We’re moving today. Are you so sick of me saying that? Me too. So, in honor of my mind and tasks being elsewhere, I’m giving you a hodgepodge of things I’m thinking about today: The best things about eight weeks in two separate temporary homes: August finally getting to experience his dream come true: Stairs in his house! (Too bad that only lasted 4 weeks). Cable! Cable in both temporary homes! Or, as my kid calls it: Live TV Being able to live in the cool … [Read more...]
Fifteen months ago, when Chris was offered his new job and we made the decision to move to Austin, my first call was to Jamie, my roommate in college and my maid of honor. She’s lived in Austin for eight years. We both cried on the phone. Never had we thought it would be possible for our kids to be real friends. Her son was born six weeks before August. When August was five weeks old and her little guy was eleven weeks, Jamie hopped on a plane by herself with the babe in tow and flew … [Read more...]
As we walk into the church, I think about the last Sunday in our church in San Francisco: how we sang the hymns and walked away as a family. How we stopped at the farmer’s market and bought ripe cherries. How we sat at Alamo Square Park and stared at the city scape. My then four-month-old slept against me and I took August’s shirt off as the cherry juice poured down his newly three-year-old chest. That’s how we said goodbye. Today, it’s raining. Rain in a parched land feels holy, like a … [Read more...]
This is how it happens: You grieve the news that you will leave your home. You grieve it from afar and then you speak it. You speak it to the people in your world. You speak it with care and with sincerity. You say it over and over and you start to believe: This is true. This is really going to be true. And you organize your kids' clothes. You organize the baby clothes your little boy was wearing 6 months ago. (Six months ago and he was that little? And now that brain of his taking it all in, … [Read more...]
We did it. The movers showed up Friday morning and took all our possessions away to some secret lair in California, where our things will sit until November. Our selves, our cat and our suitcases all showed up Friday afternoon at the temporary house (what I’ve taken to calling our “fake house”). And after one long Friday night (the cat and the oldest boy had trouble sleeping), everyone seemed to adjust pretty quickly. Besides a jaw that won’t stop clenching and some … [Read more...]
Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away! Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Psalm 32: 1-2 That Psalm was in my prayer book last week. I read it last Friday (one of the few days in the past week that my prayer book has actually been opened). I was reminded of it yesterday, when I had a moment to rest and I opened up the book to that most recent reading. My heart caught on the idea of “putting away”: … [Read more...]
A week and a half ago, prior to my grandfather’s funeral, as I ate a large family meal in the fellowship hall of the Boyett Baptist Church (no, that’s not really its name!), I encountered a third or fourth cousin, someone I hadn’t seen since my high school years when I’m sure we talked at some Oklahoma-located family reunion. She came to greet me, reminded me of her name. Then she said: “Last time I saw you, you were going to be a missionary!” She smiled, as if to say, Wasn’t … [Read more...]
I’ve been far away for a long time. I used to think of Distance as being the space from here to home. But then “home” changed. It became separate places, so far from one another that my finite body could never be fully home. I was always absent from somewhere. Even when I was with my family in Amarillo, I was far from Chris’ family in Philadelphia and Connecticut. I was far from our community of friends in Syracuse and Pennsylvania. And now, I’m far from the people we love in San … [Read more...]
I know, I know. How clichéd is that picture? But I took it myself. I passed that sign twice every Tuesday on Franklin Street in SF, on my way to drop off and pick up August from his school. I never noticed it, of course, until Chris’ interview for the job in Austin. After that, traffic always stopped me in front of it: “Austin! One Way!” it would exclaim to me from outside my car window. I’d laugh because, if it was God shouting at me, we both knew it was a cheesy way to do it. But … [Read more...]
In honor of this little vacation I'm on with some of my favorites, this post from January 6, 2011 seems appropriate. I just rode home in the back seat of a Volkswagen with two seventeen year old girls manning the front seats, singing at the top of their lungs to Taylor Swift. There are few things I love more in the world that singing to cheesy pop songs in the car with teenage girls. Ahhhhh. Being home in Philadelphia is good. I'm only here for a couple more days and will … [Read more...]
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