The clouds are still out but this picture was taken at some point recently. I was out for a walk trying to get some steps after sitting. The sitting is good because it gives me a chance to not have to be physically active. But then you still have to walk and be out, so you need to have both in order to stay more balanced.

That’s another thing I like about the yoga. I still can hardly stand saying (typing) the word, but the way I describe it is like with exercise we talk about the importance of moving our bodies. Our bodies need movement to keep our lymphatic fluid flowing, our muscles active, our joints from becoming too rusty and stiff.

I had heard before about intentional movement. What I had not heard before was anything about intentional stilling. There is benefit to having your body stop in way that does not involve being unconscious in bed or watching tv or some other passive bodily state where our mind is not also tuned into the moment.

It’s where the mind and the body catch back up with themselves and are given the chance to come back together. If I could lead my own sessions I would do it where everyone had their own space on a mat. I would also want to have men in class. In yoga classes when I used to go you hardly ever saw men there.

It was harder for them. Women would be holding the positions just fine but the one man in the room would be sweating buckets and shaking trying to hold himself up in the twists. These weren’t men who were out of shape. It might have been different if it were men who’d been practicing yoga for longer.

I would want to be able to touch people. There is debate whether or not touch is a good thing or a bad thing. Some say touch is good because it allows for corrective experiences in a safe environment for those who have had bad experiences with physical touch, such as assault or other forms of abuse.

One reason you would touch a person would be to adjust a position. If someone’s hips were sagging or someone’s arms were slightly out of alignment, you would gently adjust the person’s body or body part. The anti-touch people say it is actually more healing for people to not have the pressure of having to do it “right”.

I would not use gloves like I did, I think, too much as a nurse. I wouldn’t necessarily need to correct their positions but would want any of the energies between us to flow. You can touch a person and energy passes from you to them and from them to you. If you hold it long enough, in theory, things become balanced.

It’s cloudier outside tonight which means it won’t be a good night to look at the stars. Overhead I missed Cancer (the crab), Leo (the lion), and Virgo, the apparently gorgeous mermaid of the sky but with legs. That is at least what she looks like to me. Each constellation of the zodiac has a timeframe in which the sun passes through it. So for example, the sun passes through Virgo between August 23-September 22 (give or take). You know what month it is based on what constellation the sun is passing through at the time.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around exactly how this works. When you go outside and look up at night, over time it looks as though it is the sky that is moving. But it is actually the earth that is traveling and making its way around the sun. As the earth moves it passes by clusters of stars. The stars do not stay in the same place hour by hour because as the earth is traveling in its orbit it also is spinning, causing the stars to move past us in the night. I am going to need to think about it more in order to be able to better explain it.

Well anyway, Cancer is the constellation between Gemini (the twins) and Leo. I was never able to see it with my naked eye. I could see the open space where it was supposed to be, and where my SkyView app told me it was, but I could not see it. Even when it was darker and my eyes had adjusted to the night. So I am figuring that my eyesight has changed just enough that I am no longer able to physically see that star group. This was back in the days of Taurus who I can still see in my head now where he is and how he moved.

Today was a regular day. Yesterday I didn’t end needing to be early to school. For labor day they canceled our before class group meetings. That allowed me to catch up with the rest of the family who were attending the junior high track meet in town. These meets are so much more chill than the others. I left when my son was done running and met one of the girls who is part of the group paper we’re supposed to be writing together.

I like this class better than the Family Systems class. For that one we had to role play different family members from 9-10PM. It was okay but having to perform and be somebody else got kind of old. Not in a bad way, but more in a this isn’t exactly fun way. For this class we’re done by 8:15, we get a 15 minute break, and then from 8:30-10 the teacher leads an actual group therapy session where all we have to do is show up as ourselves.

We’re not supposed to talk about anything we talk about unless it’s sharing about ourselves. I have to say, that in this last intensive class and then this one, I’ve been starting to get annoyed with all the therapy talk. Even as someone who likes to reflect and be introspective, it just starts to sound like too much navel-gazing going on. Something the teachers always say is “process over content”. You need more than just the information.

