Almost Heaven

(I am shocked to learn I've never used this as a post title!)

As longtime followers of my life know, my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving, and it's my favorite because of the longtime tradition of the Mollmanns: convening in a state park for the week of Thanksgiving, where we go on "forced marches" (hikes), eat Cincinnati chili, and have a hot-dog roast. This has grown from seven Mollmanns in 1973 to I think around fifty now, as it's gone from my grandparents and their five kids to incorporating four generations. I have thirteen cousins, almost all of whom are married now, and almost all of the married cousins have kids.

I'd have to verify the records, but I think this is just the second time since 1973 Mollmann Thanksgiving hasn't happened. (My recollection is that sometime in the late 1980s, when basically everyone in the family had a newborn at home, it was skipped.) Just another thing to thank the COVID-19 pandemic for.

But even if it was being held, I wouldn't be there. As my facebook followers-- but not, I think, my blog readers-- will know, Hayley is pregnant, and the baby is due in late December, putting any long trips out of the question.

Hayley had a good idea, though, which was that we could do our own Thanksgiving, visiting a Florida state park. When I looked into it, cabins were all booked up, but we ended up finding an Airbnb near the Croom Wildlife Management Area, a tract of the Withlacoochee State Forest, and we spent Wednesday through Friday there. About an hour away from Tampa, it was close enough that if Hayley went into labor, we would be able to make it to the hospital without issues.

We visited a couple different places in the area. We walked a little bit around the Dade Battlefield Historic State Park; we attempted a four-mile loop hike that would take us past the Withlacoochee River; two different times we attempted a short hike along the Withlacoochee River, but the first time we set off on the wrong trail, and the second time we mostly did it right, but went the wrong way for at least part of it. We learned (but should have known) that Little Buddy has his limits when it comes to forced marches. We probably made it through a mile of the four-mile loop: he was having fun at first, but then just obstinately refused to move. Unfortunately neither of us had thought to pack our baby carrier (I don't think we've used it for anything since last Thanksgiving), so we had to carry him out! Even the short hikes were a bit much for him.

Still, he clearly had fun. He got to pick up sticks and see trees and he made the connection that were were in a forest, just Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (one of his favorite books right now). It made us realize that even in these pandemic-fused times, we could be hiking more in the area where we live!

The traditional Mollmann hot dog roast is Friday night, but since we were just going to be gone two nights, we did ours Wednesday evening. I made a fire (then Hayley remade it better); LB has experienced a campfire before, but he was too little to really get it at the time. We roasted hot dogs and made s'mores and sat out under the dark sky by the light of the flames. The next day, we did the traditional Mollmann chili (Hayley had made it in a crockpot a couple days before we left) and a pumpkin pie (that Hayley and LB made).

Sitting outside under the sky, it was nice to be out of the home, and it was nice to be away from responsibilities for a couple days. The monotony of life in this pandemic has been one of its worst features, and this has been exacerbated by the responsibilities of parenting and home ownership; I feel like we spend all our time at home lesson planning, grading, and trying to stop the house from becoming a total disaster. For a moment (before it gets really hectic later this month) we could step outside that and just be a family. It was a weird feeling, actually, knowing that this configuration of my life is coming to an end. LB has recently figured out the concept of family, and will sometimes when there's the three of us, he'll go, "Momma. Dadda. [Little Buddy]. Family!" He gets very excited when all three of us do something together. But as is so often true of life, no sooner does he figure it out than it will all change. (For the better, but changes are different nonetheless.)

In the morning we did a Zoom call with my immediate family; that night, we did a Zoom call with all the Mollmanns where we sang "Country Roads." Probably nothing so wretched has ever been heard. LB really enjoyed practicing "Country Roads," and continued to run around randomly going "Country Roads!" the next couple days.

and I thought Zoom faculty discussions were chaotic

 
I was happy to see my family even in this weird, chaotic way, and also happy to see the facebook posts roll in over the next couple days documenting how everyone handled things. My parents went to their lakehouse with my grandmother; one of my uncles and aunts were joined by four of their kids (and three spouses, and five of their grandkids) at an outdoor, socially distanced hike and eating of chili; another of my uncles and aunts went to a state park with their nieces and nephews (with whom they have formed a "double bubble"); my sister went to a co-worker's and had turkey but did chili the next day; and so on.

As I've discussed here before, the lack of the marking of time is one of the big mental drains of this pandemic. Days slide into the next without meaning. Tradition is one of those ways we mark time, and I was heartened that these traditions aren't just important to me, but to all the Mollmanns, all of whom figured out a way to celebrate in their own fashion. The pandemic (and pregnancy) make keep us all apart, but we can still celebrate together regardless.