Gray sweatshirt

We had the most wonderful Honeymoon. It was a three week road trip up the east coast from Florida to Maine and back. We stayed in every state along the way accept Vermont where we only ate lunch and enjoyed the greenness.

We drove our green Pathfinder loaded up with camping gear and suitcases, but we left plenty of room for what we might find as we scavenged the coast for treasures. In the end we did come home with a bench made from reclaimed wood and old theatre seats, a handful of skeleton keys which I had to have b/c they were old and elegant, 3 maple syrup catching tins from an antique barn in rural Maine, chocolate covered cranberries from a haunted Bed and Breakfast we stayed in for a few days, a corner cupboard (that doesn't actually fit in a corner b/c it has a strange angle) from an art/funky furniture store in Asheville, NC., and many more random things, but one of my best memories is conjured up each time I wear my touristy gray sweatshirt that says: "Nantucket" across the front.

Have you ever had a time where it was so ridiculously comfortable in that moment that the only thing messing up the moment was that you knew it couldn't last and that realization made it kind of painful? Nantucket was like that for me. It was like a time warp. Perfect weather in July, beach, town, art, great food. Wonderful. Christo and I rented bikes (which is hell on a cobblestone road) and we went into the town for ice cream. We sat on a bench and I just laughed at how everything was so wonderful right then. I could eat strawberry ice cream on a warm and sunny day, on a bench , in Nantucket , with the love of my life, every single day for the rest of my life and that to me would be Heaven.

The comfort of the moment did pass and we have not been able to get back there again, but I am painting this piece of my heart now. My canvas is sketched and needs paint and other junk on it, but it will get done and hang over that bench from Maine one day, right next to the wall with the key ring hanger, where the skeleton keys will be, and I will have my little honeymoon shrine and we will sit on that bench and eat ice cream from Publix and it won't feel the same, but it will still be sweet because what made Nantucket and that day so wonderful wasn't any of that stuff....it was him.

Go West Young People

I bought On The Road By Jack Kerouac, for a friend last night. Instead of actually giving it to her, I began to read it because it is the original scroll version, unedited and uncut. More authentic. We own 2 other copies of this book, but this one is different...so, maybe she will get it and maybe not. Haven't decided. Anyway, one of the first and most telling passages of run on sentences in the book, describes his problem of forever planning the trek out West and yet never getting around to going on the trip.

Christo, my husband, has always been afforded the opportunity of wonderful family trips all over this country and even into Canada. Riding wild horses, fly fishing in icy rivers, hiking incredible forests, biking over barren landscapes, you get the picture. And Yet, he and his buddy Kip, planned the Great VW Bus Adventure, and never got to go.

Call me the Yoko Ono of their teenage years, but somehow I weaseled my way into the plan and pushed the best friend out.

He bought that 1970 VW Bus, at age 15 (and with his own money), for the purpose of escaping into the great wide open; just two guys, 100 pounds of rice and a lot of Holden Caulfield angst. The boys planned and tinkered, and dreamt and struggled through the rigmarole of high school drama. And then, like a sudden snow in September, I came into view. The bag of rice and I were at war for a spot on that bus. I would not be missing the bus...the rice had to go and just like that, I was co-captain of the trip. Kip moved to the back of the bus and eventually he was altogether out.

Poor Kip. Somehow lost in the shuffle of our teenage romance, he moved on. Don't feel too bad for him though. He did go north and jumped on a different kind of bus. The kind that has educational classes through the logging fields. He became an intense activist and still is one of the most environmentally conscious people I know. He married a beautiful woman who is brilliant and witty and surely made for him. And of course, he went West and happens to live on the opposite of the country now in Bellingham, Washington. So, he actually gets the last laugh, you see. While he is experiencing the thrill of having lived the dream, we are still planning ours.

While we are still trying to get a bus ready, (it is in pieces in our garage) we know our day will come. We are no longer at liberty to pack 100 pounds of food, because now we must pack 100 pounds of kids. And yet, we love this crazy life and we long for our crazy trip and all of the unexpected surprises. Perhaps our trip out West will be to visit Kip and Brooke and we shall laugh as we eat their wonderful vegan victuals served over rice.

Scattered

Sometimes I feel scattered. I know that there are so many avenues I can pursue and most likely meet a successful end. I have faith that whatever I want to do, can prosper because one thing always leads to another and good always comes to those who trust in Him.

This is not just about "God's will" and "God's plan"- this is how we must live the Christian life. This is also not an "I can conquer the world and do whatever I want" way of life either.
It is about trusting. It is about "do not be anxious about your life" mantras.

