A Story and a Dream

The story goes....

One summer we felt the need to forgo traditional church and spend Sunday mornings with the kids in the woods. We'd pack a lunch, hike a trail, park our bottoms on some rock outcropping or next to a waterfall and do a devotion and pray. It was 2011 and our kids were 4, 5, 9 and 11. By the end of that summer two things were clear: our family needed more time together and we all absolutely loved the Columbia Gorge wilderness.

So we started dreaming. Like most dreams ours started with a "what if". What if we could find a house in the woods somewhere were we could vacation? What if we could find something small and low maintance with a creek and a mountain view? What if....?

So we looked and we found something that changed our lives....

I loved the cottage and the view and the creek....but it came with something I didn't anticipate but something I loved more than the other three put together.

An orchard...

I had never been in an orchard before and there was something so symbolic and beautiful and mysterious about it that I fell hard. I can't count the amount of times I've walked those rows praying my children and friends through mission trips and heartache, knowing that my prayers would bear fruit, heavy boughs of ripe God goodness.

Avonlea was 11 when we bought the cottage. She had never been in the woods for a prolonged period before, the cottage changed her life. During the last 7 years she has become an avid birder, animal tracker, mushroom hunter, and outdoor enthusiast. It's not unusual to wake up at the cottage and find her bed empty. She gets up early and stays outside in her camo with binoculars around her neck for hours. The peace and beauty of nature has become part of who she is.

Grant and Rowan slept in a tiny room together at the cottage. They stayed up late scratching backs and telling stories. The spent the days exploring with BB guns, machetes, and knives. They tried every kind of weapon they could get their grubby mitts on and they grew together tied by the bonds of a million adventures. They built forts and went sledding. The adventure and wonder of nature became part of who they are.

Rose was four when we bought the cottage. We would race down the long avenues of pear trees. She played Barbies in her room while the older kids were skiing. She'd come downstairs and ask me to make cookies and tea with her and I delighted in our quiet time together. She grew bolder as she grew older and learned to cross country ski, snow shoe, and sled (which one fateful Thanksgiving landed her in the emergency room). She grew up outside under the trees, under the stars. The joy and excitement of nature became part of who she is.

And so the story goes...

Avonlea's adventurous heart led her to New Zealand where she is thriving in Bible school and learning to unicycle. Every time she face times us she is outside with the blue sky over her head.

Grant starts community college this fall, on top of a part-time job, where his love of exploration will land him (in two years) with a high school diploma, AA degree, and his limited electrician's licence.
Rowan starts 8th grade next week. The curiosity and perseverance he learned in nature inspired him to write a documentary about iPhone usage and kids ("they need to get out and explore!"). He's interviewed professional doctors, psychiatrists, and brain experts. He will take bee keeping classes and raise a pig for the fair.

Rose starts ballet four days a week this September. Her love of the outdoors keeps her in the woods at our house when she's not dancing. The joy of nature has led her to love animals and she is currently saving up for a milk cow.

This weekend we said good bye to the cottage. We signed the papers, washed the floors, had a garage sale and drove away. Another family is coming there to grow and farm and fall in love with the woods. And we are glad. Mostly.

I stood in the orchard with Rowan on one side of me and Rose on the other. I told them this is my favorite view in the whole world. We see these trees pruned in February, small, reduced, and dead looking. We see them bloom into color in April. We see the elongation of limbs and the heavy fruit that grows in the summer, and I tell them, this is what will always happen when God prunes us. He cuts us back so that we can grow more fruit. Every.Single.Time. He is faithful.

For us, it always starts with listening and obeying in the every day. That's the foundation for our dreams, then we ask "what if..." and then we watch God change our lives.
Because He is always Faithful.

Our Vast World

The fire blazes every night.
In front of the fire sits a grey dog, and bookish children with their bookish mother. Their active father is working hard and is often absent into the night.
The house smells like ham stew and pears in the food dehydrator. Wood fire. And dog.
A cat perches on the back of a chair.
And this world that overwhelms me with its vastness, is condensed. Corseted into an eight by eight section of rug.
I read out loud.
The Long Winter.
All of a Kind Family.
Charlotte's Web.
Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library.

