Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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The circling

It is 6 a.m. and I’m sitting on my porch, mug of coffee in hand, watching traffic whiz by as my thoughts keep pace, one after the other, fleeting snippets of to-do lists and reactions to things I’ve seen, heard or read. This, my ritual for a month or more now, an antidote to the hurry I feel when my feet hit the floor each morning. So much to do, so much to do, better get started.

It is my place to press pause before I hit the fast forward button. Fifteen minutes of nothing but sitting on the porch and drinking a mug of coffee, birds and squirrels for company. At first it was work to stay put. I am a person in one of two modes: constant motion or total rest, seldom anything in between. And the first hours of the morning are, in my mind, for doing, not for being because I’ve just spent hours asleep.

Until I found myself overwhelmed at the start of each day, with to-do lists too long and a day unfolding in multiple directions and a need to just let my mind wander and my body be still. Fifteen minutes, I promised myself, difficult at first but now I want more.

It is my favorite part of each day, and I’m not sure what I’ll do when the weather turns too cold for early morning porch sitting.

—

I hesitated that first morning back after a week in Illinois, wondering if slipping back into a routine I’d established was actually a good thing. I had taken my coffee to the porch most mornings while at my parents’ house but it’s a different experience when the kids wake early and there are other adults getting ready for the day. Returning to my porch in a new month as the summer winds down almost felt like a step backward, as if I should be creating something new for myself, some new rhythm, some new practice.

New, new, new. It’s a constant striving, at least the pull of it is ever-present. The world is tugging us forward and upward with promises that new and more and bigger are better, that visible outward change is a sign of new growth. (Church, I’m thinking of you, too.)

Forward, forward, forward. No looking back. Onward to the next thing.

Maybe we like the idea of straight lines because they show progress. Look how far we’ve come!

But I wonder if there isn’t at least a season of our lives, a time in our development, that is more like circling.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

—

We stood in the cemetery near my grandfather’s grave, three adults, two kids, one baby, the same place we’d stood two years prior when we’d said our earthly goodbyes, still missing his presence in our lives. I thought about the great-granddaughter we held, the one who wouldn’t know him in this life, and how life goes on. It’s trite and overused but where my grandfather’s life stopped, ours kept moving. The cemetery is full of similar stories.

I took my kids to the other side of the hill where my paternal grandfather is buried, a man they know only from pictures. He’s been gone almost 20 years. Two plots away marks the grave of his son, an uncle who died before I was born. I told the kids what I knew about both men. I don’t know why I felt like I needed to show them these gravestones and tell them these stories. Maybe because it is part of who they are, part of their history.

On this most recent visit to Illinois, I learned from my dad that one of our ancestors was an early settler–a homesteader–of the land where the airport now sits. This awakened something in me, a desire to know more of where I come from so I can know more of who I am. It is a look backward but no part of our family history is unimportant. It all shapes who we are and what we become.

Maybe instead of timelines of our lives, instead of family trees, we could draw circles and where our lives overlap with other family members, the circles could interlock, like the Olympic rings. I’m not an artist or good with shapes but I think I can picture it.

—

I want to grow as a person, to change and be different. In some ways it’s inevitable (hello, post-baby body and 40-year-old hair and skin). Looking at pictures of myself as a child, as a teenager, as a college graduate, I can see all the changes, not all of them good but all of them what they are. This kind of growth and change is obvious and nearly impossible to stop.

But the other kind, it’s harder to see, harder to measure. Is it only good if we’re further from where we started? Is it only change if we can see it? Is it only growth if we’re moving?

I’m thinking of trees and how they are rooted in a place, how some growth we can see (branches stretching to the sky) and some we can’t (roots spreading out beneath the ground). How they cycle through the seasons, how winter looks like death to a tree but is only just a time of rest and replenishment.

I am thinking of our garden, which has been a struggle this year between too little rain, too much rain, and a tangle of weeds we cannot control. This is our third year with the garden in the same place. It is possible that we have stripped this patch of land of its nutrients. Maybe it is time for a rest. Or some fertilizer. (I think there is another metaphor here.)

And I’m thinking of airplanes, these magnificent machines that transport humans from one place to another through the sky in a matter of hours. They cross the country and the globe, sometimes circling the same routes, accumulating miles but always needing a place to land.

Photo by Sebastian Grochowicz on Unsplash

Always needing a place to land.

—

At 6 a.m. on the porch with my coffee, I have found a place to land. No matter the circling I’ve done the day before or the miles ahead of me in the day to come, I am there, in the same place I was yesterday, different and still the same.

We need not fear the circling, the routine that takes us from one day to the next. Even if we cover the same miles we did yesterday, every day is new and different or has the potential to be. Maybe we feel stuck in the same place but the change and the growth we seek is happening underneath. Maybe it’s a season of rest.

And maybe we just don’t see it because we don’t take the time to land.

Three words that terrify me: Review of Raise Your Voice by Kathy Khang

I have not always been the kind of person to speak up in public or in a class setting. On the rare occasions when I would raise my hand, I would have to be 100 percent certain I knew the answer. If called on to give an opinion, I would not speak with any kind of confidence.