One of the boys and I went and visited my father-in-law today. We arrived right about the time they were wheeling him out for physical therapy. He asked if it was alright if we came along with him, so that was nice. They have a big open therapy space where they do rehab with people. It was my mother-in-law, myself, and my son all watching as he did his session. An example of a process question would be, “What was that like for you to sit in on that session?”

His rehab place is in a hospital which feels like home to me. I actually love the hospital environment and about 95% of the time find hospitals to be exhilarating. I had not seen him since we were in the ER together, after we’d spent part of the day in radiation and then the evening needing to go down through the ER to get admitted. It was actually thrilling to be there, even though I hate ER’s. You learn your nursing skills fast there. I would rather not need any.

I was happy to see him and glad he was closer. I don’t like any of this that is going on with him physically. I feel lately like I need to cry but do not always do so. On our way off the floor the elevator opened and Josh and one of the boys was there with him. I hadn’t known he was coming, so it was again a fun surprise to see them in route. When I was home I put some leftover spaghetti in the oven, and at the table dried my eyes for the running one who wasn’t there.

My hands want a baby. Someone I can pick up and hold close to my chest where I know they are safe and still in my presence. And there we both can rest from our labors. I stop. He quiets. In unison we breathe.

Babies breathe faster, but my own breath cares not. If his is there I can sleep, and I will wake to check his breath, to reach my hand for his body where it rises and falls. And I will kiss him every day, every night.

Every day. His face was made for my kiss and dad kisses him too. With all of them he kisses through all the years they were pick-up-able. Every time you picked them up, and put them down, and kissed their face.

Josh took the boys out to the farm this afternoon. On the way there he stopped by his mom and dad’s to pick up the mail and do some more measuring. The hope is for his dad to get transferred back to Springfield tomorrow. They are not anticipating him gaining back the use of his leg. The other one can be used but also is weak. They are hopeful that he will be able to transfer himself around enough to come home.

My mother-in-law’s brothers are also farmers. They have made arrangements to harvest my father-in-law’s crop mid-September. They think that with help they can get it done in a day. The roof is finished on the new house now and the front door is also one of the newest additions. My daughter had practice this morning and then spent some time with a friend in the afternoon. I spent the day printing and reading articles.

I wasn’t exhausted after our trip but I have spent the time resting since being home. When Josh came home from the chicken fry sometime late-afternoon he laid down next to me and we both fell asleep. When we woke up the boys were moving the television downstairs into the basement where there were a couple of counselors and a few other high school friends. They were going to play Jackbox on their phones and devices.

I wanted to text Ethan and tell him and did. I wasn’t trying to make him sad, or transfer my missing him onto to him but I wished so much he was there then. They ended up making it so he could play and they played downstairs until it was time for the evening game outside. Uncle Glenn stopped by and visited with us in the living room for a while. Whenever he’s in town he stays overnight here. Not at the house but in one of the camp buildings.

When my husband was in college his parents called every Sunday. They did that for the first several years of our marriage and I can’t remember when it stopped. I think it was once he officially became a pastor and we were living only two and a half hours away. I don’t remember it ever being an issue, and I have not had those kind of in-laws problems you hear about. If anything I wish they had been more nosy not less.

But still they have been there for us in great ways. We haven’t really established a set thing with Ethan where we call at a specific time. Earlier before the Jackbox playing I’d told him we could call when Dad was back. At the time he didn’t have any plans but by the time I checked back in later on he was doing something with some of the cross country teammates. That is of course more of what I wanted to hear, that there were others.

I still am not completely convinced that the running thing is the path he’s supposed to take. I don’t think I really gave it much thought, I was mostly just glad that we’d gained some direction and sight with a college plan. It’s hard because you don’t want to push your kids into something that isn’t so much their idea but more yours. You also want to support their endeavors but to do so in a way that still gives them freedom to change.

All in all I am glad to have kept in touch with him. The thought now of me having held back my thoughts, or just general interest in what he is doing, all for the sake of meeting some imaginary standard or fear-based interpretation of how I am supposed to be existing in life feels so wrong when I think about it now. We are not meant to hold back who God has made us to be. As parents we shepherd our kids through transitions.

One of the boys had a meet in South Dakota over the weekend. I left early Friday morning and drove up to South Beloit to pick up my sister and niece. She’s homeschooling one of her daughters this year and the other three are back in regular school. I tried to get some of the other boys to come with me but they wanted to stay here at camp for the chicken fry.

