Summer of Change

By Samantha Bratz
Editor-at-Large

How a trip to Utah helped my mother and I bond.

The Salt Lake in Utah
Photo by Samantha Bratz

“Please remain seated and buckle your seat belts, we are going to start descending” was what I remember hearing on my flight last summer to Salt Lake City, Utah. Most people think “Utah? Why on earth did you go there?” and the answer is simple. I wanted to.

This trip was a combined graduation and 21st birthday gift from my parents. My mom, her best friend Sally, and I would spend 10 days visiting Sally’s nephew Jonathan and his family. I’ve never been to Utah; actually I’ve never been out west before. The farthest west I had ever been was Tennessee and even then I had only driven through it.

In my mind this trip was just going to be a vacation since classes started again the week I got back. I figured this was going to be the last hoorah before I had to get back into the daily grind of waking up early and doing homework and studying. I ended up being wrong; this trip turned out to be so much more.

This was the first trip I had ever taken that did not include my father or sister; I had never taken a trip that was basically just me and my mom. During the 10 days in which we were in Utah I bonded more with my mom than I have at any other time in my life. I had also seen how in control and confident my mom can be when the time calls for it.

When we first arrived at Salt Lake City Airport, my mom was the one that directed us to the baggage claim, guiding Sally and I through hordes of people who looked lost and bewildered. My mom led us through the crowd as if she had spent her days trawling around the airport; she was like a pro, leading us to Jonathan and his sons Ethan and Hunter. I had never seen her so in-charge like that before. Normally my dad is the one who drives and navigates his way through all of our vacations.

This vacation was life changing in so many ways. During the entire time I was in Utah I felt at ease and relaxed. I have panic disorder, so feeling relaxed and tranquil is something that I don’t get to do very often. My body is usually in a heightened state of awareness and I’m always on edge – I fidget a lot and when I walk it’s fast paced like power walking.

Until I went to Utah I think that I really did not know how to relax. We spent every morning out on the back deck having breakfast, admiring Stansbury Lake, which makes up Jonathan’s back yard. After Ethan went off to school, we would sit and talk outside some more or we would sit out on the dock and watch the fish swim in the lake. We just spent the morning relaxing, planning what we would do that day, and usually everything we ended up doing was fun and stress free.

One of the many fun, stress free things we did was take a pedal boat out into the lake. I went out on it with my mom and we got to talk and laugh and relax. We only pedaled around about 1/3 of the lake but during that time we made fun of ourselves as we tried to turn the boat around. After several attempts at trying to turn around to only end up going around in a circle, most likely due to the fact that we were laughing more than we were paying attention, we managed to get the boat some what straight. It was then decided that I would steer and my mom would pedal since she didn’t know which way to turn the lever to go left or right. By the end of our vacation we both learned how to pedal and steer at the same time.

During our time in Utah I experienced many “firsts” and I was able to share them with my mom. I went to Nevada for the first time ever and it was there that I went to a casino for the very first time. I had never been in a casino before and the neon lights and the multitude of people was quite overwhelming but once I got into the groove and my mom showed me how to play the slot machines I felt right at ease.

One of the “firsts” that I experienced that I will never forget is the first time I swam, well more like floated, in the Salt Lake. I have never been in a body of water that was almost impossible to swim in. Trying to go from floating on my back to floating on my stomach was a process that was frightening at first – I thought I was going to drown- but my mom was able to calm me down and tell me to relax and bend my legs until my knees touched to the lake bottom and then I would be able to turn over with much more ease.

Swimming in Stansbury Lake was another new experience for me. I have never gone swimming in a lake where the fish come up to you. The first time I went into the lake I got “nibbled” on by a bluegill. Of course I screamed because I did not expect the fish to actually come up to me and try to bite/suck my legs. Jonathan’s wife Jean told me to keep moving my body so the fish would stay away – and believe me, it worked. That was the first and last time a fish in Stansbury Lake messed with me.

Something I have never done before and probably will never get the chance to do it again is frog hunting. Ethan, Hunter and a friend of theirs taught me how to catch frogs that live in the lake. Now this might not seem exciting to most people , but I found their method of catching the frogs very interesting. It’s easy really; they just took a piece of hotdog and attached it to the hook on a fishing pole and then they would sit and wait. Within a few minutes a frog would come along and start biting the hotdog. Once the frog was caught the boys put it in a bucket with water and then they would place the frog on the trampoline to see how high it could jump and they would have jumping contests to see whose frog was the best jumper. Once the boys grew tired of this they put the frogs back in the lake so they would be there to play with the next day.

Out of all the things I did while in Utah bonding with my mother was best experience that I had. My mother and I have always been close, but we have a relationship like most mothers and daughters do. Most of the time I think she doesn’t listen to me or if she does it goes in one ear and right out the other. My mom mostly thinks I’m forgetful and sometimes irresponsible. We have the typical parent-child relationship where I’m trying to become a full-fledged adult and she, like every other mother, is trying to keep me as her child; her baby.

This trip opened my eyes to the fact that my mother knows me better then I originally thought. I have to admit that I am a picky eater, things have to be a certain way or I’m not going to eat it. I was shocked to find that my mother knows what I will and will not eat. One day when it was lunch time I found that my mom had made me a sandwich just the way I like it – cheese first, then ham, then tomato and last but not least mustard, and of course it has to be on white bread; wheat bread is a big no-no. I was utterly stunned that she knew how to make me a sandwich because I always do it myself.

Something else that I learned was that my mom actually does listen to me. During one of our many talks while out on the pedal boat, she asked me about the classes that I was going to start the following week. I was surprised to learn that she knew what classes I was taking and on what days I had each class.

This trip was more than just your average vacation. I learned that sometimes when you least expect it you can rekindle those connections and relationships that you think are lost. I experienced new things and I learned new things. I made new friends in Jonathan and Jean, and I have an open invitation to visit them again when ever I want – and I may just have to take them up on that offer because I found that Utah is a little piece of Heaven that I would love to go back to.