the view from here

While I still can't bring myself to call this state home (it's a technicality, we just haven't been here long enough) it is beautiful in it's own way.  Beautiful in a way that I was never familiar with until we came here.  Some people say there's nothing to look at, no scenery, but I beg to differ.  The cornfields are endless and peaceful.  Nothin's heard except the wind and the occasional howling coyote.  Nothin's moving except the wind turbines and the branches of the trees.  Little birds peck the gravel and the sidewalks finding grit for their craw.  That's it.  It's quiet, peaceful, relaxing. 
 
I love the sun that flows into this house daily.  Light somehow fuels influences my joy.  (Did you know, chickens require light for egg production?  Weird, but true.)  It really makes my day when the sun shines.  There are 5 windows in the kitchen and five in the living room of this house.  (We only had 3 in our kitchen back home, two in the living room.  So, that's a big difference - to me.)  I love that when I look out one of the kitchen windows there's this...
 

a swing, hanging from a grand climbing tree with a view of all the storage buildings for the farm in the background.  (Looks like piles of junk back there and one of them is, the rest are dirt piles, a wagon, a small animal shelter of some kind.  You get the point, farm stuff.)

 

  

Move around to the mudroom/laundry room and there's this - a tire swing beside the sandbox under another great tree. Behind that are grape vines and over to the right is a big, big garden.  This place, it'll be perfect when summer rolls around.  We'll soon be gearing it up for visitors, so get your bags ready.  wink.



 

  

Then, there's my favorite, the wind turbines.  Maybe it's strange, but we didn't have these back home and I still love to gaze at them as they turn in the wind.  At night, it resembles a landing strip because of the flashing red lights.  And in the morning, you see the lights as the sun comes up behind them.  Cool.  Very cool.

 

 
So, while life in town is pretty neat, I still love this country livin'.

longing...

- from Jodi Capoult's book "Handle With Care"

 

The whir of the machines lulls my soul again.  This tiny town in its quiet and stillness is dark and dreary this morning.  Clouds loom overhead and rain threatens.  I sit and listen as the machines gear up for the wash cycle.  Lucky, I'm the only one here.  I deliberately didn't wear my watch, don't wanna dwell on the time.  Here, amongst the green walls and the cream colored appliances, I wonder what everyone’s doing back home.  I envy their ability to multi-task while throwing a load in the washer.  I envy the coziness of their couch as I linger in a cold, hard, beige plastic lawn chair.  This life, isn't exactly what I’d imagined, but I knew what the circumstances would be.  I know it’s all so temporary yet on occasion, it seems endless.  At times, getting settled isn’t even in sight.

I envy the lives of those who haven’t been turned upside down.  I long for a normal, a constant, a stable.  I long for a kitchen with all its gadget-filled glory, one I call my own.  Life as I now know it is completely different from anything I knew.  It's unsettling, disturbing even.  Over and over, I tell myself it's temporary and I do my best to embrace this new season.  Though there are days when I get everyone off to school and I come home and crawl back into bed and throw a little pity party all day, just reading, surfing the web and snacking, until an hour before it's time to pick them up.  I wait until the very last minute, shower, dry my hair, a bit of makeup, and run out the door.  Just in the nick of time, looking like I'm totally with it, even when I'm not.

I miss hanging out with my old friends.  Their sandwiches with hefty homegrown tomatoes, their “in minutes” potato chips, watching their babies grow and change and turn into toddlers.  Their impromptu walks and long, deep conversations.  I miss hopping in the car, hair a hot mess, and just showing up at my mom’s for absolutely no reason at all.  No, those days are over.  Any visits now require packing and planning.  Not five or even twenty minutes in the car.  No, an entire day.  Fourteen hours worth of staring at yellow lines, driving over the speed limit and constantly looking over my shoulder for cops, bathroom breaks at smelly rest stops, stretching our legs for only minutes before we hop back in and go again.

