There was a wedding in Manly on Wednesday. If you happened to be walking past Shelly Beach at 4.30pm, as many people were, with their dogs or with a baby in a stroller, you would’ve witnessed two people exchanging their vows before their friends and family as the sun faded in the west.
Adam and I were two of those people in attendance, having done what we’d never done before: left our two children almost a thousand kilometres away at home with my sister-in-law while we escaped into the world of coupledom for twenty four hours.
There were tears shed as we left, oh yes – by my son, unusually, holding his hands up to his father, begging to be taken along, too. As always, such a display squeezed my heart into a very irregular, misbeating shape and I was silent the whole trip to the airport.
It was a wonderful night, as it was a lovely getaway. I woke up this morning disoriented because the wooden panel blinds the hotel room had were (for once) very effective. It was very dark and I was shocked – SHOCKED! – to discover it was 8.13am.
And all I wanted to do was go home.
So we packed up and went to the airport – no shopping, no nothing else. We managed to get an earlier flight and all the while I kept hoping the kids weren’t too distressed yet, hadn’t had a freakout in the middle of the night. And so when we finally had our reunion, when I clapped eyes on Keira – my worrier, like me – instead of rapturous hugs and kisses, I got metered happiness.
“Where’s my hug?” I asked, holding out my arms.
“In a minute,” she said as she ran to do something else.
“Dad! Dad!” called Riley, who only had eyes for the return of his hero. “Dad!”
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “It’s me.”
“Oh, hi mum.”
In the end I got my hugs, but their reaction to our return was a little unexpected. Not that I’m disappointed. No, in fact I’m happy they’ve proved they can survive happily without us, if for just one night.
That said, that aside, now I can dwell on other curiosities, one being the weather. From a morning in Sydney of heat to flying into Melbourne and watching the roads all slick and silver from the rain.
The ever constant surprise of rain.
It is battering away on the roof now. As I type this I am calmed by the sound and the knowledge that will all go to sleep tonight** under this same roof as a family again and I – at least – am delighted.
* Borrowing a phrase from a poem I’ve got on the go at the moment.
** I wrote this last night, my time.
