The bicycle

During my walk today, I noticed a nice looking bike parked outside a friend's garage. My heart soared. I love biking! And I was excited to think one of my friends was going for a ride. 

There was a time that biking was my thing--like, I craved it. I scheduled my life around it. I rode every weekend. (And in summer I would go out after work.) In fact, I took Shane out for a ride on the first spring-like day (temps above 40). He bought a bike when we started dating because he knew I loved biking. His first ride out with me was 30 miles. We regularly biked together and did a couple of charity rides too. 

I had a big dream before marriage and kids--to bike across the United States. It was such a big dream, though. I wish now I had believed hard enough in possibility. Especially after reading North by Scott Jurek and how he ran the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in 46 days.

My friend came back as I was making my loop, and we chatted.

"Do you bike?" I asked. 

He laughed a little. Explained he had a lot of bikes and he was cleaning out his garage. This bike looked brand new. It was nearly unridden--he said maybe twenty miles. And it was twenty years old. Wow, time flies. 

He spoke wistfully of having time now when he didn't used to have time. Time he wanted to devote to biking (or whatever), but now the concern was ability. Aging body, and the chance that a health scare could appear out of nowhere. 

I nodded in compassion, but inside I felt like a prisoner rattling the bars of a door in a cage. 

"Erin and I are making plans to bike the C&O Canal towpath. It's 184.5 miles," I said. "I tried to bike it once in my twenties but only made it sixty miles the first day. A night of camping on the ground sucked all the heat out of me and I wasn't prepared for how painful that would be."

He asked if I would still camp it.

"Yes, and this time I'll finish because I know it's going to hurt but that I can push through the pain," I said. 

He said he might sell his bikes, or give them away. His kids are grown and gone. He won't take it up after all. Something about dreams never realized. That crushes me.

"There's still time ..." I suggested. 

"My knees ... " he trailed off.

My trusty first and only mountain bike is in my garage. I'll ride it. The brakes suck and it can't slip into the granny gears. It's got some rust on it that I'm sure a good YouTube tutorial can help me remove and polish up. I love that bike. Like, I LOVE that bike. I bought it myself for myself. I love biking. 

Having set a few goals and reached them, having dreamed and dared and achieved, the thought of letting go of a dream in unbelief or hopelessness grieves me. Because that is his enemy: unbelief. Hopelessness. He still has the time. He still has his strength. He lost his will. He lost his dream.

I walked home and made breakfast. And then I sat and cuddled our new baby chicks (they arrived yesterday, so far all are healthy and happy). They were once a little dream, a little dream fed by lots of library books, online searching, and lots of wondering. A little dream that was ridiculously easy (and at times unexpectedly hard) to achieve. 

I held those little fluffs, soft and small and sweet, sleeping cupped in my hands. 

Now more than ever the trail calls me.

Remember well

I honestly don't remember the day we moved out of our old house. I know it was sometime in July. I know it was one of the hottest days of the year when we packed up that playset and I drove it to our next home. 

MercyMe's song "Gotta Move" was playing on the radio. "Everything is about to change ... there's gonna be brighter days ..." 

What I remember: a neighbor's three kids in pajamas and our kiddos running through endless green grass. Bonfire and marshmallows and the goodness of summer. Barefeet in puddles. Sprinklers. The playset was the centerpiece for little playdates. The patio Shane laid just in time for Lanie's first birthday. And mornings with moms and coffees and kiddos. 

Nearby there was a "pick-your-own" farm and the kids and I often went for blueberries. When they were at VBS, I'd head over to the red barn and get peaches and grab myself a cream soda. 

It was a sweet time. When my kids were little, so precious. 

We put our playset up the summer after we moved here. I remember when Shane was assembling it, my heart felt soothed. It felt like everything was right. We got that playset when Lanie was two. We are taking it down this year. It is so warn, and here in the woods, all kinds of creatures have come to visit. So many places have been gnawed. It's time for it to go. 

I thought of repurposing it for the chicken coop, but Shane preferred to build from a plan. The chicks arrive this week, and the coop is near ready to assemble. The set comes down next weekend. And I admit, I got a little teary over it. 

A driving daughter in college. Another daughter starting high school, and Shane says Erin's just over a year from being a driver herself. We sure got here fast.

Summer at the other house

Walking the leaves here before it was ours

Shane and Lanie at the other house

Big sky days

When the playset was reassembled here--joy!

I'm thankful for all of it. For ten years there. For ten years here. For this family. For these memories.

So long, dear playset. It served us well.