The adventure, its up and left me.  Adventure called its friend homesick and invited her over for the week (or three).  We have friends here now, we’ve spent time in their homes and I've even cooked for them.  We’ve loved them just like our old friends but, somehow, it’s just not the same.  I want a camping trip, I want to kiss my puppies' foreheads and smell the earthy scent of kitty fur.  I want to walk around the yard, aimlessly carrying a hen and listen to her cluck and bwak.  I want to sit amongst friends at the fire pit, my hair filling with annoying hints of smoke and roasted marshmallows.  I know it’s weird, call it what you want but, I long to see their faces, hug them one long powerful time.  I don’t want to hear their voices across a delayed cell phone connection anymore.  I want to be in their presence, to feel the love and to love them back.

I don’t want our visits to be ruled by the school calendar and how many days they allow for absences.  The Lord may have led us here but, He never said this’d be easy.  I told myself that it would.  I tunneled my vision to see the adventure in it all, to look at the positive and shove the negative under the rug.  I’ve been trying not to dwell on all this but, sometimes it just helps to dump it here in the blogosphere. 

And if you haven’t heard from me, it’s not you.  It’s me.  I haven't felt like typing the sadness via e-mail because I don't want to be fake and tell you life's grand (even though, it could be much worse.)  And I don't just wanna sound like a big whiner either, filling your day with my negative vibe.  I haven’t really felt like talking, I haven’t felt like crying in your ear over the phone.  It does neither of us any good and so, I talk to my mom.  I can play the strong bit for her because I know that she’ll cry in a heartbeat and I won't do that to her.  I refuse.

So, never fear-o, I will call.  Sooner.  Or later.  And if I don't, well, I don't know.  Maybe you call me.  And I'll play all nice and we'll talk about irrelevant things like the weather, how the seasons are changing, what you've been doing lately.  I like hearing that stuff.  Just don't ask me how it's going.  I'll lie.  Tell you I'm good.  And then, I'll change the subject because I'm weak like that.  OK?

 

This post is specifically for the therapeutic purpose of relinquishing my thoughts today.  It's a raw kinda day and not intended to dampen yours.  You know who you are.  Think of it as a core dump...

 

core dump - [kahr, kofr] [duhmp] (n.) -  A copy of the data stored in the core memory of a computer, usually used for debugging purposes; a file of a computer’s documented memory of when a program or computer crashed. The file consists of the recorded status of the working memory at an explicit time, usually close to when the system crashed or when the program ended atypically.

 

It's just me, lettin' go.  I needed to write it down somewhere, out of sight, out of mind?  Highly doubtful.  But thanks for hanging in there with me anyway.

down in the valley

I sit here, frozen.  Not wanting to move, not wanting the day to progress any further than this very moment. 

Tomorrow, we leave. 

We head back to the place from where we came. 

We abandon the "Land of Lincoln", the "Prairie State".  

And I don't want to say goodbye. 

I don't want to travel those eight-hundred-forty-two miles to the place that is still called "home". 

I don't want to squint through the fog of tears as we pass the wind turbines headed east.

I don't want to avoid my camera like the plague or post color photos from weeks ago that I'm only slightly happy with. 

It's Independence Day for crying out loud. 

Yet, here I sit wallowing in this sorrow. 

I'm avoiding photographing this town, packing our stuff, getting out of this bed. 

It all sounds so ridiculous, but at this very moment,
I feel paralyzed.

a monday in IL

This morning, we walked Miss K to our friends, the W's

so she could walk to Pray, Play and Obey with their oldest.

They offered us to stay awhile...we couldn't pass that up.

There was sword fighting, lots of imagination play,

 and I swung with them as I answered tons of questions...

"What's your whole name?  Can you spell it?  What's a maiden name?

Are you married?  Then, where are your rings?

When are you moving here?  Do you have to go home?"

They told me I was more like an aunt to them.

And really, they felt more like nieces and nephews to me.

I climbed up trees and hid in the bushes and on hot rocks with them

as we played hide and seek together.

Soon, it was time to head home for lunch.

It was now just us two.  So we decided on some slip'n'slide fun.

The pace, the people, it all seems slower here.  More relaxed.

I'm excited to live in the Midwest. 

Every time we come, I don't want to leave.

It already feels like home.