In recent years, I’ve been learning that staying silent is costly, even though speaking up costs something, too. And I haven’t always done it well. In an effort to speak my mind, I have sometimes shut down someone else, or when I’ve been unwilling to take the risk, I’ve let my words churn inside of me until I’m anxious and stressed on the inside.

This is why Kathy Khang’s new book is necessary reading for people like me (and others who are trying to give voice to what they believe). Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up is a useful, practical book in the “say anything” culture in which we find ourselves. Khang comes alongside those of us who might be hesitant to speak up or who are new to finding and using our voice in the social arena and shows us how to do both with grace and right motives.

I like how the book is structured to first address the reasons we stay silent and then gives us ways to speak up that are humble and practical. Never did it feel like the author was demanding that we speak up. The words “raise your voice” can be terrifying for a shy introvert, but Khang is a voice of encouragement and passion that makes me want to use my voice more and better.

Of the book’s 160 pages, I flagged close to half for quotes I found helpful or thought-provoking. Since I can’t share all of them with you, here are a couple of favorites.

On knowing ourselves before we speak up: “We are all children of God, and diversity is a part of that unity–not conformity or assimilation. Knowing who you are helps you deal with all of the different people you will meet, especially during those times when you’re speaking out or challenging them. Knowing who you are also helps you recognize everyone else’s humanity.” (p. 57)

On using our voice in social media: “We must not confuse using courage to speak up with responding in cowardice by lashing out because the medium affords us a degree of anonymity.” (p. 115)

On the reason behind using our voice: “Speaking up is always about the gospel–speaking and painting a picture of truth, wholeness, and hope.” (p. 130)

Khang doesn’t promise that speaking up about important issues will change the world or come without hardship. She’s honest about how it’s the opposite sometimes–maybe no one will change and you’ll suffer social backlash–and encourages readers to do it anyway, with the right motivation.

I have so much to learn, and Raise Your Voice sets me on a path toward that goal.

(Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. Review reflects my personal opinions.)

Home is

Home is

where the past and present
meet like old friends

who have not seen each other

in years

 

It is

‘a place to come back to’

and the one I cannot leave

without tears and longing and regret.

 

Home is

here and there

and always somewhere else.

I cannot escape it

though it pulls my heart

like a tug-of-war between

foes equally matched.

 

It is corn stalks waving in the wind

and traffic slowing for tractors

in summer.

It is planting and tending and harvest and winter,

the rhythms of the fields marking time

for everyone.

 

Home is deep grief. 

My heart shredded and mended as

scenes from two funerals

flash across my mind.

 

It is mountaintop joy

remembering the days

of blossoming love. The friendships, 

the weddings, the births, the way

the city comes to life in the summer.

 

Home is the river that splits the city

north and south

as my heart splits

east and midwest.

 

Home is simple.

And complicated.

It is deep breaths.

And wounds that won’t quite heal.

 

It is then and it is now.

It is who I was and who I am and who I will be.

 

Home is.

Cinderella Mom

If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken.

These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s the one that berates me for reading a book instead of washing dishes or tsk-tsks my decision to take the kids out of the house to do something fun instead of staying in the house to clean it. It’s what drives me to give my husband a list of all the things I accomplished during the day or reasons I didn’t get this or that done. (FYI: He does not demand this of me.)

Until recently, it was just me and the condemning voice in my head telling me that if I was a better mom, I’d have a spotless house. If I was a better mom, the laundry would always be done and the dishes would always be clean and we’d always have a home-cooked meal on the table. (Where do I get these ideas?)

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

But then something happened. A man came to our house to perform a service for us at the request of our landlord. And before he left, he said some things to my husband about the state of our house. He used the word “filthy” and implied that Jesus would be disappointed in how we kept our house and that it was somehow my husband’s responsibility to make sure our house was clean. (Aside: I don’t think he meant that my husband should clean the house. No, no, no, this was ugly patriarchy rearing its head.)

I was out for coffee with a friend and it was one of the mornings my husband is off. He was home with the kids and watching World Cup soccer. The night before had been our community’s fireworks celebration. I had cooked and prepped food all day Saturday and we were out of the house most of the day Sunday. We were also in the midst of a string of days that were 95-feels-like-105.

So, yeah, our house was messier than usual. (Did I also mention it’s summer and the kids are home and we’d only been home from vacation for a week?)

The words, told to me later, shocked and angered me, but they also fed that little voice that lives inside. Maybe he’s right. Maybe my reasons were nothing more than excuses. Should I have been doing a better job with our house?

Whether he was wrong or right about the state of my house, I felt it was wrong of him to say something about it, so I tried contacting him by phone but ended up sending a letter stating my thoughts. A week later, I got a reply. The sentence at the beginning of this post is a paraphrase, and it was not the worst thing in the letter.

I’m still not sure I’m over it.

In the days since this man’s visit and the exchange of letters, our house has gotten cleaner because that’s the normal rhythm of our lives. We work hard, we play hard, and eventually we get around to cleaning up after ourselves. We don’t live in squalor but we also don’t strive for perfection when it comes to how our house looks. Because I’m a low-energy person and the heat affects me severely, cleaning my house in the summer is a gradual process. (We don’t have AC in most of the house nor do we have a dishwasher … oh the modern conveniences we lack!)

