“Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.”
~Luke 24:29~

After taking the boys to school this morning I stopped by County Market to pick up some food items. I’d also gotten inspired to make Valentines Day fun for them. The store had a big display of flowers and chocolates and a few lone balloons. I found one with a happy gnome as the picture and picked that one. Near the Valentines gifts I also found some window clings that are like removable stickers you can put on the glass.

I came home, unloaded the bags, then sat down with a bowl from earlier to finish my breakfast. I heard a car pull up to the house and kind of sighed knowing I’d have to answer the door. Two men I didn’t know were on the other side of it. One of them asked if I was busy. I replied, “Uh, sort of?”, not knowing what they wanted. They were scouts from a Christian group board, looking for a place to hold their Walk to Emmaus retreats.

I’ve heard of these before, that they’re amazing and life-changing, but I didn’t know exactly what they were. I thought they needed a place to actually go on walks, to be in nature where people can be alone to commune with God. In that case they had absolutely come to the right place. I called my husband to confirm that he had indeed spoken with another Emmaus woman who was looking into prices. Their story was true.

We walked to the Christian Growth Center and then to the Retreat Center. I’m always a tad bit self-conscious about the buildings. We’re not a fancy place, and it’s been 40 something years since some of these buildings were built. I think they’re in need of updates, not out of absolute necessity, but because people expect nice places to stay in. When you’re used to camp it’s one thing, but when you’re not, it’s different.

I love giving tours. We stopped by the Indoor Chapel on the way down to the dining hall. We walked through the kitchen and I showed them the new building. We walked to the cabins and they checked the amount of outlets to see if they’d be able to accommodate multiple CPAP machines. I told them there was no running water in the cabins, and that the nearest bathroom for them during the night would be in the dining hall.

They didn’t need land but I showed it to them anyway, at least pointed in the general direction. Toward the river, toward the creek, across the dam there are even more acres to walk on. One asked about the deer, the fishing, and the mushrooms. We have all of that here. They don’t get much free time on these retreats, and the people who come to them are often older. There would be 60-80 people to house including kitchen staff.

There were several other camps that were also being looked at. In March everybody presents their findings to the board. One man had been a missionary in Africa with his wife. I asked if he liked it and said that he loved it. I’ve never been on an overseas mission trip, I said, but have always wanted to go on one. He said I should do it, that it would change my life, and I should bring my kids along with me. It’d be expensive but worth it.

I came home and they left. If we never see them again, even still I’d been blessed. I put away the rest of the food and sprinkled the table with Valentine’s day candy. During supper one of the boys brought out a gift from Dad that he’d left behind. I was completely surprised. It was a journal, on which were written the words Faith, Hope, and Love, along with a set of colored gel pens and a card, which to me, it was perfect.

It’s been a full and busy weekend of visits and travels. My sister came down with her four girls, along with my cousin’s daughter who was visiting from Florida. My sister had called me several weeks ago wondering if it’d be okay if they came down. She was trying to think of things for them all to do and thought coming down to camp would be a good experience. Of course I agreed.

Jupiter and Venus were bright in the sky as they moved in. You can usually always tell if there’s a planet overhead, but I can currently only tell you what planet it is after I first look it up on my SkyView app. I have a Classical Astronomy textbook and Field Guide Study Journal that would teach me how to do it, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. I hope to, but don’t know if I ever will.

Saturday morning we dropped Dad off at the train station. He’s currently on his way to the western edge of Montana. Every year in February he goes away for these camp trips. While I yearly have to wrestle through him going away on trips without me, I do want him to have a good time. The pictures I have seen make the northern part of the country look like it’s own remote snow planet.

This morning I left church early to join my parents for a car ride. We traveled up to Lexington for the visitation of a church family friend. God always provided families for ours during various parts of our lives and this was one of those families. I also saw the parents of one of my high school best friends and talked to them for a little while. It’s amazing to me how love travels through time.

My parents dropped me back off at the then empty church parking lot. We’d driven two cars this morning so the kids could drive over to meet Grandma and Papa after church. The big kids had a basketball game to go to this afternoon, and super bowl parties this evening in town. I visited with my in-laws, then came home with the boys. We enjoyed our meal of popcorn for supper.

One time I was visiting with a woman who was expressing the overwhelming nature of being a parent. She confessed her envy. I had done things right, she said, by having kids young. She and her husband had met later in life, having spent many years single before finding each other and getting married. They’d had and enjoyed their years of freedom, but now they were exhausted and old.

