These are the kind of memories I am gripping, here. And although now, years later, I have become so accustomed to the woods that I am sort of blinky and stunned in the City, coming here is sharp and poignant. This was home. It belongs to other people now, people who are kind enough to have me come and stay with them. But my memories of the last couple of years are not of here.
This is the way of things. And I want to hold on. But people are the same way, as elusive as the specks of dust that Leafy and I tried to catch on the day he was sick. You love them and love them, but you can't keep them. Even our children will grow up and go.
I have somehow entwined myself in the land under my feet. I feel as though small birds have pinned me to the ground, and when we break away, small pieces of us will break off, too. The other day I was talking with Chinua, trying to figure out how to bring the woods and hills with me. "Maybe a tattoo of a Redwood. Or a Madrone," I suggested.
"Definitely a Madrone," he said. "A Redwood would make a horrible tattoo."
Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn't. But I have to let go. Somehow.
And then I remember that I always feel this way. And I found a poem that I wrote, when I lived here in this house that I feel nostalgic for now.
*
you struggle
when you have left pieces of yourself
around the earth,
in this village
and that one. you'll find sometimes
that your edges don't meet
the sides don't match.
your skin doesn't stretch to cover
all of you.
a slight ringing of bells is enough to
draw you halfway around the world
to call you away from your children
splashing happily in their bath.
or a stop at the curb
an otherwise annoying smell from
the sewer
sends you rocking into boats
sends you into the warm air.
when you have left pieces.
tan faces, bits of amber
the rush of a crowd in the market
meat on a stick, the cockroaches
your hurriedly made bed
deep in the cold of air conditioning.
when you have left pieces of yourself
with people, in this city and
that one,
you'll find that you can't
keep your thoughts with you
sometimes
they have taken you on a journey
a musing, winding road, many trees
thick forests. you struggle
to put a key in the lock of
your front door
with clumsy fingers.
you trip, stand catching your breath
head down, looking at cracks
in the pavement. head in your hands
draw yourself back.
pieces of you, here and there
making small light patches
on a gray and rushing landscape.
*
It is the same. I am the same, wanting to own what I cannot own, finding it difficult to say goodbye. And I will get through.
October 13, 2007
It is morning and I am writing with a little head snuggled into my shoulder. The other two kids are still in bed. Incense is thick in the air. I have begun the practice of burning incense while I pray in the mornings, in the dark, to see the rising smoke and know that God hears my little words.
Kai sits beside me, he scratches his neck, where he still gets eczema, from time to time, especially if I am not careful enough with his diet. I remember how overwhelmed I was by feeding two kids with food allergies, back when I first started. Now it is simple to me. So much of life is like that.
Kai is wearing his blue jammies with the feet. Kenya calls hers her slippery jammies, and slips and slides all over the floor like a fish in them. I love Kai's eyelashes. Last night when I got home I felt exuberant, like I could float away because of the love that supports me. We played the game again, where we talk about what we like about each other, all piled onto the love seat like puppies. Kenya said that she loves the hugs that both of her brothers give. Kai said that he likes that Kenya is so bee-youtiful. Leafy ran back and forth.
I went to visit with some dear friends, and they showed me photos of the two lovely places that we will most likely end up living in, in India. One is mountainous and lovely, in the North. And one is beachy and tropical, in the South. And it hit me. I've been wanting to go back to India for so, so long. And finally, we are going. I felt wave after wave of happiness wash over me as I looked at the photos. Because India, also, is one of my homes. And I am returning.
My heart is busy storing up days that tell of God's faithfulness to me. How he stretches the line of my life like a ribbon, fitting it around the various curves and over the various mountains, lining it up in pleasant places, even in the midst of sorrow.
Today, we have even more evidence that we are being tenderly cared for than yesterday. So much of life is like that.
And now I have to look after the needs of this patient boy who is sitting beside me, the one with the nose that is so perfect I would like to have it framed.
October 16, 2007
I feel aware and alive this morning. You could chalk it up to dance class last night. I'm not sure if you remember my "give it a year" philosophy with my West African Dance class, but it seems to be working. It has been a year, maybe a little less. All I know is that when I started it was dark outside while we danced, turning the windows into mirrors that we could critique ourselves in, slightly. And the big barrel stove was going, turning the room into a sauna, making us slightly light-headed. And then when we drove home we shot through the dark on steep curves, under the trees that are as tall as mountains.
It's that season again. All the vineyards are turning, the ivy is turning. The poison oak is turning. Everything is beautiful, even the unbeautiful, and my year of dancing has made me stronger.
I wasn't as faithful about going as I would have liked. But a year later my feet can follow more often than not. And a year later I feel like I may just dance as long as I can find classes.
