I am deeply grieved to say that there won’t be a podcast today. We need one more week to collect our thoughts and sanity. Today is all about packing and packing, as yesterday was and tomorrow will be. Fortunately, lots of my friends wrote nice things this week and so here are a few of them. First up, my mother wrote her monthly post. Hope you’ll join me in trying to persuade her to Write Every Day, or at least... Read more
One Got through the living room and office yesterday just packing books. I’ll just repeat that in a quiet whisper–spent the whole day Just Packing Books. Ended up with probably fifty boxes (small thank goodness). Felt really sad as I stacked them all up that I haven’t read them all, or even most. That’s because 90% of them are Matt’s, and every time I wonder, however faintly, if maybe we could pare them down or weed one or two out,... Read more
Well, I’ve done everything I can do to avoid packing. Today is the day to face down the piles of clutter, the mountains of books, the fact that no matter how much I pray against the small lurking desire to kick Marie Kondo very hard for probably being right the bitterness of my spirit yet remains. I do have a lot of stuff. And you know what, ALL OF IT BRINGS ME JOY. That’s probably not true. But it feels... Read more
Thank Goodness, the children like the house. I’m not the kind of mother that lets her precious cherubs know anything in advance. If you want a recipe for heart break, gather all your offspring together and explain to them what is going to happen that day, then watch everything devolve in endless sorrow as one plan after another fails entirely. No, I always like to say as little as possible about what is going to happen next so that practically... Read more
Would you believe it. We totally lived through the last two weeks. I’m not exactly sure why I felt like it was going to be the end of everything, but I really did kiss Matt goodbye all the way back in June with a heavy pall of fatalism hanging about my subconscious. Every time we arrived to the next point intact I always felt a tiny bit surprised. So why do it? Why drive something like 4000 miles, not counting... Read more
Which, after one more long slog should mean independence from the car. As in, we get to get out of the car and then not get back in it for a really long time. Walking. That’s what we’ll take up. We’ll walk whole steps and not get back in the car. Thought a little bit about the idea of Independence as we passed one town after another, the highways joining themselves seamlessly together, the voice of GPS Siri retreating into... Read more
well, nearly to the point where we meet Matt. Only a five hour drive and then a nice pause for a lovely wedding. And then on home tomorrow. Amazingly…and I never thought I’d say this…I miss the sedentary and unremarkable life. But also, and this is not a surprise, I miss blogging. And today I’m going to miss going to church. First time in years. I guess we’ll sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in the car and I’ll shout... Read more
Munich, North Dakota is charming. Drove past hundreds of miles of beautiful yellow fields and finally learned that they are not, in fact, mustard, which is what one thinks of, but rather canola. So pretty. Would happily dig up my garden and grow canola for the deep rich color. Anyway, no links today. Didn’t even know it was Saturday at first. Time has ceased to mean anything more than how long I can stave off another loo stop. My little... Read more
I actually think I have died and have been consigned to some very particular purgatory in which I get in and out of the car, scrape bugs off the windshield, run children through the loo one by one by one by one, drag big piles of stuff into the same hotel room–not sure how this room is following me around all this way. Some day I’ll wake up and God will tell me I didn’t make it, I failed and... Read more
Up the Columbia River Gorge, through Eastern Oregon and into Eastern Washington, and today across Idaho and Montana–there’s not been one speck of countryside that hasn’t been stunningly gorgeous. Even benighted children have paused mid whine to gape in awe over the landscape. Got to see an old school friend, seemingly lost to the mists of time, expect that suddenly the mist clears and you pick up talking as if you were still lying back, too hot, along the cool... Read more
Preventing Grace
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