DOROTHY RICE
  • home
  • books
    • Nonfiction
    • Fiction
    • reviews/interviews
  • News & events

hiking with my daughters - déjà vu  all over again . . .

7/31/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
About this time last summer (August, 2016) I was hiking in Northern Spain with my youngest child - a stretch of the Way of Saint James that covers the terrain between Santiago de Compostela and Muxia, the easternmost point of the Camino, on Spain's rugged north Atlantic coast.

It was weeks before she would move thousands of miles from home to begin her freshman year of college. I walked behind her for the better part of six days, by necessity--she's 45 years younger and in great shape--and by choice; I enjoyed watching her strong even strides, the confident swing of her arms and the gentle sway of her pony tail. I suppose it's a mother thing.

The hike became an extended metaphor for her imminent departure, for the natural progression of the mother/child relationship.  Metaphors - strained or otherwise - aside, it was an amazing, and fitting, journey to usher in yet another journey.

Here's an essay I wrote about it: The Road from Santiago, published last September at Literary Mama. 

It's now a year later. I just returned from two weeks in Southern Utah, hiking in and around breathtaking Snow Canyon and Zion National Park. It was a rare opportunity to spend two weeks with that same daughter. The second week we were joined by my older daughter and one of my daughters-in-law. Four of us occupied one motel room, sharing two queen-sized beds.

It was wonderful. All of it. Except perhaps the accumulated smells of four women sweating more than we had in our lives. I have the requisite photos of my daughters and daughter-in-law walking in front of me (for the same reasons as last summer, though the two-week hiking trip was part of my plan to be in the best shape of my life by my next birthday) and many more of all of us posing for the camera, caught unawares, all of it. I'm sure there's a parenting or life phase metaphor or two or three that I could dredge from all of that.

Instead, here are a few photos. 
Picture
Santa Clara River
Picture
The Narrows, Zion National Park
Picture
Snow Canyon State Park, Utah
Picture
The Narrows, Zion National Park
0 Comments
    Picture

    Dorothy, author of GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK, blogs about the challenges and opportunities of being a woman and a writer of a certain age in a youth-centric universe. 

    GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK | ebook
    GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK | PAPERBACK

    categories

    All
    2020
    #AmReading
    #AmSubmitting
    #AmWriting
    Going Gray
    Gray Is The New Black
    #HavingItAll
    #ifnotnowwhen
    Imposter Syndrome
    Interviews
    Lessons From My Father
    Lessons From My Mother
    #literarycommunity
    #LittleBlackBook
    Percival Place
    Quiet Memoir
    Reasons To Write
    #Rejection
    #writer'sblock
    Writing With Others

    archives

    July 2024
    March 2024
    November 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    January 2023
    August 2022
    July 2022
    September 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015


​Thanks for visiting my website!
​check out my Substack




                                                                                   
​             Copyright © 2015
  • home
  • books
    • Nonfiction
    • Fiction
    • reviews/interviews
  • News & events