There are opportunities coming up that have put me into a state of awe. It seems that God has had our address all along. And although it still feels as though chunks of my heart break off when people come to look at the Land, mulling over whether they want to buy it, (just don't cut down the trees!) I am heartened by the fact that there is this dancing path ahead of us. And I'm allowed to take it.
October 17, 2007
1. It rains and rains and rains. This is good for the river.
2. I am in a little cabin in the woods with three children, ages almost two, three, and five. Use your imagination.
3. I am trying to get ready to move. Our community has been here at this Land for ten years. There are files in the office from 1993. I found a 1957 Ford truck manual yesterday. (Why on earth do we have this?)
4. Let's see. Yesterday at our community meeting we discussed: a) Dumpster vs. trash runs, which is basically money vs. pain. How much scrap do we have? We can get money for this, maybe offsetting the cost of the dumpster. b) The eleven vehicles that we still need to deal with. (Various people abandoned their vehicles at the Land over the years) c) What can we sell? Stoves? RV? Chainsaw? d) Which day should we go shopping?
5. Yesterday we also received a scathing letter from someone we haven't met, condemning our choice to sell the Land. Where have all these people who care so much been, the whole time we've lived here? I am amazed at the number of people who are popping out of the bushes angrily, like hedgehogs.
6. I love teaching my kids. It is possibly my favorite thing.
7. Also, my favorite thing is Leafy's new phrases, "HUG!" and "I love you ______" (name inserted) He yells "HUG" about eighty-seven times a day, and says "I love you" about fourteen times a day.
8. So, all in all, life is good. (Just, do you think
it's cruel to make my kids play outside in the rain?)
November
November 1, 2007
Today is Moving Day. I'm still here, after an insane week of packing and sorting and purging and burning and cleaning. Do any of you clean under your couches? You really should, because then you won't be like me and be embarrassed when people pick them up and put them in the truck and it looks like a littered beach has been left behind on your floor. A beach littered with small toys. But who has time to move their furniture around, cleaning underneath it?
A bunch of stuff, including all seven pieces of our furniture and all of our strange instruments, are on the truck. It says a lot about us that about half of our belongings are cameras and the other half are odd musical instruments. We have more antique cameras than a camera dealer. Some people collect Picasso, we collect Russian medium format cameras.
A whole lot of stuff is waiting for me to continue sorting it. We really are in the middle of this, right now.
I have survived without having a heart attack, and Renee, who is also packing to move, is just barely surviving without having a nervous breakdown. I had to look at her quite sternly yesterday and say, "Renee, you need to calm down." She has too much going on, poor girl. And Mike and Julie, the other couple who live here, are busy being the sweetest people in the world, watching the kids for us, making dinner, helping us load the truck.
It's going to be weird, going away from community cold turkey like this. I'm going to be looking around at about 10:00 in the morning and scratching my head, thinking--something's not right. Because where's Renee? She should be at my house making coffee by now.
But in other ways, it will be delightful. Chinua and I have lived with other people our whole married life, and before, too! We hope that a community will form in India. But until then, we need a little break.
The surprising part is that Chinua is driving the moving truck South, to Sacramento, and the kids and I are driving North, to Eugene. I'm on my way to Canada again. We didn't plan it this way, but remember how I said my grandmother was sick? We got the news that she's really quite sick, and I need to go and see her. So I am driving to Edmonton.
This will be a month of journeying, since I'm taking another trip at the end of the month, this one a working trip that is so very exciting that I can barely contain myself. I'll tell you more about that one later.
As for now, I need to finish packing. The morning light is just beginning to filter through the trees and the kids are being crazy in their room. I think I'll bring some coffee to Renee's cabin, across the Land. Today we are saying goodbye to our home.
November 2, 2007
It's true that I finally melted down yesterday, standing in the midst of the debris of my life, melted into a tear puddle on the floor.
It's true that when my friend called, I answered my phone with the words, "You are so glad that you are not me right now." It's true that she replied, "Really? Because I'm pretty sure I would be glad to be anyone else in the world than me at this moment." And then we laughed. It's like when I was a kid and my brother and sister and I would argue over who was feeling "worser."
It's true that I waved goodbye to the Land yesterday, and that I did so in such a flurry of limbs and papers and financial issues that I almost forgot to blow a kiss.
But it's also true that my Superstar Husband is the most brilliant star in my sky. It's true that he sang love songs to me before I left, that he told me about twenty-six times to drive carefully, and that he took care of the rest of the debris, finishing up the packing that I couldn't even face anymore. He lovingly uncrossed my eyes and sent me on my way.
