going to Georgia, coming home

Driving home from Georgia on Friday, we listened to my “wanderlust” cd - a mix of songs I made a decade ago when I was writing my senior thesis on the idea of the open road in American pop culture in the 1950s-60s. I guess I still empathize with that idea that freedom is in getting out and going - but I don’t dream of it in the same way.  In highschool, I used to daydream about being a truck driver - yes, a truck driver - because then I could see the country, clear my mind, and listen to my own cassettes.  My life plan at eighteen included a year spent touring the country in a VW van, and another year backpacking across Europe.  I managed to do shortened versions of those trips in my twenties. Backpacking in Europe was the freest I’ve ever felt.

But it could never be that way again.  Now, when I travel, I’m never footloose and fancy free. At least part of me is always thinking about my home and my children and my responsibilities. At least part of me is always ready to go home.

The first place we visited in Georgia was Ed's Lake Rd, where Jack’s grandparents live.  It’s this kind of magical place, hidden back in a tangle of woods, and named for Jack’s great-grandfather.  That makes us the fifth generation to be there, and even after so many years, it’s quiet and isolated. Jack’s grandparents keep bees and have Fox News on high volume all day. His great aunt Mary Alice collects local antiques and plays the harmonica. She baited the fishing lines for Rosie down at the dock behind her house, and the fish practically jumped out of the water to our poles.

How many years have they lived there?  We brought one of their extra hives back for bees on our land, too, and I wondered how long this new house will be ours.

Jack’s parents have lived in their home in Macon, where we went next, for about seventeen years. The house was newly built when they moved in, and they said the yard felt like it needed trees.  Now, the house is surrounded trees so that when you sit on the back porch and look out, you think you’re in a small clearing in the middle of a forest.  Our acres in Indiana are more field than forest, but I wonder - will we be here for seventeen years?  Will we grow a forest, too?

In Macon, we did the things we do; with seven cousins six and under, that means mostly that we eat and play, but we also visited a peach orchard and the Georgia Aquarium.

Rosie wanted to have a princess party.  When she didn't smile for the pictures, I asked why. She said she was not supposed to smile: she was supposed to look regal. This is her most regal look:

You can see how excited Jack was about taking care of the boys during the princess party.

Sometimes it makes me sad - this sense that my wanderlust has quieted, that my possessions have weighed me down. My life had been rippling out and out: to Memphis and Austin and Gulf Shores, to Nashville and Mankato and Chicago, to Scotland and Paris and Haiti, to Italy and Vietnam and Cambodia, to LA and Seattle and now, Indiana. The ripples have stopped, the stone has sunken into the riverbed here. I’d still go, if I could, if I could still capture that feeling of freedom, but I know I can’t. Without becoming narrow-minded - I still want to keep the wide world in my mind, to settle in to this specific place without losing awareness of the beautiful variety of cultures and perspectives out there, without forgetting that though I am living comfortably, many people in the world are not - Now is the time for staying, for abiding, for following Wendell Berry’s instructions and knowing my place.

Now is the time for learning the name of every plant on our property, for walking it enough that I know just where the ground slopes, for growing the slow compost that will soften this clay into garden soil.

I was anxious to get back to our house (still so many things to do here before we are settled in!). But I was also surprisingly ready to get back to Indiana. I remember the first time we left Indiana after moving here.  We started driving south for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and as soon as we hit southern Indiana, a spot that was a bit hilly, I almost gasped with relief, like I’d been underwater until then, like the flat cornfields for miles and miles had been starving my soul.  I hadn’t even realized until that moment how much I’d missed the Olympic range, the Ozarks, the Rockies. But I had.

