Simple, healing happiness: supplanting bad habits with coping skills that won’t, you know, lead to ulcers, nervous breakdowns, and high blood pressure.
“The things that make us happy make us wise.”
The good, wholesome pleasures of a well lived life are interconnected: hiking, reading, the deep-rooted, soul-nourishing pleasures of sunshine, dirt, and climbable trees. I feel so fortunate that, in teaching my children to cherish these things -while the gold dust shimmer of youth lends them that special, fleeting magic- I have had the opportunity to enjoy them as well, and to relive that enchantment through their eyes. Visiting Garner over Spring Break provided welcome relief from the pattern of work, work, work, and the emotionally draining nature of the burdens I’ve carried this year.
About a six hour drive from Dallas, at the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country, Garner State Park features 1800 foot elevations at its highest points. The Frio River, one of the clearest spring fed rivers in the state, winds lazily among cypress trees and through cedar studded, limestone canyons.
It was quiet, blessedly quiet, during spring break. I invited that quiet into myself, absorbing the impossibly blue, light speckled water; the trees with their haloes of soft, young leaves; the campfire smell and star strewn sky.
“When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.”
We tent camped, read aloud by firelight, played games, and relished our time together in the fresh air. The Frio was quite cold, which meant we had large swathes of the river to ourselves. That blue! I can’t describe it, except to say that it is so magnificently clear, I drank it with my eyes. Gazing upon it, the tension of concrete in my brain relaxed. In painting the natural world, I hope to offer a glimpse of that delight: sweet, sacred, unspoiled. I am hopeful that I’ll find the reserves I need to paint again.
Texas is, at her best, a miracle of land and sky; God bless Texas!
