Like those seagulls kids kick in Coney Island, my parents swooped down on Brooklyn. Well, they didn’t exactly swoop, and they certainly did not scavenge for scraps of clam clumps on the beach, but they rambled in on an economy airline with a last minute flight.

It wasn’t as last minute as my panicked flight to Michigan several years ago, the time I decided I absolutely MUST visit for the holidays on the day before Christmas Eve, but it was spontaneous. Not even that "planned" spontaneity practiced by so many of us -- but a spur of the moment thing that I have an inkling was prompted by sitting at a restaurant in Troy beneath a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge.

And they got here safe. They even seemed pretty sound. And we only (sort of) argued once.

This is a landmark visit for us due to the lack of arguing. Part of the reason I have lived 600 miles away for over 14 years is because it makes us much more tolerant of each other. When we do see each other -- which has been becoming beautifully more frequent -- our wonderful visits makes me realize how much I miss them.

It also makes me painfully aware of how we are wont to regress into our "old selves" in a millisecond. They become Mom and Pa Guardian, fretting about how I would get home after we parted for the evening and dwelling on the blue dress they claim was "much too short" but then bought for me anyway. I went from a 32-year-old writer and artist to an angry, rebellious 14-year-old who had a strong urge to punch a wall and inevitably break my knuckles in our moment of angst.

Thankfully, however, there were no walls around. We were also thankful that, when we did have the angst, it was not even because of each other. It was following a hurly-burly trek to the foot of that infamous Brooklyn Bridge on weekend warrior train service. That means that with absolutely no warning the F becomes a G so we switched to the C going on the wrong direction only to switch back and watch it ironically become that very same F train we had wanted to avoid. Doubly ironic, we ended up getting off at the very-same station we had intended to steer clear of.

We were tired. Hungry. Medium lost and maximum cranky. Then the miracle happened. Instead of lashing out at each other with our bloody viper claws, we all "regressed" in our own ways but not directly directing it at one another. Dad spewed his train complaints at the air. I began vehemently using the "F" word (perhaps to match the train we were on) at the place a wall would have been had there been one. Mom decided to give her earful to a cop on the beat in the York Street station who insisted that she "tell your daughter I care" after I had snipped that he did not.

Not only were we so proud of ourselves that we conversed at length the next day while laying exhausted on their hotel bedspreads, but whatever horribleness came about from our angst session was fastidiously obliterated by our experience walking over the bridge. It’s one of my frequent treks and I am plump with glee when I have the opportunity to share it with others. Especially if they are Brooklyn Bridge neophytes and it’s their first time walking across it. Especially if they are my parents.