There was one positive, she stated. She and her husband had always had a wonderfully happy marriage. They’d both been in serious relationships before marrying, and had made all of their worst relationship mistakes on other people. At that point it was my turn to marvel, wondering what in the world it would be like to be married to a person you hadn’t wrecked and destroyed.

When we were eighteen years old, my husband and I got back together after the second time of breaking up. We were getting ready to start another summer, our third, of working together. Both of us had gotten to camp early, and we spent several days together before the rest of the staff got there. We spent one of the evenings on the lookout tower, just hanging out and talking.

I remember walking back toward camp that evening and thinking, “This is the man I’m going to marry.” It wasn’t like some love-induced fantasy. It was very matter-of-fact, and I was resolved and accepting of this reality that had just become clear in my mind. There was no official time of getting back together. We were just together from that point on, and it was mutually understood.

I have sometimes looked back on that moment with anger. Stupid me and my fairy tale, magical thinking. What an idiot to base such a huge, momentous life direction on something as intangible as a stupid thought in your head. But stupid or not that’s what I did. And every time there was pain, or doubt, or despair and misunderstanding, I went back to that thought.

“But we have a love story.” Another one of those magical thoughts I kicked and despised. And if I hear one more thing about dying to my flesh and my sinful desires… Except somewhere that’s still true, and just because I have wrongly applied it in the past, doesn’t mean I still don’t need to rightly apply it now. And it isn’t wrong to want love.

“You can only be the dream wife to the man you’re not married to.” Another thought, crystal clear. Once you are married, you are the real wife. You’re no longer a dream, and no longer naïve, or at least you shouldn’t be for too long. And I have wanted to be the dream, and I have wanted to stay naïve, when God would have for me love and wisdom.

O Lord, I believe.

For Valentine’s Day I asked for a cutting board. I’ve been chopping garlic and onions on the dining room table for years. My sister once chastised me for this habit. We were living in the parsonage at the time, and as I was chopping up food on the counter there, she said people who don’t pay for things don’t take care of them like owners do.

We’ve owned two cutting boards in our married life, a small, plastic white one that came in a knife set, and a larger wooden one that was one of my favorite kitchen items, both of them wedding gifts. Somewhere in my several attempts at minimalistic living, I convinced myself that we didn’t need cutting boards, extra items just taking up space.

But that was then, this is now, another “season” upon us. It’s that word again, always there, and there isn’t a name for whatever season this is. It’s the kids in elementary, middle, and high school season. It’s the married for a staggering, almost twenty years season. It’s the season of crowded counters and making my way around the land.

To the right of the beach
is a cluster of trees
one of the prettiest places
I’ve seen above water

The workers who came
years ago, to evaluate
the land in winter
They weren’t impressed

Let me show you, I said
where the trees are
always green and giving
beautiful year round

Goodnight moon
is the song on the radio
one of the sad songs
my kids say
I play all the time

I don’t find it sad
more like soothing
and calming
hypnotizing
there’s a difference

But if at any time
you’re wondering
where the sad songs
all went to, I’ll say here
in the nocturnes

Around 11AM I decided I better go looking. Not that I needed to, but that I wanted to, and wouldn’t be able to handle waiting the next twenty minutes before he got home. Actually I had no idea. I had no idea how long he would be. He’d left a little after 9 to go run on the bike trail. He gave me a hug and I said, “So…like an hour you think?” and he said probably a little longer than that.

Our kids don’t have smartphones, so I can’t track their locations. I know the other moms do this, so I don’t feel too bad. He brought his regular track phone, but didn’t answer when I called it. I was in the middle of making Ratatouille, with extra hamburger and sausage adjusted from last time. I grabbed a random V8 berry drink from the pantry, figuring at least it’d have calories for him.

My daughter came with me. The bike trail, if you drive there, is only two minutes away. I’d entertained the thought of just driving the van on the trail. They don’t like when you do that, and there are numerous signs marking the prohibition of motor vehicles. “Mom! You can’t do that!” she said, as I’d barely approached the trail. I wasn’t even going to drive on it, but I would have.

“Do you think that’s him?”, we both wondered, as we peered down the miles long straight lined path. She thought she saw a black dot in the distance. “Let’s just walk”, she said, and we started walking toward what we hoped was a runner. I’d been afraid of this, of having to walk and getting too far away from the van. I can walk now, I know this, but it still wasn’t all that long ago when I couldn’t.