The drive through Wisconsin is always nice. There are pine trees and hills and a stretch where you spend a longer time by a river. Somewhere once we’d been in Minnesota my sister asked about going to see my brother in northern Iowa. We called him to see what he was doing on Saturday. He was actually taking a trip to Illinois.

She’d wanted to go through Forest City and see my brother and sister-in-law’s new house. While we were there we could stop by the other places including the A&W and Brandon’s grave. I told her I was fine with that, but when my brother wasn’t going to be there on Saturday she thought maybe we could stop by on the way to Sioux Falls.

I said that wasn’t going to work because there wouldn’t be enough time. Our GPS had us arriving there around 7. That was later than I originally wanted to be getting there but I didn’t end up leaving at 5 like I planned. I told her it was going to take some time to park and actually find the team and that the meet itself would go by fast.

She thought we should get a hotel ahead of time and I didn’t want to do that. When she asked me why I said it was because I had commitment issues, and if plans changed then I didn’t want to be pegged into a hotel. We found a Super 8 nearby but when we went in side they said they were full. We got back on the highway and could see the meet from the road.

It was absolutely enormous. There were tents everywhere and people everywhere. The website said they have over 5,000 participants every year where they have a JV high school race for boys and girls, then varsity high school for boys and girls, then college women, then the college men ran at 9:10PM. They called the it Augustana Twilight Invitational.

She started looking up hotels online. There was one that said it had one room left. We pulled into that one and I went inside and asked for a room. They said they had a single queen bed suite. I said that would be perfect and it was. My sister and I shared the queen bed and my niece took the pull-out sofa. It was a very nice room.

We freshened up and got established and then it was time to go to the meet. By the time we were parked it was around 7:30. I texted Ethan to let him know we were there. He’d said there team did not have a tent but that they were right next to the University of Nebraska tent with the big red N. They were also right next to the big lot of buses.

It wasn’t hard to find him from there. He was sitting by himself which made me sad, but I was happy again when I was sitting beside him. I’d brought along two bags of snacks and drinks that he had asked about when I asked if he wanted me to bring anything with me. We got to see each other for a little bit before they had to go warm up.

I knew we wouldn’t see him then until after the meet. My sister, niece, and I found a spot by the race trail so we could watch a few of the other races. The high school girls were finishing up and the varsity boys race was crazy. I don’t know how they run so fast. I had taken some anxiety medicine earlier that day and took some more once we sat down.

After the varsity boys were finished running we decided to move to a different spot. That race definitely had the heaviest crowd but I wanted to go to somewhere with a little more space. I didn’t get any pictures from there, but it was a good place to stretch out and see the college girls run. Next was the college men. He did better this time and it felt alright.

After the meet we got to see him again. This time he was talking to another teammate which made me happy. There were more people congregating around the team camp this time including other parents. I’d already met the coach during the earlier time. After the race he wanted a picture of the team so he called them out to a field for pictures.

I started to go too but no other parents were going. So I watched and took pictures from far away. Sometime after the meet some of the boys wanted pictures and there was a group of freshman boys that Ethan was standing with. I didn’t know any of them, but I met one of the moms. It’s weird even as a parent when your kid’s teammates are different.

We talked a little bit longer but then they had to pack up. By then it was somewhere around 10’o clock. The team was not staying over night anywhere but was driving back to the campus that night. It was around a 3 1/2 hour drive for them one way. I forgot to ask what they did for supper but I remember the coach pointing to a cooler of sandwiches.

We hugged and said goodbye and I told him I loved him very much. We went back to the hotel and had a good night’s sleep. The next day we visited the Big Sioux River, visited a museum in Sioux Falls, and then stayed the night with my sister and family in Rochester. I miss him very much now but was thankful to have been able to do go and see it.

Today was a long and busier day. The beginning of the school year in its ways are always pretty hectic. We continue to find our grooves with the juggling of rides for the kids. By the time it was time to pick up my high schooler, my brain had fused this morning’s instructions with yesterday’s plans. I was positive I had told him he would have to take the bus, but I was also certain my daughter had told me they were practicing at the park.