A different world

Erin and I went down the road to meet with a neighbor at his farmette. We wanted to talk to him about chickens and coop security and chicken issues. He has goats, chickens, pigs, and a couple milk cows. He's lived on that property nearly his whole life. It has been years since I've seen him and his wife and daughter. It's hard to believe: years.

They welcomed us with the brightest smiles and warmest hellos. Unfortunately, just that day a fox came through and ran off with several of his guinea hens, but he showed us the other varieties. Showed me the coops. Then led us around to show us the other animals. His daughter took Erin for a golf cart ride and then let Erin drive, while he, his wife, and I sat on the their back deck and drank cold bottled water and just talked about life and chickens and county fairs. 

I was so thankful to sit with them. So thankful for a really cold bottle of water on a really hot July day. So thankful my kid was off having an adventure--she has wanted a golf cart and that day she got to drive one. And as we prepared to leave, he offered us a dozen ears of corn. His daughter bagged it up. I looked at his wife, "You all are always so kind."

She was visibly perplexed. "That's why God put us here, to love one another."

I can only imagine what my own expression revealed at that. In a week where a friend of mine has been shamed and discouraged during the most stressful and frightening time of her life, where my own heart toughens at the words I hear and unbelief at the behavior I'm seeing everywhere, these words stopped me.

"It would be a different world if we remembered that," she finished. 

Their kindness wasn't showy. They didn't do it with any expectation of return. It was genuine, generous, and even more--it was a hospitality born of love. 

Is this why we need community? To remember our purpose? To be reminded when we forget? Because God put us here to love one another?

Her husband later returned to chicken talk. "I think chickens will be a good addition to your farm," he said. I shared the statement with Shane. 

"He said farm," I smiled. "And the county fair is the end of this month. I think we should go."

"We should go," he agreed. 

Thank you, God, for chickens and neighbors and real kindness, for cold bottled water and a bag full of corn, for glimpses of your kingdom here.

They say it's your birthday

 My mom died in 1992. I remember her last birthday, that July 14, 1992. I bought her her favorite perfume (knowing anyway that she was dying). I baked her a cake. I think it was Judy's Five-Minute Cake. I think I probably used blueberries or strawberries. It was a long time ago. She took a bite of her cake, for my benefit. I remember how badly I wanted to make her happy--I was so young, so immature. Wanting a cake and a gift to make a dying woman happy. Wanting to give her a gift that somehow would make the truth of cancer and death pause. 

She declined during those next ten days, and then died. I was home when she died, holding her hand, still holding out for hope with the death rattle paused, watching intensely as she breathed. Willing her to live. 

So here it is, her birthday today. Most years I try not to give it much thought. There are some people whose birthdays I wish I would never remember, and I work hard those months to not give them space in my thoughts, those living, those dead. It's taken me over half my life, of being a wife and mom, to reconcile my life with hers. The similarities. The differences. 

I saw a post online today where a friend had commented to the question: "Who would be the first person you'd seek out in heaven?" She wrote her mom. 

I have so much more compassion for my own mother. And my friend's response made me think long on what is often the first and lasting influence--a parent. Today, I think on little things: chocolate chip cookies from the oven; strawberry and peach jam; Flavor-Ice pops in summer; the crisp clean of sheets; belly laughs playing Uno and chasing each other around with water guns or 'gotcha last'. 

I wonder what memories my children will save away. I save many of mine here.

Day story

 July 2021

Outside my window, green. Everything full and lush. The hostas shoot out purple blossoms. The garden is a shady oasis, full, rich, deep. I let the grass grow and the clover stand. We survey the spaces to determine the spot for the "co-op."

And I quote, 

"He [Gandhi] used to sing an Indian poem as he walked among the rice paddies at a time when his own people were persecuting him: "If they answer not your call, walk alone, walk alone." (Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church, Yancy, p 158-159)

Also,

"I never asked for any of this! And now I have two dogs, two cats and six chickens," Shane, July 2021.

Giving thanks for this man of mine. He has known me over half my life.

In the school room, stacks of books. I'm in serious binge reading mode. Books on chickens. Books on greenhouse gardening and permaculture. Books on running. I've scheduled time in August to start prepping lesson plans, and I still have to order math curriculum for Erin (she is not a fan of Saxon Math), but all the other things have already arrived or we already owned.

From the kitchen, made avocado toasts with olive tapenade, cheddar cheese, and a hit of Himalayan pink salt and red pepper flakes for an afternoon lunch with Anita. Then we went down to the pool and spent the rest of the day floating in donut innertubes and talking about everything. She inspires me.

