Magnify

Sixteen years have come to this: a weekend away for Mom and Dad, and no babysitter. For the first overnight occasion ever, I did not hire or otherwise impose upon a responsible adult to call the shots, clean the pans and pots and enforce bedtime in my absence. This time, as my husband and I loaded up our books, a bottle of wine, his guitar and my laptop and headed out for 40 hours of R&R, I gave my 16-year-old, the oldest, the car keys, a credit card and a stern look.

“I love you. Call us if you need us,” I said, while the arch in my eyebrows silently underscored, “Don’t blow it.”

I had equivocated over whether this was a wise move, or if my desperation for a weekend of parental responsibility detox was making me totally irresponsible. I spent sleepless hours playing out various disastrous scenarios; I repeated my “not my child” mantra as friends readily chimed in with So-and-so’s teenager-on-the-loose horror tales—predictable accounts of booze and pot and sneaking around. Was I tempting fate and asking for trouble, or giving my oldest daughter the trust and responsibility she has thus far proven ready for, and soon will have to own up to, ready or not? I stocked the fridge, alerted the neighbors to “Threat Level Orange” and kissed my girls, leaving them to do what they would with their Macaulay Culkin moment.

In about 30 minutes my husband and I had arrived at our favorite local getaway—a mod inn nestled amidst tall pines and glossy magnolias on 700 acres of National Historic Landmark property along the Ashley River. On one side of the inn are flooded rice fields, a soggy wilderness where gators tutor me in the art of prehistoric laziness, and herons and anhingas, their wet wings stretched out like laundry on the line, model grace and patience. On the other side of the inn is an elegant plantation boasting “America’s Oldest Landscaped Gardens.” Inn guests have open access to the plantation grounds, so my husband and I go early and linger after hours, avoiding tourists and considering it our own secret garden. Wandering through mazes of prized camellias and azaleas, sitting quietly by the cryptic black water of a cypress pond, we recharge our relationship and recalibrate our inner bearings. This is our Eden—and amidst cool birdsong mornings and raucous bull-and tree-frog concerts at dusk, we feel like the sole beneficiaries of the lush, unruly beauty that surrounds us. I am Eve in running shorts, and he is Adam with a camera. And we are hoping, dear God, that Cain is not home killing Abel.

What I do on these weekends is what I rarely do at home. Here I sit and watch. I walk and listen. I dangle in a hammock for two hours and read. Two hours!! My engine idles as my senses accelerate, and I see things. An inchworm that rappels down from a limb eight feet up and lands on the ground beside me, beginning a journey to who knows where. A leech slinking along the silty, mucky bottom of a pond, above it a galaxy of minuscule critters skating on the water’s dark surface. I hear things—like the low-frequency rumbling growl, guttural and grizzly-like, of the alligator we never saw but must have wandered too close to. I realize that Eden is not some mythic wonderland glazed in shiny concepts of Good and Evil. This Eden isn’t about innocence or the shameful loss thereof, but about awareness. It’s about slowing down enough to notice a leech (have I ever seen a leech before?) or the color of a Granny Smith apple. Hell yes, my Eden urges me, take a bite, a big juicy bite of the amazingness that blooms, crawls, flies and tethers itself to tangled vines. How else can I fully taste the good earth’s delights? How else can I tune in to the wonders, dangers and bewildering liveliness that implore me to pay attention, to live livelier.

On this particular trip, I realize that my children and I are in parallel universes, mirrored gardens. Mine entices me to relinquish and reorder responsibilities, at least for a little while, so I can rediscover my basic creaturely truth—that I am a tiny player in an enormously complex world, much of it unfolding and carrying on, inchworm by inchworm, regardless of my decisions. Meanwhile I’ve ushered my girls through a heavy iron gate into another garden, one where they must shoulder responsibility and confront freedom, and where (I tell them time and again) big things like their Future ride on the decisions they make.

We returned home to three happy, well-fed, wet-haired girls, fresh from a post-swim shower. They did great in our absence, the only party (that I’m aware of) was a tea party they had in our backyard complete with our blue china teapot and warm chocolate chip cookies—two sweet teenagers indulging their eight-year-old little sister. They are still innocent enough, and my job, I realize, isn’t to coddle a cozy naivete, but to be awake, to be aware. To revel in garden parties, however tame or tempting. And be ready.

Stephanie Hunt is a South Carolina-based freelance writer, whose essays, features and profiles appear in numerous regional, national and online publications. She’s ready for another weekend away. Comments welcomed at stephaniehuntwrites.com.