Photo by Catt Liu on Unsplash

I like having a clean house, but I don’t always like the process, and I will often choose other activities before I choose to clean. I’m learning to accept this and not try to fit myself into someone else’s mold. I know there are some of you out there who love to clean (wanna come over?) and maybe you can see this man’s point of view. But we all have our own standards when it comes to cleanliness in our private spaces, right?

The Bible might talk about cleanliness and purification, but I’m pretty sure that’s cultural and not a justification for “cleanliness is next to godliness.” If Jesus came to my house and rebuked me for how well I kept it clean or not clean, then I’ve read the Bible all wrong all these years. (Would Judean homes have been spotless? What was that story about Mary and Martha again?)

I didn’t want to tell this story just as a rant, although I’m still pretty mad about the whole thing. I wanted to throw it out into a public space, though, because maybe you have an inner soundtrack like I do. Maybe you think you don’t deserve to do anything fun unless your house is spotless. I’ve come to think of it as Cinderella Mom Syndrome–if you finish all your chores, then you can go to the ball! (Or Target, or Starbucks, or whatever.)

If that’s you, then hear me now (and I promise to listen, too): A clean house is not the price you pay for staying home with your kids. Housework is not your penance. How much or how little you clean isn’t the measure of your success or failure at motherhood.

I have to say those words because I have to hear them. And as much as I want to believe that more people than not agree with me, if this guy can walk into a stranger’s house and say things that only add burden and shame to what is already a tough job (motherhood), then surely there are others out there believing their worth as a mother is wrapped up in their housework.

I stayed home with my kids for 10 years, and our house was never clean. I could have kept the house clean, but I think my mental health would have suffered more than it already did. I started working part time in January, and our house is still never clean. (What does that word mean anyway?) But our family is healthy and closer to whole than we’ve ever been.

Doesn’t that count for something?

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The tending

These summer days are both too long and too short.

Day breaks before I’m ready to get out of bed, and yet there is something about the light that calls me to wake.

Some days, I answer, shuffling to the coffee pot, glancing across the lawn to the garden in all its green goodness. As the machine perks the beans, I survey the world. What has changed while I’ve slept? 

Usually, little.

Other days, I ignore, silencing the alarm, pulling the sheets tighter and closer, enjoying the respite the air-conditioned bedroom provides from the blistering heat of summer days. I will close my eyes to grab a few more minutes of sleep or reach for a book to open the day with words. Some days, I reach for my phone and survey the virtual world. What has changed while I’ve slept?

Usually, little.

—

On the hottest of these summer days, I have taken great care with the plants. While the children play their make-believe games all throughout the house, I am carrying water in the teapot-shaped vessel from the sink to the porch and back again. Sometimes this is a morning activity and sometimes a nighttime one. Some days, it has been both.

I am no green thumb, but I am managing to keep seven pots of herbs thriving as well as six potted flowers, one hanging plant and four succulents. This is in addition to the garden in the back yard, the watermelon seeds the kids started at a science open house that have now become vines, and a patch of petunias my husband brought home from work.

A few of the plants on my porch

So much of this is ridiculous to me. I used to joke that I had a black thumb, that I could not keep plants alive because they couldn’t speak to me. Give me a cat that meows when it’s hungry or a baby who cries when she needs something, then I can respond. 

Plants take a special kind of care—a noticing and paying attention that I didn’t have the energy for until recently. And, if I’m honest, they do speak in their own way. Dry soil. Droopy leaves. If I look closely enough I can tell when a plant is healthy and when it is not.

When we decided to start gardening for ourselves a few years ago, I was afraid of failing at it. I didn’t want to waste time or money trying to grow something that I could easily buy from someone else. Mostly, I was afraid of my own inadequacies. What if I didn’t water enough? What if I watered too much? What if these plants died on my watch?

I’m no longer afraid of these questions. There is an element of mystery to tending these plants. My part is so minimal. Not unimportant but only part of something bigger. Knowing my role has given me freedom.

—

A month or so ago, after our garden was planted, my husband brought home a bunch of daisies that were destined for the garbage at work. (He is employed by farmers who run two farm stands in our county.) They were wilted some and a few of the buds were brown, but he was convinced that with a little care, they would perk back up.

The kids and I gave each plant its own pot and surrounded it with soil. Then I watered and watered and watered some more, each day wondering if I was performing an impossible task. The leaves were a healthy green and only an up-close examination revealed some flower potential within. These seemingly dead plants eventually bloomed, adorning our porch with pink and yellow daisies. 

Even now, after weeks of hot temperatures and insufficient watering, they persist. I keep watering and wondering. Will they bloom more or am I watering for nothing?

—

A week or so ago, my husband brought home a flat of petunias that were going to be discarded. Having seen the success with the daisies, he was certain I could bring them back to life. As I prepared a plot for them, I shook my head in disbelief. Me? Bring dead things to life?

The day I transplanted the petunias

It is nothing short of a miracle.

The same petunias three days later

That same night, he brought three more plants for our garden. I made room for them as best I could, but it’s getting a bit crowded back there. We seem to be in a phase of rescuing plants that need a good home, and while it means more work, it also means potentially more beauty, more fruit.

How did I become this kind of person? Maybe I always was but fear got in the way.