It’s hard to say, but I’d guess we walked about a quarter of a mile. Once we confirmed the black dot was actually an 18-year old running in a red sweatshirt and grey pants, we turned around. It was actually quite fun. She was up for an adventure, and I guess I was too. He ran right past us and didn’t say a word. “He’s going to the mile marker”, she said. That’s exactly what he did.

He’d run a little over fourteen miles. Last week he’d been out for a while and run eight, the most he’d ever run at once. “Well, was it awful?” I asked, maybe not quite so dramatically. I guess it wasn’t too bad. He ran all the way to the old high school, to the picnic shelter to get his hat, and then all the way back. I gave him the drink, not sure if he’d like it (he doesn’t like fruit much).

But he drank it and we stood there while he sat for a while. “Was it boring?”, my daughter asked, and he shrugged. “What do you think about that whole time?”, now my turn to wonder. He said something about saying he’s never doing this again, but other than that, I don’t know. My daughter and I decided we needed a better communication system. We’re different, but again, we agreed on something.

The kids were disappointed to not have a snow day yesterday. I was too, but we quickly got over it as one by one we made our ways out the door. First Dad and Elianna, then Ethan, then me with the younger ones. I still make our oldest son breakfast most mornings. He’s the main one who ever seems hungry enough for food then.

My daughter is usually in the kitchen before me and makes up her own. I’ve heard stories about how much teenagers eat. It’s one of those mysteries about the world I don’t understand. To me, stomachs are only so big and only meant to hold so much. I really don’t question it. I just keep making eggs, toast, and oatmeal on occasion.

“Mom? How come it’s been snowing all day and the snow outside still isn’t piling up?” I don’t know the answer to that one either. “That’s what happens when there’s flurries”, was the best I could do, unaware of my grammar. How softly they dance, this way and that, with no other purpose but to descend from midair and bring joy.

This feels like a post that needs a TMI disclaimer right from the get go, meaning, if you’re going to read any further, then prepare to be exposed to thoughts and information that you may or may not be better off not knowing. That being said, don’t get your hopes up or start to thinking that I’m about to say anything incredibly new or enlightening. We’ve been saying this for years.

Women have this thing where we are influenced by the hormones that produce our monthly cycles. God created our bodies to go through the same four phases of this cycle month after month, year after year, for as long as he wills. This is God’s design for us, and at the same time, it can be exhausting to have to be so mindful and managing of yourself, as is needed in phases prolonged.

I’ve described it at times as your skin being gone. Over the course of 10-12 days, there is this slow regression of the outer body layer that covers your most sensitive nerves. Your heart is exposed, your nerves, your joints, everything that is normally padded and covered is now out in the open. Anything you’ve been dealing with, not dealing with, it’s all right there saying, “Ok, deal with me.”

Every month we have to do this, to be the most self-controlled in our most weakened state. Prior to this, if your toes get stepped on, if something rubs you the wrong way, you have that wonderful protective layer of the body there to mitigate pain and damage. “It happens”, you say, “We’re human”, as we surely are. It really didn’t bother you that much, because in the moment, it wasn’t hurtful.

And so it’s going to get brought up. Or maybe it won’t. You start to learn which things are worth saying and which things aren’t going to get you anywhere but distanced. Sometimes you learn how to bring things up in a kinder, less offensive way. Sometimes things simply don’t bother you like they used to because the true and repeated dealing with things fosters love and affection.

It hasn’t really snowed much this winter. The small accumulation we awoke to this morning was gone by the end of the church, with the precipitation having turned by then into faint rain. The big kids had a lunch get-together with camp friends at the local Mexican restaurant. The rest of us met up with my in-laws, a weekly post-church activity that’s been part of our family routine for years.

My father-in-law is currently undergoing chemotherapy. Back in September he was diagnosed with stage four cancer, a sarcoma in his leg that had metastasized to his lungs. He travels to St. Louis every three weeks for treatments. His treatments have become a regular topic of conversation, as we catch up on how he’s been doing and feeling. He’s had five of them so far.

Our sis chat has been quieter. We go through these periods every so often where we don’t talk or text as much. We get busy with our families, especially on weekends. I worked on a journal article review that was due Saturday night while Dad and Ethan had a men’s retreat. The other kids joined up with them during meal times, a true perk of living here. After a cleaning time, they played.