And it's true that on my way, I found strain slipping off of my freckled back, that when I reached the coast I saw the waves throwing themselves down in glee and thought, "The whole world is my home." It's true that the cliffs were etched against the misty pre-sunset sky like strong-armed guards, and I realized that even transition can be a type of home. That maybe I can let my bones settle into this change. That there is rest for me, there are homes everywhere, and that so many things that have piled on over these last years are now lifted. And everywhere I look there are houses with small people in them, sitting in their seats, walking to their fridges and back, playing card games at the coffee table. We are all looking for the same things.
It's true that we left too late yesterday. That I was not at all prepared, that I fed my kids convenience store white bread sandwiches.
It's true that Kai has reached the age of constant attempts at reasoning, that he can't let go, now, and let things flow. That he feels the need to check on our progress, say, every two minutes. That he whines a lot about how long it's taking to get there. It's true that this means he is becoming more of a person, and that instead of smacking my head against the steering wheel, I should admire his time-telling skillz, when he plaintively yells from the backseat, "MAMA! IT'S 7:14! Mamaaaaa, it's 7:16!" And ad infinitum until I die.
It's also true that we sang our way through the darkness last night, that we belted out the ABC song, that we transitioned seamlessly into Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and then that I could hear Leafy singing "Winkle Pinkle DAR. Winkle Pinkle DAR," until I thought my heart would break from the happiness and love and rightness.
November 4, 2007
I am in Canada, at my parents' house. I'm up at an ungodly hour, which thankfully isn't really an ungodly hour, thanks to Daylight Savings (ending? beginning?), although I hate the fact that this means it will get darker earlier. Wow, Rae, not a futile thing at all, there, railing against the shortening days year after year.
But I have to get myself and children in the car for my road trip to Edmonton, to see my grandmother. So I will only say two things:
1. I hope I see a bear, or a moose.
2. I hate my passport photo. And I think it's time for some new hair color or something, something to liven my face up a bit, because if I look like the girl in that photo, well... that's totally not okay.
November 5, 2007
I guess you never really know how things will turn out. One moment you are driving along, listening to your kids talk in the back, watching the snow come down, and the next minute you are skidding out and you cannot stop yourself.
Two hours from our starting point, yesterday, the van we were driving skidded out on some slush and hit the barrier to our right, which propelled us back across the highway, where we flew over the median and across the lanes of oncoming traffic, plunging down an eighty-foot embankment and crashing down at the bottom. We flew. We literally left the ground and landed, eighty feet down, crushing the nose of the van and then landing on the passenger side.
And then our angels dusted themselves off and we all walked out of it. Miraculously.
I mean, it was crazy. There were screaming children and Kenya's hands were bleeding, and I couldn't get them out of their car seats, and the van was filling with the smell of gas, and we were in the snow, down a cliff, and I didn't know if anyone would find us. But then there they were, a group of male ballet dancers, on their way to perform in a ballet in the next town, 50 km away. They pulled us out of the van through the shattered back window, and ran up the hillside, each kid in strong arms. Then, at the top, someone who stopped happened to be an emergency room nurse. He checked the kids over. Someone else let us sit in his car until the ambulance came.
I was strapped to a gurney, with a back board, and a collar, until they could check my spine out. So the whole time I was in the ambulance I was strapped to this thing, and trying to keep it light for the kids.
"Don't you think I look funny like this, Kai?"
"No," was his reply.
Kai was really, really worried about the fact that we were borrowing Grandma's van to make the drive, and now her van was broken, and what was she going to do without her van? I had to work really hard to convince him that he didn't need to worry about the grownup problems.
Finally the hospital, and x-rays, and a doctor who wasn't s
o nice, and two victim services people who took care of the kids and were absolutely some of the sweetest people I've ever met. And Kenya's arm was bandaged, which caused some more trauma. When they finally let me get off of that board, I wobbled over to the area where the kids were and found them all cuddled on the bed together while Kenya was getting her hand taken care of.
I am still a bit bewildered. The whole day was so crazy, which is a huge understatement. Looking down, after, at how far we fell, I couldn't believe we were all okay. Seeing the van in the towing yard, when we went to get our stuff, I couldn't believe we were all okay. Seeing the window that was next to Kenya's all smashed in, I couldn't believe we were all okay. Finding her blankie with blood all over it- well.
There were mercies, mercies. There were angels. We came bruised and shaken—and in Kenya's case, a bit cut up—out of a crash that could have been so much worse. There are so many things that were like pure mercy.
On Saturday night, before we left on our big journey, my dad felt uncomfortable about the seatbelt in the middle of the back seat of the van, where Leafy's car seat was going to be. So he put a piece of chain link through the seat belt, fastening it so that there was no way that it could budge. And other things, like the fact that I accidentally left our big camera at home, so it's safe, rather than smashed up.
Trees Tall as Mountains (The Journey Mama Writings: Book 1) Page 23