But Friday when we drove up through Indiana, cornfields on one side, soybeans on the other, the sky enormous above us, I felt peace settle in my soul, like I could breathe easy again. On 1000, the orange daylilies had faded, and something yellow bloomed with them that hadn’t been there when we left. The sunset glowed like cotton candy across our driveway, and on the back porch, its light hit my neighbor’s barn and soybean fields in just the way the sunset used to hit Twin Sisters when I stood on the back porch of the lodge in Estes Park. The hayfield next door, recently baled, called to mind a spot in the Ozarks where once, hiking by myself, I heard the voice of the lord in a frog’s mysterious croak. Inside the house, the saints of California gazed down on our suitcases and the girls in ao dai rode their bikes ceaselessly through the living room. We unloaded the bee hives we brought from Ed’s Lake Road and watched an episode of Veronica Mars with my brother.

Every place I've been is still with me now, and I'm home.

austin

Last week Jack and I flew to Dallas for the annual TESOL convention.  Jack's parents (who are awesome) came to Upland to stay with our kids for our FIRST TRIP WITHOUT THE CHILDREN EVER.  We were excited, but not as excited as Rosie, who at the airport said, "Isn't it time for you two to go now?"

Due to some unexpected and sad circumstances (more on that later), I ended up in Arkansas with my family for the end of the conference as well as the first day of what was supposed to be a mini-vacation in Austin for Jack and me.

But I finally rejoined my husband in Texas, and we had a day and a half to spend in Austin. Though the weather dropped from the 80s to the 50s when I arrived (negating my plans of sitting by water in the sun all day), we still had fun.

Some highlights:

• tacos and queso and bottled cokes at Torchy's food truck on 1st
• a loft just off South Congress, where Austin keeps things weird
• coffee with JR at Dominican Joe
• Amy's Ice Cream
• Silver Linings Playbook at the Alamo Drafthouse
• Polvos Interior Mexican 
• Mary Quinlan Park
• The flagship Whole Foods

(Meanwhile, Upland got a solid 10-12 inches of snow.)

art and hospitality

Last week Anna Broadway wrote this delightful piece for Books and Culture about composing haikus at work.  As web editor for a company, much of her cubicle work involves writing short emails, and one day she began sending them in haiku form. 

Broadway admits that many of her poems might make real poets shudder, but she keeps at them anyway.  Her explanation resonated with me: 

"...while I want more really good poems to be written, I can't shake the notion that any art form—in order to thrive—must exist at all levels of society, even if quality of execution ranges widely."

Removing fear and the pressure to be perfect allows you to play with art forms, at any level, and recognize that you are honoring the imago dei as you do what you were created to do. 


That's part of why our family attended the Blackford County Arts Center Open House and Dedication over the weekend.  Our friend Dan has been instrumental in turning a hundred year old storefront in the next town over into a community space for art, music, and writing classes and events. On the morning after the school shooting in Connecticut, Dan and Jack spent several hours clearing debris out of the space, preparing it for renovation. In an email promoting the Arts Center, Dan wrote:

"During that time, many debated gun control and mental health awareness and other issues. I felt that the best thing I could be doing where I live is working to provide a place made for the appropriate expression of anger, frustration, alienation, and more--a place where a person could come and transform his or her pain into something positive: pottery, music, painting, poetry. I believe that our communities need these places as much as ever."

Investing in local community doesn't always come naturally to me - I live inside my own mind far too much, and I'm not a very social person - but I am trying to be more intentionally involved where I can.

Anyway, this is a long introduction to the fact that I've written an essay about creating and fostering the spirit of creativity - about how hospitality makes art possible.  It's about my experience visiting Paris at sixteen, and about my life in Indiana now.  The essay, "Barefoot Places," is up at the Art House America blog today, and I do hope you'll read it. 

 (PS - There you will see a picture of teenage me, wearing a beret, wishing to be a bohemian.)

meeting Etta

Last weekend I flew to Denver to meet new baby Etta. Her mother, Mollie, has been one of my best friends since we were thirteen or so, when Mollie was one of the only people my age I both liked and admired (do  sound like Mr. Darcy?). A few years later Mollie introduced me to another best friend, Anna, and I wondered if I'd ever need any more friends. These two do it for me.

loitering.  we were friends before people had cell phones.