These long summer days find me tending plants in the morning and watering the garden at night, preserving herbs, and harvesting vegetables as they come. I hover in the garden, keeping watch daily because the changes happen so quickly. What has changed in the night? A lot.

It is hard, holy work, this tending of plants. My hands bear hard callouses. My feet are constantly covered in dirt. My body reeks of sweat. And I never feel closer to God than when I’m close to the earth. Bare feet on dirt or sand or dipped in the ocean. Hands digging in the soil. The sounds of birds singing or leaves rustling in the wind. The colors of flowers. The green of grass.

Even in the rhythm of the near-nightly ritual of watering the garden, I can feel something of the Divine as I drag the hoses—one across the driveway, the other across the lawn—to meet in the yard so water can flow freely from the faucet by the house to the sprinkler in the garden.

I watch where the water falls, adjusting the sprinkler as necessary, never getting it quite right but hoping that the drops fall where they are needed most. I walk away for 30 minutes or so, leaving it be until puddles form in the dirt.

On the nights it rains, I celebrate the natural soaking our plants receive knowing it is far more thorough than my evening attempts to give the plants what they need.

I cannot keep up with removing the weeds but somehow life emerges. Already, we have eaten okra, eggplant and zucchini from our garden. Our first jar of pickles is in the fridge. (We still have to wait a week before they’re ready.)

The heat, the weeds—they almost made me lose faith that our garden would produce this year.

But the little signs of life help me believe.

—

I give up too easily on the seemingly dead areas of my life—dreams that dry up and plans that face too much heat, the place where I’m planted that seems overrun with weeds.

These wilted flowers and almost-discarded plants remind me that what looks to be dead isn’t always over and done. Maybe my dreams need a little watering. Maybe they need more room to grow. Maybe I can’t keep the heat away, but I can nurture my plans in another way. Maybe I need to get rid of some weeds.

Maybe I can’t give up on things just because of what I see. Maybe I need to trust the natural rhythms, the ordinary work to produce something surprising and unexpected.

And maybe the God who can bring the dead back to life can resurrect something in me.

Don’t let the genre keep you away: Review of The Edge of Over There by Shawn Smucker

Some of my favorite books these days are in the YA or middle grade categories, so let me be clear from the start of this review: you don’t have to be a young adult to read this book. And you don’t have to be any certain age to enjoy it.

Shawn Smucker’s The Edge of Over There is the long-awaited sequel to The Day the Angels Fell. It’s hard to talk about one book without talking about the other, and without revealing any spoilers, but I’ll try. (The cover is SO pretty. I love a good book cover!)

This is YA fiction with spiritual themes at its best. Page after page, I couldn’t stop reading. Smucker’s stunning writing drew me right into Abra’s adventure to find the next Tree of Life and the story was over before I knew it. This follow-up is even better than the first book in the series. (Your really need to read them both, so pause in your reading and go order TWO books for your summer reading!)

Smucker explores themes of good-and-evil, life-and-death, and what happens after we die. And it’s definitely an exploration, a creative and hopeful imagining of what’s to come rather than a firm declaration. I can’t say enough about this book! (I read an advance digital copy provided by the publisher. Review reflects my honest opinion.)

Here are a couple of my favorite lines that illustrate why I think it’s for young or older adults.

“Can those of us facing the winter of our lives somehow gather the courage to believe spring will come again?”

And:

“Maybe children are the only ones brave and true enough to save the world.”

Anne Bogel, of Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next, has described Smucker’s writing as “Neil Gaiman meets Madeleine L’Engle,” so if you like what those authors have to offer, I’m going to strongly encourage you to check out this series.

Buy it for your kids if you must, but make sure you sneak a read for yourself when they’re finished.

 

What I can keep from vacation (and what I can’t)

Our family spent last week in Florida, a throwback to the summer vacations of my youth. My parents bought a timeshare condo sometime in the late ’80s, I think, so week-long trips to Daytona Beach became a regular thing, often in summer, sometimes over spring break.

Until last week, it had been six years since I’d been there. Many more years since I’d been there with my parents and my brother. Reuniting in the place where we made so many family memories (more than a few of which I seem to have forgotten) was a gift and a treat, a memory in itself.

—

I have a complicated relationship with vacation. I love the idea of seeing new places and getting away from the daily duties of life. But I hate packing. And travel causes me some anxiety. (Let me tell you about the congested roads from Virginia Beach to Hilton Head. Relaxing in the car was not an option on our way there.) And as much as I enjoy getting away, I really like coming home. I’m the kind of person who would rather unpack and put everything back where it belongs. Schedules and routine are my friends.

I don’t have a lot of trouble leaving vacation behind. Occasionally I’ll entertain the thought of staying in a new place forever. (This is also known as “searching Zillow for beachfront homes to confirm that I don’t have a million dollars to buy them.”) But vacation isn’t reality. I know myself too well. I would find something to hate about whatever “paradise” I chose as home. I just can’t picture an eternal vacation.

—

As I’ve eased back into our regular life this week, I’ve thought about what I can keep from vacation, and not just the memories and souvenirs and pictures. (And sand. How is there still so much sand?)

