It’s time to get back into the bus again. I’m not entirely sure where to or when, but I feel it coming. The itch. Even the kids feel it. This picture below is from one of our son's reading books that came home with him. It's the second time one of his books mentioned a "bus house". Coincidence? :)
We had an opportunity to take a brief trip in our minivan to Wilmington and Savannah last week and it was such an adventure. It was the first real trip in something other than the bus and, wow, what a difference. While it was certainly faster for us and easier to maneuver, I missed the space and independence of it. The kids did really well on 7 and 8 hour days (which we rarely ever did even in the bus) but they were definitely cranky about being jammed so tightly together. Landing in Wilmington was a breath of fresh air.
And it was certainly in and out…there was no slow, meandering and finding hidden secrets and new faces. However, this enabled us to literally drive through DC, jump out for an hour or two at the National Museum of Natural History (you practically drive through DC anyway unless you circumvent, the parking is free, and the Museum is donation-based).
And, from there, we drove to NYC, crashed for a night, roamed the streets, pillaged a three-story candy store and whooped it up in Central Park before returning home! So, a whirlwind tour to be sure. I am a bit concerned that my children believe all lives are like this and all people this fortunate. But there is time to show them it is otherwise.
And so, for the unsung heros (I will scatter our Savannah pics throughout this part of the entry - more unsung heroes in the people that love us and open their hearts and homes to us time and again!). These are the people who can maintain a 9 to 5 and an actual routine year-round. These are the people who maintain sanity despite the hardest of times. Way above superheros, who traipse around in fun outfits finding excitement, I value the people I meet who manage the ordinary of life with grace and wonder and strength and make it extraordinary and beautiful. Every winter I aspire to this - falling into a very healthy structure and regimenting our daily experience - and every spring I lose it! But these are the people we meet in our travels or our community that give me strength.
Recently, I was with my three year old at the YMCA swimming. Nearby there was a mom with an extremely autistic roughly 9 year old boy. After watching her teach him how to swim (“Swim, Steven. Swim. Swim. Swim, Steven” and then moving his arms for him to help him.) I encountered her in the locker room. She was trying to get him to put his pants on. It sounded like this: “Steven, put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Put your pants on. Steven, put your pants on. You are a big boy now. You can put your own pants on. Steven, for the love of God, I cannot do this. Pull your pants up. You can pull you pants up. Steven, put your pants on. I love you so much, and I need you to put your pants on. Steven, put your pants on.” This went on for another 10 minutes at least. In my mind I replayed how many times I have lived this experience with my own three when they were littler, but with only a fraction of the experience that she deals with and an even smaller amount of patience than she has. Wow. What a lesson for me. I still am holding it so deeply.
She emerged from the stall with that hardened face that I carry so often. I thought of the time, when wearing the same face and shouting at my own children, a neighbor’s gentle act of wiping snow off my car enabled me to soften. So I told this swimming mom that she was my hero. She laughed slightly and said “But you don’t get to see me at home”. I said it was OK because I know I have a fraction of the frustration she has and still a fraction of her patience level and wished her a good day. It was enough. She softened and I can still feel the impact of such a beautiful lesson from an unsung hero. It reminds me also of what beautiful souls Mya Gardener and her family are (who we saw on our trip). I wonder how their endeavors continue and when our paths will cross again. How fortunate we were to share such a moment in time. This is why, time and again, when we want to recoil and ignore and hide from the world, we have to get back on the bus! and meet it where it is.
Sometimes I struggle with our weird way of life, when I let my brain worry about how different we are and are we “normal”. Well, shoot, what the hell is normal anyway? I actually feel as if we are getting closer to living genuinely - if there is such a thing. I feel as if we are farmers in our own weird way. We respond similarly to the seasons. In the winter, we burrow in someplace and enjoy the cold/snow/ice. We sit by a fire and read our little eyeballs off. We create and renew and rest. Then, when we hit the spring I nest like NOBODY’S BUSINESS! (In fact, I’m freaking out right now that I am not cleaning and sorting something.) Spring cleaning, the birth and newness a farm or homestead sees as the weather changes, and preparing for the planting season.
And then, jumping back into the bus…whether we go someplace or just park and live in the middle of a field, it still has a major impact upon us and those around us. It forces us outside and to connect to our environment in a very real, candid and unapologetic way. We plant our seeds - ideas, inspirations and creativity that takes flight either in the fall or in the future for us or for others. When the fall arrives we return to “school” (though for us this happens really all the time) and work and harvest all the seeds we have been planting throughout the spring and summer. So, while we are not tied to one patch of earth, we try to be open and accessible to all the land, plants, people and animals we encounter and we endeavor to connect very deeply with the terrain and our neighbors. Here's our oldest, a girl scout, at the birthplace of the founder of Girl Scouts - Juliette Gordon Low. What an inspiration for girls and women! And another girl that never took "no" for an answer (I know a few of those ;) She even got to sign her name in the girl scout book there - a tradition that thousands of girls have done through the ages.
I suppose this farming analogy assuages my fears by connecting our very modern, non-traditional life to an ancient and traditionally rhythmic existence! In any case, we are feeling the rumble of the ground beneath our feet and looking forward to bringing you all along on our next big adventure!!!! Here are some more Savannah pics from an "Oyster boil" held with some loved ones...Thanks for riding this wild carpet with us :)
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