Headed North (Found My Words, Act I)

In person, I frequently run out of words; on paper, not so much. This month has been the exception. I honestly have not known what to say, even though there's plenty. Kind of like there is plenty to do, but I hardly do anything. One afternoon I was standing in the four-acre field, staring off at the eastern horizon, my feet buried in the warm, dusty soil that's still abominably stony considering how many hours my siblings and I have spent rock picking. I was thinking about Italy—hence the eastern horizon—and of when I was a little girl, and everything that happened between. Memories upon memories.

Out of the corner of my eye Maryah was hanging laundry—my laundry, actually—on the line to dry. Studying her Spanish terms at the same time, no doubt. 'Cause she's responsible like that, and I'm just not anymore. For some reason, I'm overwrought.

Of course, there's more to the reason than "some." It's because I'm losing it: the soil I grew up in.

I've traded the trees and fields and hills and familiar roads and hiding spots and sleeping under the rafters and stars for an apartment in the middle of town.

They, my family, moved, so I moved with them.

We've talked about moving for years—even seeing the For Sale sign in our yard was not that surprising. What's surprising is that we actually moved this time, and quickly.

It does make a lot of sense. Dad—finally, in this sucky economy that ruined everything for millions of people including my family—has a job here; Isaac has cheaper education opportunities to kick start his medical career; and it makes Mom's dream of living on a lake come true.

Buildings on three sides, lake on the other. Down a few flights of stairs in the apartment building—a renovated utilities plant—a hop across the railroad tracks, and you're in the lake. Not that bad. I adore the lake. I can sit on the unfinished dock and stare at it for hours, or float in it for hours, drown out the noise of the construction crew building the condos right next to us—the condos Dad is going to brand and market to the masses. It's lovely. Our apartment is 800 square feet, brand new, cozy, and gorgeously designed, from the brick accent walls, to the cupboards, to the triangular deck. We girls share the master bedroom, and though it's quite the squeeze and I miss my own room, sleeping in the same bed with Sanna every night is rather comforting, despite the fact that she's a cover-stealer and I'm a terrible offensive sleeper.

I need comforting right now. It's unimaginably hard leaving the lane in Pennsylvania. True, when I went to Italy I didn't miss it. But that's because I knew I was coming back to it. And though when I came back, I knew this area had let go of me, I was still holding onto it, or at least my idea of it. Suddenly, I'm leaving it, having to let go of it, and one day soon there will be no coming back. I actually already tried going back, but spending the weekend all alone in that big, empty post and beam house wasn't worth it.

The memories flood in with such force it knocks the wind out me. Memories like playing hide-and-go-seek in fields of rye or peas, screaming as my brothers chased me. Building forts and fences. Chasing the cows that got out of the fences. Swinging from the big old maple. Catching fireflies underneath the shooting stars. Digging clay out of the swamp and making little pots. Gardening with Grandma and Grandpa. Taking my nap in the cab of the combine during harvesting. Birchtown. Skiing in the pines and sledding down the cherry bowl. Going out into the woods each fall to fill the back of the old Ford with firewood over and over until we had enough to last the winter. Picking wild berries...

It goes on and on; I only stop now because, like this past month, it's too draining to put on paper. It is what is in my heart. It is who I am.

Who I am. I've been learning a lot about that recently.

The Name That's a Secret

Tuesday morning early I meandered down the basement stairs to get started on school and was greeted with a message written on the concrete floor that said "Hey beautiful, you are loved," in different colors, and then a big yellow sunshine. Of course it was Mom who had left it there for me, along with the new chalks. Apparently, she felt bad when she saw me a few nights previous sitting on the basement floor, doodling palm trees and sailboats with our only piece of broken white chalk.

I love my Mom.

I also love my Dad. Thursday morning I woke up to the sizzling of pancakes two stories below me, the smell wafting up through the stairs to my loft. It's a food I have been craving ever since the great pancake war of '12. Which was not even two weeks ago. But we'll let it go down in history anyway.

Anyhow, I finally got my fill of pancakes, and discovered that if you skip the maple syrup and top it with Greek yogurt and honey instead, it's more filling (which makes the brain work less distractedly come 10:15 AM, my "Am I really gonna make it til lunch?" hungry time), and you can eat way more without feeling sick at the end of it.

So we got pancakes and it wasn't even the weekend! One of the perks of having an unemployed dad. (Though it's the only perk, I might add, and a selfish one at that.)

So Dad somehow subconsciously knew I needed pancakes. He also knew that I needed the disc swing fixed. After 12 years of very consistent use, that swing finally cracked. It's amazing it lasted as long as it did though, because it was made by Little Tikes with a weight limit of 70 lbs, and many of its users were much over that. Like me. And the random 250 lb guy. Anyhow, we bought a new, heavier-duty, yellow disc thats weight limit is 200 lbs, so that means it can hold up to 600, if the ratio is the same as the 70 lb one :). Two days ago Dad was feeling like getting it installed was an urgent matter, but I assured him it was fine. It was okay that he had forgotten to get a new rope, and putting it up could wait until he got back from Tennessee.

I should have let him feel urgent, because I just recently discovered that I am actually completely lost without that swing. Ever since I was a very little girl I've liked to swing on it for hours every day. 1) Because it is the closest I can get to flying. 2) It's the perfect thing for thinking on (or daydreaming, or praying), since when my body is engaged in motion, it's a lot easier to process thoughts clearly. As such, I've made 12 years worth of decisions, and thought and prayed through a lot of life, just on that swing.

This week what I've been thinking about, and wanting to "swing on," is  Judges 13:17-18. "And Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” And the angel of the LORD said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” (ESV)

So the angel doesn't tell him his name. It is wonderful as in, "it is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it" (Psalm 139). The NIV replaces the word "wonderful" with, "beyond comprehension."

If you ask me, that is the coolest thing ever. A name so wonderful, so incomprehensible that it cannot be spoken to an earthling? I think that also means it must be a beautiful name. It is too beautiful to be intoned.

And that is just one name. Of one angel. Think of all the beauty that awaits us...Beauty that we cannot comprehend now. That there is no use explaining to us now, because it is too wonderful for us to understand.

If I think a day like today is beautiful, with the clear blue sky and bright green little baby leaves and the red happy tulips and Maryah out in the garden in her twirly skirt...what is heaven like?

I would say something like, "Gaspingly, heart-burstingly beautiful, that's what." But what's the use? If an angel wasn't going to bother saying just his name because it was too wonderful, how would you describe the place where these angels with their beautiful names live?

Yep, I give up.

However, this is in no way to downplay the beauty that has been given us. My little human mind is quite enraptured by the springtime loveliness around here. The air that makes hung-out quilts smell so fresh. The morning birds and the evening peepers. Watching sunsets from the cab of the old truck, alone. The humidity that is soothing to breathe and makes my hair frizzle and twist into corkscrews. Post rain, the evening sun shining through millions of glistening cobwebs strung between the field grasses. Lightly leafy forest paths, patched with purple violets. (Sorry, that last sentence was probably a bit too alliterative.) Garish yellow dandelions that scream for attention, contrasted by their wispy, mysterious, silent orbed counterparts...Etc.

And this is just earth―and one corner of it, at that.