Mornings, for example. In Florida, I tried to keep to my usual wake-up time between 6 and 6:30 a.m. I know. I was on vacation. I was supposed to sleep in. Too many days of sleeping in throws my whole day off, though, and it takes me a good hour to adjust after I crawl out of bed. I am not a morning person, but I know what works for my body and mind.

It’s not hard to get out of bed that early when you know the sun is just starting to peek over the horizon and you can watch the show from your balcony (or pull up a front row seat on the beach). I checked on the sunrise every morning as my coffee brewed or as I got ready to go for a run. (I had a mileage goal to complete for a fundraiser.)

I’m not sure this view would ever get old.

On the days I didn’t head to the beach for a tortuous exercise session in 100 percent humidity, I sat on the balcony with a book and my laptop and watched the world wake up. One morning, I witnessed a family preparing to leave for Disney. Most mornings, it was the usual crowd, though: half-clothed (in swimsuits or pajamas) vacationers stumbling out of their rooms toward the beach to watch the sun rise. Occasionally, I’d have to say “good morning” to a neighbor on their balcony. Never did I feel like I had to be fully clothed to start the day. At home, I tend to wait till I’ve had coffee and breakfast and a change of clothes before I wander outside. (I mean, what if the neighbors or a car speeding by saw me in my jammies? Shocking!)

The day after we returned home, though, I took this little piece of vacation with me. I wandered outside in my sleeping clothes to the garden to see how our vegetable babies fared in our absence. And I wondered why I give myself “acceptable hours” to use my front porch, my favorite place in our little rental. Why don’t I ever take my coffee and breakfast outside to greet the day like I did in Florida?

—

And speaking of this little rental …

We stayed in a condo in Florida. It’s a pretty simple setup. A bedroom. A bathroom. A long hallway. A small kitchen with the bare essentials. A small living space. A balcony. I rarely think of condos as spacious, but really, we had all we needed for the week: a place to sleep and a place to keep and prepare food; a shower, a toilet; a couple of options for relaxing at the beginning or the end of a day.

This condo in particular is designed for vacationers, and I often complain about the size of the kitchen. We like to cook a meal or two (or more) when we’re on vacation, but the kitchens aren’t stocked for home chefs. So, we make do with what we have, using our creativity to make up for what we lack in tools or pans.

There are condos in Florida and there are large homes in Florida and homes of in-between sizes. I often dream of having a large home, and I’m not exactly sure why. (I seriously just googled the address of a large home in our area to see if it was still for sale. It is. My dreams aren’t dead yet!) Even when I’m not dreaming of a large home, I’m wishing for more space. When we moved here five years ago, our kids sharing a room didn’t seem like a big deal, but now, their tiny bedroom is just not enough. Or so I believe. They spent all of vacation sharing a room without much complaint.

How much space do I really need? How much stuff do I really need? In Florida, my mindset was that the condo was a home base of sorts. It wasn’t for spending large amounts of time, although one afternoon, our party of seven gathered there for an hour or so after we got caught in the rain. Sure, we were using every available seat in the condo, but it’s one of my favorite memories from this vacation. We were on the go a lot, and honestly, all of Florida is like a communal back yard, so maybe it doesn’t work the same in a place where we actually have winter. But I’m looking at our space and our stuff differently.

What do I really need?

—

I’m not terribly adventurous. You might know this about me or you might not. I have my moments of brave spontaneity but these times are rare and they always cost me something emotionally (and sometimes physically). At home, I tend to stick to what’s safe and predictable and usual. The adventure can wait for another day because it’ll always be here, I think.

On vacation, though, it’s sometimes now or never.

Here is a partial list of what I experienced on vacation that I could have missed if I’d have insisted on sticking to what made me comfortable:

  • I went to two local farmers’ markets with my husband on day 1 because we wanted fresh local vegetables as part of our vacation diet. Yes, we also went to the grocery store, but a farmers’ market as a tourist felt weird to me. But we had a nice conversation with the couple selling vegetables at the first market and found a sweet deal on fresh corn at the other. (Not to mention the pineapple.)

    I snapped this as quickly as possible to prove we’d all been to the top then hightailed it back down with my son who said, “This is creepy.”

  • I climbed 200 steps to the top of a lighthouse, held my breath as I made a quick lap at the top, and went back down. And while waiting for the rest of my family to find us, I found an exhibit of Cuban rafts that had washed up in the area over the years.
  • I took a ferry across the river to a national park site and climbed a narrow ladder to the top of the fort.
  • I walked across a drawbridge in St. Augustine and then waited on the bridge as it raised and lowered to let a boat through.
  • I led my mom and daughter through the streets of St. Augustine to find an ice cream place while we waited for the men in our group to retrieve the car from the other side of the bridge. (It was maybe going to rain again.)
  • I ran on the beach by myself, with my husband, and with our daughter.
  • I tried boogie boarding with my kids. In the ocean. (Let’s talk about this huge achievement. The ocean awes and terrifies me.) I even let the fish nibble my toes a little as we stood watching the waves. (It is the weirdest feeling.)

And then there were the detours and side trips that added time to our vacation but also unforgettable memories.

On the way home, we needed to stop somewhere to eat our packed lunch. My husband suggested we drive into Savannah and eat at the park right in the heart of the city. It was a Saturday and I immediately thought of all the reasons not to: parking and people, chief among them. Staying on the Interstate, stopping at a crowded rest area made more sense to me, but sometimes the call of the natural world is so persistent, I cannot ignore it. We found parking on a side street right next to Forsyth Park (and parking, it turned out, was free).

