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Soaking It In: A Love Story

By Ken Wright

"The destination used to be my main question, then I looked and all I was searching for was present."

- Blackalicious

So we got a hot tub.

Well, to be accurate, my wife got a hot tub. A nice one. A comfy six-seater with lovely cedar siding, a 220-volt heater and 360 gallons of transparent blue-lit liquid delight.

And even though it's right there in our back yard, I, myself, don't really get it.

I guess it's me. I am and always have always been, even in the midst of my so-called "settled" years, more traveler than settler. I blame it on my Neanderthal Gene - some ancient recessive genetic remnant that flares up here and there in some of us more feral, less sedentary types. So even though at this juncture in my life I am, without doubt, more homeowner and townie than wanderer or wayfarer, I nonetheless tend toward . . . well, sort of backpacking though this settlement. Which means that when it comes to domesticity, I am somewhat crippled - devoid of drive toward tilling the soil, digging the garden, sculpting the yard, upgrading the car or improving the home. Which means I seek to invest my time and resources into going rather than having. Which means that in my lifestyle, I tend to obsess on the life, often at the expense of the style.

Fortunately, those are my wife's talents - she got the Civilized Gene.

There's no sarcasm here. While this might sound like the plotline of some predictable prime-time sitcom - that married-odd-couple shtick - I want to make clear that I am truly thankful for my wife's adeptness at modern domestic living. Even if that thankfulness sometimes comes reluctantly, hesitantly, begrudgingly.

Like now.

But I can forgive her this particular indulgence. She is, after all, a water girl: a former river guide, an active rafting parent, a paddler, a swimmer, a soaker and a hot-spring connoisseur. So when our own local hot-spring-and-pool establishment changed hands and upped its membership fee, she acted: She envisioned, plotted, studied, strategized and struck. Even as I glowered and growled at this . . . this Lake Powell right in my back yard . . . this thumbs-up for coal-power steaming from the weeds behind my garage . . . this posh accoutrement that I couldn't understand how we could afford - or, more, was embarrassed that we even owned - I had to admire her style, skill and resolve in getting it done, even in the face of her husband's groaning and hand-wringing. She is a warrior of the homefront.

Beyond that admiration, though, I am left only to accept it.

But, I remind myself, acceptance lies at the heart of the traveler. A true traveler seeks to only see. To go. To do. To discover. To learn. To experience places and things and people as they are. So, as a bow to the spirit of the traveler I claim to be, I resolved, after the tub was set and the water was hot, to try to travel there, too.

And that's how I began soaking it in, in my own backyard.

It started with the moonlight, that ancient sentinel of the night surrounded by a thousand points of light - real points, and real light - shimmering high and far over the roof of the house, through the dark arms of the big blue spruces sprouting from between the houses and along the street of our downtown neighborhood.

Then it was daytime, and the sweet, dense, descending scent of the first of the season's lilacs that arced in a wave overhead.

And then it was the sounds of town. There was, of course, the passing of cars, the partying of the college kids down the block, the barking of the dog on the hill - the usual soundtrack of downtown-life. But given enough time, other things began to rise to the fore, aural information usually lost or ignored in the hurrying around our home: the croaks of the ubiquitous, lordly ravens; the bantering and bickering of birds at the feeder; the rattling of the aspen - planted on the south side of our house a dozen years ago when my daughter was born. Until then, until sitting quietly in that steaming water, I hadn't been aware of the subtle, alpinish sound of their quaking and shaking. I hadn't really noticed how tall they'd grown.

Like my daughter herself. And my son.

I mean, I'd noticed how my kids had grown - more than I noticed the aspen, of course. But this was different, this new sitting with them in our backyard in the new hot tub. This just loafing and soaking offered - or, perhaps, forced - us to just . . . face each other. To just . . . chat. Not "talk" - like, "Let's talk, son." But small talk. Casual, unforced, unrequired conversation laced with those quiet, comfortable pauses that, as my own dad pointed out to me once, really show how much you are connected to someone. In those words and pauses, in that just being there together, soaking and smelling and listening and looking around, I really noticed how big my kids have become. And how mature. And interesting. And pleasant. And thoughtful. And delightful.

So that's how I came to realize that, while sitting in a hot tub in my backyard is not traveling far, it's still traveling. It's still that traveler's space where, instead of forcing or forging experiences, you just experience.

That's how I also came to realize that this is my wife's style of traveling: traveling the homefront.

Don't get me wrong: I, myself, still ache to go. To drive, ride, run, walk or crawl away, out there, somewhere. I still hanker to see what it's like over there, to meet who's over there, to learn what's going on over there. Anywhere. And, too, I still twitch and twitter when it comes time to spend, build, upgrade, or in any other way to stay and not go away. We Neanderthal types just ain't good at that stationary civilized kind of stuff.

Meanwhile, in turn, my wife accepts, and I think sometimes even appreciates, those things about me. Because they spice and balance her own home-style venturing with that wandering spirit and wayfaring perspective. That's what I hope, anyway. Because that's how travelers have to travel together: individual journeys bound in shared adventure.

Like a well-traveled love. Because like traveling, an old love is not about loving someone for what they are, but as they are.

And tonight, out in the hot tub, I'm going to thank her for that.

Ken Wright, when he's not sneaking away to see what is going on over there, soaks it in in Durango.