Daddy surprises everyone by getting home early and his round of books begin.
The Hardy Boys.
Pollyanna.
The Warden and the Wolf King.

I could never count how many books I've read over the years to these kids or how many times I've gone hoarse.
It's beyond calculation.

This is our winter world.
Curled in front of a fire, lost in the vast world of story with several animals joining our travels.
All this glory on an eight by eight section of rug.
And outside, another world waiting.........

Artistic Therapy

I know I am an artist because I like to make smoothies that match my outfit.

Today I coordinated with cherries, vanilla yogurt, and a banana.

I sat in the sun on a reclining chair sipping my hot pink drink (out of a straw) that matched my light-weight hot pink sweater, and I was comforted.

I needed comfort because hot pink is a trying color for my complexion. It brings out the bags under my eyes, and in general, my face is not perky enough to compete with hot pink.

This last month has been a harrowing kind of month. An analogy may be helpful. Today, on my way to pick up the oldest two from Algebra 1/2, I noticed a flowering tree that I particularly enjoy the scent of. I got excited, for a moment my face matched my sweater in general cheerfulness, I inhaled deeply. I inhaled again. Then I realized that I was in a car, going 60 mph, and the windows were up. The tree was about 1/2 mile behind me when this realization hit.
Ah yes, I am going too fast to appreciate anything!

May is a wild, bronco bucking kind of month. I find I hold on best by indulging in artistic vents.

I have recently put in a large order for tablecloths from April Cornell. Tablecloths which will go on the outside table next to the reclining chairs. Tablecloths which are smattered with large hot pink roses. If you drive by my house in May, you will probably see me sitting there in my hot pink sweater, with my matching drink and tablecloth and sunglasses (did I mention the sunglasses?). Please look the other direction, I will be normal again soon.
Relatively speaking.

Hours Gained

I sat on a moss cushioned log.
It was beautiful and surprisingly comfortable.
The stream gurgled beside me and I
exhaled.
I heard the boys upstream building a dam.
The sounds of a dam being built are chiefly
laughter and puppy yaps.
Rosy cleaned out a tributary downstream.
Her voice, clear and high as the autumn sky,
"Summer's over, now it's fall, just the nicest time of all."
I smiled and watched as a sudden pant of wind
rained golden leaves. Her voice pipped again,
"Down, down, down, leaves of red and gold and brown,
come falling, falling down."
Eventually she joined me on the log, leaned into me,
golden head on my arm.
An afternoon passed and I gained
the hours.
I held the autumn wind in my hand for a moment.
The stream paused in it's rippling journey and I felt it's stillness.
A five year old remained inactive next to me.
Miracles surely.
Later that night there would be cookies and stories.
Grant would tell me, "It always feels like Christmas when we're with you."
And even later,
I would lean my dark head into my husband's shoulder,
and listen to the rain on the roof.
And sleep.

Rowan and Gypsy

Dam building!

Rose on the log waiting for me!

Story time!

Harvest time!

The exceeding beauty of the earth, in her splendour of life, yields a new thought with every petal. The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time. -Jefferies

Resurrection

Mom was here the other day fussing over Dave.
She asked, "Have you been taking your ALIVE vitamins?"
Dave replied, "No, I'm taking something better now."
Not being able to resist, I teased, "Yeah, he's taking RESURRECTION vitamins now."
Mom rolled her eyes and went home.

One of the best books that I've read this year is Lilith by George McDonald.
Everything in it has metaphorical meaning (oh delight). Truth, wrapped in many layers of imagery and beauty. One of my favorite themes throughout the book is the idea of sleeping vs. death. The protagonist, Mr. Vane, is brought into a mortuary-like room where corpse-like people are supposedly not dead, but asleep. He is shown his slab and told to lie down and sleep his sleep so that he could get up and do his work. He hesitates.