Not a bad “rest” area

We lugged our picnic lunch into the park, which was full of people but also trees draped with Spanish moss. We met a man who wanted to sing for us, and we saw an owl and two hawks in the trees. We got back in the car refreshed and traveled some back roads to return to the interstate.

Our destination on day one of the return trip was Hillsborough, North Carolina, where some friends of ours live. (This is a longish part of the story. Bear with me.) The first surprise there was the uniqueness of their home. It’s an old historical house that sometimes gets mistaken for being open to the public. This was where we would spend the night. (What was not a surprise was how welcomed we were. Our friends are hospitable hosts. When I’d originally started planning, I figured we’d end up in a hotel. Staying with friends is a thousand times better.)

When the kids started to get rowdy after dinner, our friends took us on a walking tour of their town. At one point, my friend commented on a house we were walking by and said it belonged to Allan Gurganus. “He’s an author,” she said, and I wondered if I should know that name. She mentioned that Hillsborough has a lot of writers living there. I asked what this man had written. She said his most famous book was “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All” and I exclaimed because I’d heard of that but never read it. (Writer and reader friends, this is where you may feel free to disown me, although how can I possibly keep up with all the writers and books everywhere?!)

My spine tingled a little as we passed his house and I kept thinking about what she’d said about all the writers who lived in this beautiful little town. We finished our pleasant walk at the park where the kids chased fireflies and a frisbee (which eventually ended up in a tree), and we took the river path back to their house. Our kids fell asleep in all corners of the house and it was such a restful way to end a day of driving. The next morning, over coffee, the authors of Hillsborough thing was mentioned again, so I searched the Internet to see who else might be living nearby. Only one other name stood out to me, and I nearly dropped my coffee mug.

“Phil!” I exclaimed to my husband. “Annie Dillard lives here!” Granted, I have only read one of Dillard’s books but she is so well-respected among the writers I know that our house contains many of her books that I have every intention of reading. She is a poetic, spiritual, artistic voice, and I WALKED THE SAME STREETS SHE WALKS. (Sorry for the shouting.) This was the second surprise of our side trip, something I wasn’t even aware could possibly happen. Never mind that I wouldn’t know Annie Dillard if I bumped into her on the street, but just the thought of such a talent being nearby sent me into a fangirl frenzy I clearly have not quite recovered from.

We left our friends that morning a little bit unsure of where we would go next. We wanted to visit another national park on our way home, but we had trouble deciding which one. We finally decided to drive toward the Blue Ridge Parkway. It wasn’t exactly “on the way” but it wasn’t necessarily out of the way either. Our route took us on backroads through North Carolina and Virginia. The mountains loomed larger on the horizon. We stopped for lunch and then found our way to the first visitor center. We only planned to drive the Parkway for 20 miles or so, yet it added hours to our return trip.

But it added depth to my soul. (I can’t speak for the others in my family.) At the gift shop where we bought our souvenir puzzle (we have a collection from most of our adventures), my husband handed me a magnet with the well-known words from John Muir: “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

“I saw this and thought of you,” he said with a smile.

It is true. Something happens to me in the mountains. I feel more like me. Those added side minutes on the parkway made the rest of the drive bearable and worth it. The views left us in awe, and my husband got to try out a driving feature on our new-to-us car as we wound our way up and down and around the mountains.

I can’t even with this picture. It’s like a painting.

It was nearly dark by the time we arrived back at our house, and we all pretty much collapsed into bed. We could have arrived hours earlier if we hadn’t gone to the mountains. We could have been home almost a day before if we hadn’t stopped to see our friends.

I regret neither of those decisions and I will continue to remind myself post-vacation that the fastest most direct way is not always the best way. I will try to keep my eyes open for surprises and take a risk now and then on something new and different.

—

Vacation is good but it’s not forever. At least, it’s not for me. Maybe there are some who could turn an endless vacation into their real life, but I can’t do it. I have to get back to the ordinary stuff of life.

Vacation also isn’t perfect. I could write another entire blog post about all the things that didn’t go as planned during the week. There was something every single day that kept my expectations from soaring too high. But this, too, I can keep after vacation is over.

Life is good, but it’s not forever, so seize the now-or-never opportunities. And life isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t stop it from being enjoyable.

We don’t bring home a lot of souvenirs from vacation–pictures, puzzles, postcards, a small gift for each of the kids–but the lessons and the memories will last from now until the next time.

And, I hope, beyond.

How does my garden grow? How do I?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden lately. We’ve had some warm days and the weeds are keeping pace with the plants, so I’m in a rhythm of watering and weeding to give our vegetables the best chance at bearing the goodness they’re meant to bear.

Every other night, depending on the weather forecast, I drag the hoses across the driveway and the lawn to hook up the sprinkler and let the water soak into the soil for thirty minutes to an hour. One night, the wind was blowing such that the position of the sprinkler meant none of the water was actually staying in the garden. I made a small adjustment and the garden got its drink for the night.

