Prairie Adventure: Plum Creek

I no longer have any idea what day it is.

Does leaving your normal town and standard routine have this same effect on you?

I also mostly do not know what hour it is.

We are only one time zone off but that’s just enough to kick me off balance.

Today was Plum Creek day.

As in – on the literal banks of the actual Plum Creek.

Oh my goodness.

I love Plum Creek.

It’s the real deal. The actual Plum Creek Laura and Mary regularly played in. The spring where they collected their drinking water. The stream where Laura sought her revenge on Nellie by leading her right to the leech populated area.

It’s the creek where the floods and rain brought the waters right up to the door of the Ingalls family dug out.

Where Laura decided to disobey and cross the overflowing creek on a thin board and almost lost her life.

And we all stood right there.

Bergen read the scene.

It felt near somehow.

The tiny dugout where Pa and Ma somehow managed to set up a homestead has fallen in long ago. (It was dirt after all.)

But the spot is there – live and true and authentic.

And no imagination is required to stand atop that mound of earth and see a little Laura running barefoot through the prairie grasses and waving wild flowers.

I thought of living that way. In a house made of dirt.

The beauty of the nearby creek made the thought slightly more appealing, but mostly it just seemed like so much hard work.

I wish Ma had written a book too.

I’d like to know how romantic she found the ceaseless wind and the endless parade of mosquitoes. The washing of clothes and the placing them on the tall prairie grasses to dry.

Of course we had to wade in the creek. To stick our toes in Laura’s waters and splash around in the past in our own noisy and curious way.

And we tried to take it a step farther. Bergen plunged in his Life Straw (a personal water filtration system he received as a birthday gift) and imbibed a little of Plum Creek.

We all did actually. (Except Kevin. He said he was going to be the control
subject in case we all grew ill. I don’t think Plum Creek would hurt us like that.)

I’ve loved so much about this trip already. I really have.

But something happened at Plum
Creek today. Something that reminded me I’m still a broken and tender momma in search of peace and hope myself.

I’m standing there, on the edge of Plum Creek. Five of my children are wading in Ingalls history, splashing through the year we’ve spent knowing Laura and her faithful pioneer spirit. Knee deep in the waters with happy grins on their faces.

I’m just standing there. Smiling. And then. I’m just standing there. Crying.

What in the world is my deal?

At that moment, I’m thinking about it all.

My momma – standing in this same same creek nearly a decade ago. Hand in hand with her – Riley and I. Laughing. Being alive. Together. Having finished, by hook and by crook and by fear and by force, my first ever year of home schooling. Finishing a year of three children under three. A year of my mom moving to Wyoming and her cancer rising and falling inside of her perishing body.

Oh good grief, ya’ll. Of course I was crying.

This creek is suddenly so much more than this moment. Standing in the waters again with five more learners. Homeschool looking so different – so much more jolly. Less fear. More hope.

My life so different this time as the waters drifted and sifted by.

The terrible weight of loss. The incredible weight of the bounty of the blessings I’ve found in raising and teaching these humans.

My word. I could cry still.

Words have beautiful power, friends.

And I don’t mean my words.

I mean Laura Ingalls’. I mean her memories intertwining with my own. It’s a special kind of magic.

I’m so grateful.