Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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Christmas In The Raw.
Does it feel like Christmas to you yet? And what in the world does feeling like Christmas even mean? Does it mean snow or presents wrapped and ready or baking in the kitchen? I don’t know. Here’s what I know – I’m in a bit of a holiday slump. For years I watched my father kind of ebb and flow during the holidays. He was never the primary shopper or planner of gifts – but that seemed pretty normal to me. He isn’t a Christmas-carol-singing kind of man. On a dairy farm days ran to a consistent routine and cows had to be milked Christmas Eve and Christmas morning…
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happy anniversary.
Nineteen. If you’re talking about grains of rice or hairs on your head, that’s a little number. But I’m not talking about food or hair. I’m talking years. Years. And suddenly, nineteen is kind of a giant number. Nineteen. A number that sort of takes my breath away. Today marks nineteen years since I traded my last name for his wearing blue Chuck Taylors and my momma’s wedding dress. Nineteen years since I stood in a field by a stream on a farm in Virginia and said “I do”. It’s not a golden anniversary, I guess, but it’s a good solid stack of years we’ve piled up as Husband and…
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tight spots. tight ropes. walking the line.
I’m in this spot. Of sorts. Tired of me. Tired of wrestling with the same issues. An addiction to control. A desire to run the show. The thought that I’m the master of my own universe. A person unable to portion my time wisely. Unable to avoid poor time management decisions that cost both me and my family peace of mind and rest and all those things that actually matter to me. Night after night I’m surprised to see it’s nearly midnight and I didn’t find time all day long to read or to finish my list or to write a blog post or to pay a bill or to…
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Just one more Virginia post. Just one more.
I know, I know. It’s just a place. It’s just a state. I’ve written this before, but after a trip to Virginia it takes days to shake the mountain scent off of me. And as I acclimate once again, I write. It’s how I process. And so I jotted most of these words earlier this summer in a journal, after my last bout with Leaving-Virginia-itis. It’s still true so I’m sending it through today in my current bout of Leaving-Virginia-itis. ——– Can you love a place and know it’s not for you? Of course you can. It’s surreal to visit your own former house as a guest. Displaced. But comfortable.…
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carry me back to Virginia
Thanksgiving found us traveling north to get to The South. (Actually – we drove north, directionally. Only north. And east. But no five years of South Carolina living can convince me that Virginia isn’t more southern than this state that boasts the name “south” in its title.) Anyway. We headed to the farm. And – like always – nostalgia washed over me the very instant our maroon shuttle ascended the ridge through the woods. It’s the driveway. It gets me every time. When I was fifteen and at passenger-only status I loved this driveway. When I was sixteen and driving my brother’s hand-me-down silver hatchback Toyota Tercel I’d stop at…
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a giving of thanks and days I’d rather forget, but cannot.
And then in the middle of thanks-giving sometimes I cry. It’s the thankful. It’s the stacked up, overflowing, spilling out, grateful-for-this-cup kind of cry mixed in with the still-tender, always shocking anniversary of one of the saddest seasons of my life. It’s the anniversary of the beginning of the passing of my kind mother from this life to another. I look at all I have, And all I’ve had. And seven years has truly been but a breath – a sigh and a laugh and a weekend and a joy and a valley and an everything you would imagine it to be. I’m still here. And hope reigns stronger than…
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and I quote ….
“Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.” -Annie Dillard
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The Final Forty Joins Us. In Florida.
It was a whirlwind drive. Florida to South Carolina Friday afternoon. (And back again in reverse Sunday afternoon.) And my phone’s battery died about an hour into the first morning and although we certainly had access to electricity, I had forgotten my charger and, frankly, I just didn’t want to carry my phone around. Page is a much better photographer than I am and I knew my weekend hours were very limited and I wanted to live them without the aid of King Solomon. Which is why this post is a wee bit shy on photos and why I am letting you know that I stole some photos from Gretchen’s…
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Here and there. A hodge podge.
This week is ending? What? I feel like I should sing that song, “it’s closing time”. Although I can’t remember any of it except that one line about “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. Honesty, I haven’t thought of that song in years, but this summer at our annual July Fourth Pigg River tubing trip, Maggie reminded me. She said I used to sing it to the point of annoyance. I have no recollection of that. (I’m sorry Maggie that you do.) Isn’t it a little disconcerting how you can absolutely forget certain parts of your own life? I guess it’s time I should warn you. This…
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and yet. all this stuff.
Kevin spent the first two weeks of September in another country. Riley will be spending ten months in another country. All summer we all knew The Trip was coming. Our summer was consumed with packing and repacking and weighing bags to be certain they didn’t surpass the 50 pound limit. (And when they did, trying to decide which items mattered least.) And then, suddenly, the day was upon us. Riley’s favorite breakfast of french toast was served. A trip to the airport was taken. Hugs and kisses and farewells and waves and deep sighs. And then the drive home. The house – with six instead of eight. And I think…
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and when I haven’t written in days…..
I haven’t typed a blog post in a week I guess. I’ve had a couple rolling around in my brain. Sometimes my thoughts work themselves around in my mind in the blog format. (It’s not really something new. My head operates through Story and The ReTelling. It’s this narrative I’ve had talking to myself since I was a kid. I just assumed it was how everyone’s inner monologue worked.) At any rate. It’s been a week. And the only reason I can really find to come up with is this: I just haven’t felt like writing. As in, shrug my shoulders and curl my lip and say “eh”. It’s funny.…
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Facebook. Instagram. iPhone. What do I do with you?
Have you ever thought of throwing your iPhone right into the ocean? Maybe driving over it with the giant tires in your SUV? Do you think of deleting your Facebook account and cutting the cord to social media in one swift slice? It’s almost cliche now – this love/hate relationship with Instagram and Facebook and email and a tiny touch computer screen we carry in our pockets. When we do struggle with conviction about time spent online versus time spent looking at a real human, we share that via our Facebook status. It’s so ironic. “Ahh. I’m turning off my Facebook page,” we announce. On Facebook. I’m not mocking conviction.…
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a lovely misery
The juxtaposition of lovely and miserable in this home is hard to ignore. Example One: The outside door of our bedroom. It opens to the porch. In the spring, in the summer, in the fall – it’s glorious. Waking up to a breeze, an old-fashioned lace curtain swaying, green trees, an inviting porch hammock. It’s picturesque. That same door – come winter – doesn’t seal appropriately and causes no end of frigid air to fill our room. Waking up to a breeze of a different nature is so much less inviting. Example Two: Old-fashioned, beautifully detailed fireplaces in three rooms. Lovely wood. Completely unusable fire places that are too pretty to cover…