I have no real plan for the weeding. I don’t exactly enjoy it, but our summer days so far have given me time to do what needs doing and some days I take to the garden with weeding tools under the hot afternoon sun to at least clear space around the plants. I’ve not yet been able to rid the whole garden of the unwanted greens.

I weed because I know the plants will benefit. They will get the nutrients they need to flourish. 

The fruit will be worth all the work.

—

Spiritually speaking, my garden is kind of a mess these days. (And by “these days” I mean “for a couple of years.”)

I neglected the tending work of my soul and a whole host of weeds sprung up, threatening to choke the fruit-bearing life right out of me.

It’s been a slow process, the untangling and uprooting of weeds I either didn’t know were weeds or chose not to see, and it’s not anywhere near finished.

Photo by Kyle Ellefson on Unsplash

But for the first time in years, I can see/feel/taste fruit. My life feels vibrant and rich, as if my soul is deeply rooted and reaching for the sun, a mystery I cannot fully explain.

It is not unlike the actual garden in my backyard.

I have long considered myself a black thumb when it comes to growing things, but the truth is our vegetable garden has produced a modest crop of goodness for several years now, and I’ve managed to keep half a dozen or more plants alive in pots on the porch.

The thing about gardening is there is work I can do and work I cannot do, and I’m still learning the difference.

Here’s how it worked with the literal garden: We made a list in our minds of what plants we wanted to buy from the garden shop. As a family, we picked them out and added a few more, paid for them and brought them home. My husband wrestled a borrowed beast of a tiller through several passes of the garden plot to prepare the soil, then we laid out a plan for where we would plant each vegetable, dug holes and transplanted each one into its own little space in the garden. We watered. We weeded. We waited.

Spiritually, it is somewhat the same. There is talk amongst people of faith of “planting seeds” in others’ lives, and I know that to be true in my own. I could list a dozen instances where someone shared their God-knowledge and Spirit-life with me and something of theirs settled deep into my soul.

Those seeds need water and tending, just like the ones in my garden, and often I wonder if there isn’t some transplanted faith that gets shared, too. Maybe it isn’t always seeds at the start. 

Photo by Eco Warrior Princess on Unsplash

And the weeds—they’re present in my soul, too and without some intentional tending, they can choke out any of the good that might be growing. 

I’m not going to try to name the weeds in my life here because I think we all have different ones. Maybe they have names like pride and envy and insecurity but maybe they have other names I don’t know. 

And maybe my weeds are not the same as your weeds.

—

I have started thinking of myself as a caretaker of sorts. When my kids were little and being a stay-at-home mom was sucking the life out of me, I would have resisted such a label, but it’s a word that seems to fit me more and more.

It struck me as I watered the potted plants on the porch one day. Usually, it takes me about three refills of my small watering can to make sure all of them get enough to drink. I have marveled at their growth while they sit on my porch and I do almost nothing to ensure they grow: I water them and pick the herbs. The flowers just are.

Someone else started these plants on the path to life. We brought them into our care and now I get to nurture and encourage their growth while also seeing them thrive and become what they are meant to become. That includes ripping out the weeds that threaten their growth. When it’s time to harvest, we share the bounty with others. And at the end of the growing season, my relationship with the plants ends. Until the next time.

It’s not a perfect metaphor, but it’s how I feel about the people entrusted to my care. 

I used to feel a lot of shame that I’m not the best at staying in touch with people (even family) who don’t live in the same state as we do. I’ve tried to give energy to things like Christmas cards to everyone I know and birthday cards to family but it drains me. And it’s not that I don’t care about those people or those events, but I just don’t think it’s what I’m meant to do.

Unless I can see you in person on a regular basis. I have started to recognize that presence is one of my gifts to the world and when I’m willing to pay attention, it leads me to the care-taking of the friends and souls around me. I cannot have a large garden of plants and I cannot have a large circle of souls in my care but I can choose a few to “adopt” and give them water and love and encouragement.

Sometimes, that also means weeding. It’s tricky with the souls in my care to identify the weeds and encourage their removal. Especially since I still have so many of my own. But it’s a key to growth and becoming the whole person each of us is meant to be. It’s messy and hard but totally worth it.

I speak against the weeds as often as I can, but it’s not always welcome. I wonder if the plants in my garden would groan if they could as I hack away at the unwanted growth. Would the rose bushes cry out when we prune the dead branches? It is not easy to convince someone that a little pain, a little discomfort, a little hard work will mean future growth.

Still, I do what I can.

—

This is a message for me, too, and please don’t think I do any of it well or perfectly.

This is what I know: Something will thrive in the garden, either weeds or fruit-bearing plants, and it is the same with our souls. Either we will bear fruit or we will allow weeds to overtake the garden or maybe somewhere in between, but just as a garden needs weeding, so do our souls need tending and we cannot always do it alone.

Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash

We need caretakers and we need to take care and we need to be willing to pull the weeds and have them pulled if we’re to fulfill our purpose on this earth. (Do you know yours? That’s what makes the weeding bearable.)

The garden is growing and so am I. 

It is hard and mysterious work.

Better every time: Review of Just Let Go by Courtney Walsh

Sometimes when I’ve read everything an author has written, I worry that I’m going to get more of the same, and I wonder if I could possibly love something new they’ve written as much as I love something they’ve previously written.

Am I the only reader who struggles with this? 