I am stronger than I think. When I only saw the fear, Jenne saw me standing before it, facing it, and confronting it. What a game changer.

I don't want to forget the sweet company of friends. The friends and family who came to Lanie's recital. Friends who've joined us for summer swims. Friends who seek us out for our company.

I am reading ridiculous amounts of books that I can't even keep track. Everything chicken and coop related. Books. Blogs. Interest group threads. However, there are two books not chicken related that I began to read and then sent back to the library because I decided to order them outright from my book supplier because they hooked me: Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church by Philip Yancey and The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.

Around the house, chickens. I was trying to decide on a long-term project for Erin and me in this new season of high school. I got books on beekeeping, raising chickens, and greenhouse gardening. I wanted to school by immersion. I have a friend who was giving up on her bees after her hive died over winter, and when I mentioned it to Shane, he said, "Don't do bees." When he didn't say, "Don't do chickens," I took it as a yes to chickens. A project underway to build a coop together (Anita stared off and said with wistful regret, 'I wish I had had a dad who would build a coop and raise chickens with me when I was a kid.' And she asked to be part of our construction crew--YES, PLEASE!). Our baby chicks selected, paid for, and awaiting shipment. In a metaphorical sense of one leaving the coop, I have added little babies to replenish my nest and take space in my heart.

I am hearing, in the morning before the run at dawn, a neighbor's rooster crowing. Birds twittering. And lately, the evening stirring of crickets.

On the letterboard: Gotta run.

A view of my favorite things:

 

the plan

gifted

our play set; thoughts of transforming it into a coop

one of the girls

this beauty

that face

safari!

friends

summer bonfires

friends

such a fun day

At the table, I'm thankful to sit down and meal plan for the week. Last week I didn't plan, and I hated the guess work of what to fix at the end of the day.

And still counting ... (15,337-15,415)

 frozen blueberries, short speed runs on a hot day, her first place award in the competition, piano recitals

ends and beginnings, the pool--open, books from the library, goodrs, mochis with Kellie and Cara

a highlight hair date with my girl, boundaries, all the cicadas, gummy vitamins, mulberry bushes

birdsong at dawn, feet in the pool, hamburgers on the grill, salad, peanut butter cookies

that first delicious splash under, the Nadines over for a swim, texts from Kellie while she's on vacation, super early morning runs, good sleep

66 Books, the writers on the blog, quiet time to read, canning jars en route, colorful lids

Shane, an engagement, yoga at home, lavender plants, the lingering warmth from his spot on the bed when I go to make it

one cup of coffee, a stranger's long look back, planks, the bushy basil plants, Michi

the people in the audience at her recital, a private recital-eve at her teacher's house and the surprise guests, white roses, all the flowers, macarons from Belgium

a gluten-free cake, the fullness I felt in the gathering, a delightful performance, that it's what she wanted it to be, chats in the street with Val and Lee

Anita, her fascinating life, sunniest days, five-mile runs, friends for swims 

sleepovers, when Christy called, authenticity in the conversation, bikini bathing suits, green smoothies in the freezer

his safety, another morning hug goodbye, this precious life, a reply from Erwin, distancing from the lion

an application in the mail for Erin, Lanie's official last day (6/11), a lovely diploma, a so-far indestructible squeaky ball for Ruth (we got it back in January!), weekends

back-to-back long runs just because the weather felt so good, misty rain runs, frozen chocolate, that peanut butter smoothie!, grasses cut

cake ordered, thanks given, flowers in pots, night swims, a holiday weekend

Discovery

 A woman I know asked at large: if you were going on a self-discovery journey, what things would you do?

I was surprised at flood of responses she received recommending taking a vacation, pampering herself. A resort. A spa. 

I chimed in what worked for me: running and studying personality through enneagram. 

While I'd love a vacation, I can't imagine that's where the work or revelation of self is going to show up. 

For me, it shows up every day I lace up, face the elements, push past personal preference, and then add on new challenges. It shows up in considering my motivations, my flaws, my aversions, my relationships, my actions. It is in that time alone, where I care for my health, that my mind is given freedom and space to consider the heart.

Good grief, the only thing a beach trip will reveal is how I feel about myself in a bathing suit compared to the people around me or what will I eat next. That's when I'm not napping.

There's no magic destination for that journey. It's found in the grittiness of work and discipline. 

If you want to know who you really are: Read your Bible. Schedule time for daily exercise. Eat a salad for lunch. Take a personality test and determine its truth in your life.

Your willingness and commitment to do those simple things will show you so very much about yourself and what matters to you.