"But these are all dead, and I am alive!" I objected, shuddering.

"Not much," rejoined the sexton with a smile, "--not nearly enough!
Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not
death!"

"The place is too cold to let one sleep!" I said.

"Do these find it so?" he returned. "They sleep well--or will soon. Of
cold they feel not a breath: it heals their wounds.--Do not be a coward,
Mr. Vane. Turn your back on fear, and your face to whatever may come.
Give yourself up to the night, and you will rest indeed. Harm will not
come to you, but a good you cannot foreknow."

Page and her husband came for a brief visit this weekend. She's been my dearest friend for over twenty years. We sat in front of the fire on Sunday and talked, laughter sitting in the seat beside us. At one point she mentioned her wedding and the picture of us at it. Then she mentioned how weird it was that I was even at her wedding because we hadn't really talked for almost two years before it.

After being inseparable in high school we went our own ways for college. We lost touch and somewhat lost sympathy with each other. I got married and she wasn't at my wedding. After I had been married about a year I decided to try and get in touch with her. I did and her news was that she was getting married. I told her I was coming.

Our friendship laid down, went to sleep, and I didn't know if it was even going to wake up. But it did, and a good came of it that I could not foreknow.

I think God asks this of our friendships sometimes. I think He asks it of our talents. I think He asks it of our dreams, hopes, ambitions.
Can you lay this down and trust that I will resurrect it in My time?

There are times when I say "this place is too cold to let one sleep" and I run from the shadows of the mortuary. But I seem to always come back eventually and I have seen much resurrected. Sleep is not death, but sleep mirrors death in it's complete submission to the unknown. Sleep is the consent to sail uncharted waters. Sleep is faith.

On Sunday afternoon, as Page and I lounged in front of the fire, Avonlea played the harp. Talking soon ceased and breathing deepened and we traded out conversation for slumber. Somehow, those moments of repose meant more than thousands of words could have. Because we've learned that sleep is not death and that resurrection is joy and that He is in control of all the laying downs and rising ups and that the cold will heal wounds.

Resurrection comes to all who lay down.
There is something better than just being alive.

Really????

I'm a tired mom.
So when my four-year-old beckons with a bed she's prepared for me on the couch, I accept, gratefully.
And when she tucks me in and rubs my head till I fall asleep, I bless her devoutly.
So when I awake and find that the little louse lulled me to sleep only to carry out evil designs, I am shocked!
I am also shocked that several people came in, saw me, and took pictures of me in my degraded state. Shocked. Did you get that? Scandalized.

How she managed to get an eye patch around my head and a revolver in my hand is utterly beyond me.

It's a sad, sad, day when a tired mommy can't get a little rest without waking up a pirate.

Naughty!

Redefining Rest

One of my favorite parenting privileges is listening to my children define words. The meanings they attach to vocabulary is often insightful and humorous.
For example a small Avonlea defined obedience to the cat, "Obedience means you have to do what I say because I'm taller than you."

So today the three youngest swim in the pool and I watch them; my mind swims in it's own pool of obligations and responsibility.
And I think, Okay, 5-day club next week, 2 weeks of swim lessons, basketball camp, trip to Alaska.......this is going to take me way into August. What about school preparations for next year? When am I going to REST!
Grant's words coincide with mine, "Okay! Now rest!"
All movement in the pool stops and my mind pauses with it.
Posy has her eyes closed.
Grant instructs, "No Rose, rest doesn't mean you curl up with your teddy bear and go to sleep. Rest means you go with the current."
What did he say?
"When I yell 'rest', it means you just relax and let the current take you."
Ahhh rest aptly defined by an 8 year old. I need to quit fighting valiantly against the flow and relax into 5 day club and swim lessons and basketball camp. I realize that this is the only summer I will ever have with a 3,4,8,and 10 year old and I don't want to spend it going against the current, or curled up asleep with my teddy bear. I want to spend it with them, enjoying the things that bring them joy because that is true rest, trusting that where God has us right now, is just where we're supposed to be.
Okay! Now rest!