I am anxious. I never thought that I would still be in the same place I have always lived. I thought that I would be gone after high school. Then I would be gone after college. Be gone after we had a baby, two babies, 3,4....and yet here we are.

I fell into love at 16 and never came up out of that ocean. We almost went away from each other at college...but we could not do it. After college, he started working and had to travel...we could not take it...I felt more alone and depressed with 3 small ones and a city full of relatives than I ever thought a person could. All of my friends who had traveling husbands said, "but you don't have to cook or clean when he is away" or "I can do whatever I want when he is gone" or "the kids are on a better schedule" blah blah blah...

I hated seeing him go from the minute he told me that next week he had to go away for a couple of days, until the minute he set foot in the door on his return. We have been married for 7 years, and together for 11. It feels like both a day and an eternity. He truly is my beloved.

So now he seldom travels away, unless like a caravan, we are all together. We have always adored the American road trip. Eating random roadside fare like bison jerky (from Colorado) and peach soda (from Georgia) and crab bisque (from Maryland). We crank up the music and dream together...lyrics to classic rock, grunge, pop, and bluegrass filling up our senses and giving us prospective.

The kids sometime rock out along the way, or whine, or poke at each other, but more often they look out at our beautiful country and join in the wondering and dreaming. Because we homeschool, the traveling life could be a reality for us. Use the whole country as a textbook, right? But man cannot live on gas alone- we need to work and provide for a quality life.

I have at least 6 ideas of how to do this, but when do we take the leap? We want to have a little bit of land to grow some food. We need a little house to lay our heads and wash up. We need a big enough vehicle to seat 6 people. We need to be together all the time. Some do not have these needs, but we do.

We are waiting for the circumstances to present themselves. We are hoping that we will able to sell our house in Florida. We may need to take a jump some day and close our eyes and pray it works out...we need this for us.

The Country Drive

For two people deeply in love, anytime spent together is satisfying and yet also painful. Painful? Yes. We know that this time together is temporary and so we attempt to forget time altogether and sink fully into the moment. This of course is impossible because the sun eventually goes down, bodies need to be nourished and fatigue lingers closely behind us. This human form is not eternal and so we must take "time" to enjoy each other inside of this Earthly clockwork.

If you ask me how I do this, I would tell you that some conditions for this enjoyment are as follows: a sunny or partly overcast day, a car or truck but preferably an old VW bus, music by ipod, radio, tape, etc., windows that roll down, and my husband. In the sweet youth of our love, we also threw in a bag of Baked Lays and a bottle of Fruitopia. Those last condition no longer apply because Fruitopia no longer exists and we are older now and cannot eat an entire bag of chips without suffering for it later. (We replaced the chips with Hot boiled peanuts(a southern classic) and the occasional Slurpee or Gatorade.)

T. S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month" and I shall add to that: "Sunday is the cruelest day". I attend church with my family, contemplate the sacrifice made on my behalf, share in the communion with brothers and sisters and sing the hymns with joy and thankfulness. This is a blessing and so it would seem that Sunday is the most Glorious of days. But that is just not the reality of it for me.

I bustle through my week with homeschooling, schedules, soccer, gymnastics, meetings, church studies, parties etc...By the time Friday evening comes, I am exhausted, and I want my husband back from work. His job is stressful and not always fulfilling. We have dreams and we have plans and they are not a part of of our daily life. So on the weekend we detox from our weekly drugs that keep us plugged in and engaged in the present. We sleep later, we read deeply, we eat at random times, we get dirty, we nap longer and we listen to a lot of music in the background.

Come Sunday, I want to fellowship with other people not on our planet. So when we go to church, we do just that. Then we pack ourselves back into our van and go home. I feel sick the whole way. I hate that the hamster wheel will start again in less than 24 hours.

So, I propose a country drive. What you love to do does not have to change just because you have 4 kids bouncing around in the backseat. We are all cowboys at heart. We want to explore and find a treasure like Cortes and chocolate. I feel that this desire is truly Human. God said "Go and take dominion" and while it may be a bit out of context here, I do not think He meant to stay just outside the Garden gate and set up camp for all time.

So, we set off, GPS ready, to get lost in the country. And a Discovery was made and what we found was something overwhelming. Not in an incredible mountain view way, or a munchkin land kind of thing. But for my husband it was like God saying to us, I love you, I know you and I know what you love and desire. This may sound silly, but what we found was breathtaking in a rusty, dilapidated sort of way. We discovered 2 (maybe more) acres of land absolutely covered in-------.