So that’s where I went. By the time I missed one road and then the road to the park and then found a way into the park and got lost I was feeling rage at life’s absurdity and overwhelmed inside. I called Josh who was on the way home from St. Louis and asked if he could tell me where I was in the park. When we made it to the spot where she’d said to go there wasn’t anyone there. He asked if I’d checked out the sports app and of course I had not. When I had a place to pull over I saw that practice today was at the school.

I drove over to the church and pulled in from two different ways before we found him. After the extended venture through the park I was glad I had not left the little boys home. He was sitting in the grass with his backpack. When he climbed into the van he smiled and said, “Ok, what’s your side?” and I gave him the whole long complicated story. “What’s yours?”, I asked, and he said everything he’d thought and made a clock to pass the time.

This evening we went for a walk on the beach trail. I’ve been working on my case study for most of today because it needs to be done before tomorrow. I took breaks to pick up the boys from school and to take them to piano and then to practice.

Wayne did something to the road so now it looks a lot better. It feels better as well. It feels a little bit more like a road now and my feet did not feel like they do when you first start to move in an elevator. It felt at first like the ground was pushing up on your feet.

My father-in-law didn’t get to move closer today. I have not talked to him personally since he’s been in the hospital but I’ve been thinking about the particular suffering of him with his body. It is an awful thing to go through when your body doesn’t work right.

I hate that for him. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped to reflect and check in with myself in that regard here. I feel it in the increased pant sizes that haven’t gotten any smaller. I feel it when I don’t jump or run and feel more tethered to the earth.

I feel it in my healing chest where there used to be a blown volcano.

Last night I wrote two pages after blogging. I like the way it feels to not have to worry about things but I don’t like how it feels to be stressed and crunched for time when I am doing my homework. This last project was the worst it’s ever been in a long time. I went to bed at 11 and set my alarm for 2AM. I needed every single hour to get the rest of it done before leaving for class in the morning.

Doing bits of it at a time really isn’t that bad. I do still like the days where I get to camp out in the living room with my blankets and drinks and just get lost in writing a paper without having to worry about anything else. I just don’t have as many of those open days anymore. There other things going on.

It really isn’t our ourselves, but others who help us to change. We are able to do so much to point, but there are parts we are unable to do and need help with. During one of the readings this morning I was l looking through the opening pages of the book. I like the words from the dedication which said,

Dedicated to those who are struggling to change

To our children, who have strengthened our commitment to making a difference

And to all who have come before and taught about the power of relationships to bring about change

I texted Josh and asked if we could sit down tonight and talk about our schedules for the rest of the week. I don’t think we’re two ships passing in the night but two times today we passed each other on the road. I was coming back from practicum and he was off to meet a pastor for coffee to talk over a few things regarding the high school.

He said, yes, we could, after his school board meeting. We ended up having time before then. The second time we passed each other he was on his way back from meeting with the pastor and I was on my way taking one of the boys to practice and driving to the other school where another was going to get dropped off. I brought my books and didn’t read. Instead I walked for about twenty minutes.

I have this case study that needs to get done this week. Before we left from picking my son up at practice I texted the piano teacher and asked if it was possible to switch our lessons to another day. I was going to be dropping out, as well as the one who started high school. But the younger two could still come in the afternoon.

I enjoyed my practicum time today. I will be working with them two mornings a week. Today I was mostly shown around, sat in on sessions, and read the manual. It is a regular thing for them to have students. There was a med student who was also there. They also have nursing students who will be observing next week.

I’m still sorting out my first day thoughts, but the thing I have said and thought a couples of times is that if you are waking up, getting out of bed, putting clothes on your body and maybe even something (not illegal) in it, you are doing fantastic. There is this hyper-productivity culture that sets up so many crazily unrealistic expectations.

Really, I mean that. If you have anything that even slightly resembles a family, or a job, or a decently comfortable and nice place to live, we have so much to be thankful for. I was disappointed with quitting piano but I told him I didn’t have the bandwidth to make myself practice. If I’m ever going to do it will have to be on my own time later on.

The campus was pretty on my walk today. We did a lot of sitting this morning so it was nice move around and stretch my legs. Josh and I talked about how we were feeling the crunch of not having his mom there to help with the pick-ups and occasional rides. I know she misses the meets. They’re planning to get back to Springfield on Wednesday.