I've made other friends since then, of course, but there's something about the kind of friendship that begins in adolescence, lives together through college, hikes the grand canyon, and backpacks through Italy. The kind of friendship that has stayed together from Anne of Green Gables to Steel Magnolias to Amelie to Downton Abbey. The kind of friendship that's seen cancer, depression, exes, early morning prayer, international moves, weddings, funerals, and babies. It's got roots, and ease of communication, a shared language born of shared memories. It's gold.

Mollie and Anna both live in Denver now, as do my brother Jimmy, my sister-in-law EA, and my Aunt Julie and her clan. Thanks to my sweet husband for singlehandedly caring for our children all weekend, I got to see them all.

baby Etta

Anna and I playing aunts

December in Little Rock

With weather into the sixties, we took every chance to enjoy the parks in Little Rock this December, playing at Pinnacle, Alsopp Park, the Rivermarket, & Two Rivers. The natural beauty of the Ozarks had us certainly thinking twice about the place we've chosen to call "home" for now.

We had three things to celebrate this December. First was Jimmy's engagement to EA, whom we all love. With her family we visited the Garvan Gardens Christmas lights.

Second was Jesus' birthday, which we celebrated with songs, fellowship, food &wine, gifts for each other, and gifts for people around the world via Compassion and World Vision. The gift for the whole family that was a hit was the board game Dominion. Rosie's favorites were binoculars and a magnifying glass (she is pictured here wearing every article from her entire dress-up box).

Third, of course, we celebrated Katie's 27th birthday with dinner at home one night and at YaYa's the next night.

It was a lovely trip, and as Rosie says, "I already miss my uncles - Uncle GDaddy, Uncle Mimi, John, David, and...John?" (Sorry, Jim, we're working on it.)

meatless monday: tuesday edition

Cauliflower gratin (from an old Bon Appetit mag, and just so-so); onion roasted sweet potatoes; french onion soup.

French onion soup always takes me back to Au Pied de Cochon, which is, I think, where we ate dinner one very late night on my first trip to Paris (do you remember, Laura? do I remember it right?), so late that the restaurant was closing, there was only us and a table of business men in suits, who were eyeing us wryly, a group of giggly American girls (and mothers)in long skirts, sipping our French onion soup. It was delicious.

the great smokies

Yesterday we returned home after a long weekend at the Peterson family reunion in the Smoky Mountains. Roughly thirty Petersons shared a big cabin, lots of delicious meals, a moving time of Sunday morning worship, evenings in the hot tubs on the back porch, and intense competition (Jack came in second in the billiards bracket, and first in the air hockey bracket).


Wearing our matching tees, we hiked in the Smoky Mountain National Park (and I saw a bear cub!). By the way, if you need a new challenge in your hiking life, try it carrying a thirty pound toddler on the way up and a 15 pound infant on the way down.



We walked the strip in Gatlinburg and had an old-days photograph made (oh my).

Rosie loved her cousin time.

macon

Lots of playing outside, splashing, berry picking. Rosie adores her cousins. And her grandparents. Ok, aunts and uncles too. And Owen has gotten very attached to his duckie blanket.

North Georgia

Aunt KK, Grandma and Grandpa Howard, fishing off Mary Alice's dock. Can you find the fish in the picture?

meatless...

Jack left today for New Orleans and the TESOL conference, but Mimi is here to keep us company. She's vegetarian, so I decided that this week we'd try vegetarian dinners Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday instead of just Monday.

Tonight we tried these spinach pancakes that a friend pointed me to, and they were amazing. Don't let the name "spinach pancakes" detract you. These exceed expectations. I could have eaten twice as many as I cooked.

Tomorrow night we'll have a winter standby (for the last time - spring is in the air!) -- Curried Squash and Red Lentil Soup with flat bread -- and Friday we'll make mushroom pizza.

christmas vacation

A definite advantage of being in the field of education is the vacation time. This year we were able to spend four days in Georgia, and then more than a week in Arkansas, celebrating Christmas, Katie's birthday, and the New Year.