The best writers I know are constantly improving and their stories get better every time. Courtney Walsh is one of those writers and her latest novel, Just Let Go, might just be her best one yet. In Just Let Go, we return to Harbor Pointe, Michigan, the setting of a previous novel, Just Look Up, a small lakeside tourist town where Olympic skier Grady Benson has unexpectedly become stranded due to some personal setbacks. When he’s sentenced to community service to make up for some property damage, he finds himself stuck with the people of Harbor Pointe, including Quinn Collins, who recently bought the flower shop of her childhood dreams.

There is so much to love about this book. First of all, Harbor Pointe had a Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls) feel to it, something I didn’t pick up on as much in the first book set here. In Just Let Go, I had an easier time picturing the downtown and the secondary characters who added to the personality of the place with their quirks.

(Also, can we talk about the cover? I love that flowers are front and center and there’s a guy in the background and the girl is seemingly the one receiving the flowers. I don’t know what it is for sure, but it’s refreshing to see something different on the cover of a romance novel.)

Secondly, Quinn and Grady seem all wrong for each other and their apparently mismatched pairing keeps the story moving forward. Seldom is there a surprise ending in contemporary romance stories–as a reader, I’m always pretty sure the two main characters are going to end up together–but the how of it all is what keeps me reading. And Courtney cooks up plenty of conflict and drama for these two characters.

Put this one on your summer reading list! It satisfies in all the best ways!

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book from the publisher as part of the Tyndale Blog Network. Review reflects my honest opinion.

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A letter to my future self

My last day of work (for the school year) is today. When I started five months ago, I never dreamed I’d love it as much as I do, or be as sad to see it end for summer break as I am. Don’t get me wrong; I’m looking forward to our summer plans, but I will miss the interactions with teachers and students.

Interviewing for the position last winter, I was skeptical about my future if I started working. I felt like I was losing something. I could not imagine that I would find something more valuable than money in it. It started out as something I thought I had to do for financial reasons and has turned in to something I need to do for me.

During the interview, I was asked a question I usually dread: “Where do you see yourself in three to five years?” I’ve always felt like this is a question meant to trick me into saying whether I see myself in this job long-term or not. When I hesitated, the interviewer explained, “I ask this question so I know if you have goals.” I think I may have sighed with relief. I told her what some of my goals were, personally and what we’ve set as a family. We’re not always super intentional about goal-setting, but we definitely have dreams and plans.

A few weeks later, when the calendar year turned over to the year I would celebrate my 40th birthday, I started thinking more about the future. What did I want the next years of my life to look like?

So I made a list. Not a bucket list, exactly, but goals and dreams for the future. I started a notebook, too, where I began collecting quotes that inspire me around the theme I’ve chosen for my 40s, a record of big prayers I’m praying, and a list of gifts for which I’m grateful (not necessarily material things).

In the few months that I’ve been doing this, it’s been an exercise in present- and forward-thinking.

My past has had enough attention.

—

This week, the eighth-graders at our school were given letters they wrote to themselves in seventh grade. And they had the opportunity to add to that envelope a letter to their senior selves to open four years from now when they are finishing high school.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

I remember this exactly from my middle- and high-school years. We wrote letters in eighth grade to ourselves and opened them our senior years of high school. By the time my high school career was nearing its end, I had forgotten what I had written, and I was shocked at how much of my eighth-grade attention was on other people. My letter was full of jealous, envious words directed at classmates, other girls particularly, because I was not popular and desperately wanted to be.

I wasn’t popular by the time I was a senior, either, but I didn’t care as much. Besides, I was going to a college seven hours from home. I was leaving my hometown behind and couldn’t have been happier. (I feel differently now.) Reading my eighth-grade letter to my future self was eye-opening and a little bit sad.

—

Not too long ago, I re-read a blog post I wrote five or so years ago. I didn’t remember writing anything about my future self, but I had and it made me smile that in the time between I had done the work I aimed to do to improve myself.

Why don’t I do this more often?

Letters to our younger selves are common, and I don’t think it’s wrong to look back at the people we were in the past and want to comfort and assure that part of us that everything’s going to be okay, that we can give ourselves more grace than we think we deserve, that life will go on.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

But we can’t change the past. 

We can affect the future.

Why don’t we write letters to our future selves?

For me, I think it comes down to fear. If I write a letter to future me full of my hopes and dreams and goals for the next stretch of life, what happens if I don’t accomplish those things? Will I feel worse about myself? I can’t see the future. It’s so unknown. What if something terrible happens between now and then?

Those are extreme fears. If I’m really going to be honest, I’m afraid of the work I’ll have to do to become the person I think I can be years from now. Putting it in writing means I can’t float along and let life happen to me. I can’t stick my head in the sand and pretend everything’s going to be okay without my intervention or attention.

Maybe I’m also afraid nothing will change in that time.

But I’m not sure any of those are good reasons not to write a letter to my future self.

—

Here’s a question I haven’t answered yet: When is a good time to do this?

Should I write one now and open it next year on my birthday? Or wait till I’m 45? Should I write it at the beginning of the year and open it at the end of the year?

I don’t know yet.

But I know I want to do something like this and soon.

Have any of you ever written a letter to your future self? Tell me more.