I wish it wasn’t so hard for me to work on my homework. I know I have to do it, so why don’t I just start it sooner? I am going to work on some tonight and try and get at least three pages accomplished. Something we do in group is set goals. They have to be measurable, and you say not what you might do, but what you actually will do.

If it was that easy then people wouldn’t be the places they are so often in. But I do think there is something to the goal setting and little steps toward progress. There are some things that I also think will always be hard no matter how much we grow. Those things will look different depending on the person. So maybe not three, but I will try.

The high school kids had their first meet yesterday. Their team is even smaller this year, with two girls including my daughter, and then four total boys. Two of them weren’t there last night and are debating on whether or not they’re going to keep running. Cross country is not one of the school’s primary sports. Most of the sports boys in the fall play soccer. The girls play volleyball.

One of the soccer moms texted me yesterday saying it’s going to be a long season. I said, “Oh? Anything in particular?” Basically watching high school boys running around, running into each other and being knocked to the ground, and then thankfully getting back up again is difficult for moms to watch year after year. There is something about the sports with the increased testosterone.

And even when you’re a couple of states away it doesn’t matter. I was more nervous and physically disturbed with my son’s first college 5K yesterday than I was with the junior high meet or with this one. I have tried to figure out why this is. I think that it has something to do with the fact that he was the first one and the only one I had that much 1-on-1 time with and for in the earlier years.

He didn’t do very well. And even I was surprised and a little concerned with the time. Things like that make me wonder about what else could be going on. I was happy about the prospect of him having an already built in team and community but not so much about meets and more training. The worries and cares of this truly are endless without the blessing of the Lord who is willing to take them.

He wanted to hear about this meet too, specifically the mile splits of his sister. We ended up “hanging out” during the races via text. At one point I asked if I was texting too much and he said no, so I gave him the updates from the start times to the first mile splits of the lead runners to the team member splits at the 2-mile where I sat down and waited for first the boys and then for girls to run by.

I have really enjoyed having the phones to keep in touch. I feel like I have talked to him more in one week than I did in all of his four years of high school. That has to be an exaggeration but something about it feels true. I don’t regret not getting them phones, but I am seeing what you miss when you do not have that instant access. Even with the phones I miss him, and felt it there.

We stopped by Dairy Queen on the way home from the meet. Since we really haven’t gone on any vacations much these past few years, I figure the money spent on travel food is sort of making up for that somehow. Each meet is sort of like a mini-vacation. Dad and the kids got ice cream blizzards and I had a chili dog and fries from the 2 for $5 menu. I say more of these types of meals than the others.

After church today we picked up lunch and went to my in-laws house. Josh wanted to measure and scope out potential areas to fit a ramp. We brought a wheelchair from camp and played around with what it might be like to have to back it up into the house. We tested out the hallways and doorways and decided the front door would probably be best. They’re hoping to get something built within the week.

During church I met with a couple of congregants. Every so often there are a few of us who end up out in the narthex before church is over. We talk and get to hear a bit about each other’s lives. Busy and hard are the common themes, with sometimes more of one than the other. It makes us all the more appreciative of the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In him we find true rest for our souls.

I sometimes feel like talking so much about one kid makes it sound like I am completely out of touch with my other kids. There is something about having multiple kids that makes it easier to view them with what I call a “herd mentality”. They’re “your kids” or “the boys” or whatever nickname or category they get lumped into over the course of the years. At various times I’ve called them “kidlets” and “kiddos” and “boyos”.

But you really do have something different with each of them. For years I’ve told the boys goodnight with a special 3-line cadence. “Goodnight. Love you. Jesus loves you” and they something similar back “Goodnight. Love you too. Jesus loves you too.” But I rarely said that with my oldest. If they were in the room together when I’d go down before bed I sometimes said it, because I didn’t want him to feel like I was withholding that love from him. But it was different. I often wondered if it was puberty or him.

Because the boys I would give kisses to and to this day they kiss me back. But with Ethan I would kiss his head, and only rarely his cheek. With my daughter I kiss her head, but it isn’t awkward to say it. By the end before he left it was a simple hug and “goodnight”, sometimes initiated by me and sometimes by him. When they come into my room and if I’m already half asleep, in no time I am up on my side reaching out with my arm.