If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it. ~ Toni Morrison

Well, it's official now. The refrigerator magnets are all packed away. We really must be moving! All the art work and photos are boxed up. All but two of my house plants are gone, given to friends who I know will give them good homes. The glass, porcelain, and china objects from my curio and china cabinets are all lovingly wrapped up and carefully tucked away, with hopes they'll survive the 2300 mile trek 2/3 of the way across America to their new home. Which hasn't even been looked at in person, let alone bought and ready for occupancy. But that should soon change. My daughter-in-law and I are flying out of Portland around 6 am in the morning to go house hunting for a few days together. Wish us luck, not only in finding homes but also luck with the weather so we don't face all kinds of delays or, perish the thought, cancellations!

I thought when we began this amazing odyssey to Michigan that I'd find the time to blog about it and update at least halfway regularly. Well, obviously that hasn't been happening. Too much to do and too little time to do it in. It's looking more likely we'll be moving in the first part of February. We're trying to prepare our house to put it on the market as well as sort and purge and pack. As well as taking care of my grandsons 55 hours per week. As well as trying to find time to see beloved friends and family one last time before our day of departure. I feel like my sinuses are made of sponge, I've done so much crying in the past few weeks. I've always considered myself pretty strong when it comes to emotions but when you're confronted with realizing that a lot of these goodbyes are probably final ones with a lot of people...well, it's a lot to take in. With the threat of gas prices reaching $5 per gallon in the not-too-distant future, it will be a real sacrifice for any one to come or go. When we're finally in Michigan, we're finally in Michigan. Very sobering.

But still....even so....we truly feel we're doing the right thing for so many reasons, many of which I don't feel like indulging in public. Suffice it to say we're very comfortable with our decision and can see the Lord working it out, every step of the way.

I had lunch with a very dear friend on Sunday, my lunch lady buddy Miss Ivona. We met in 1996 when we both first became lunch ladies for the Portland schools. We became instant friends. As we were talking I said to her, "Now, isn't this ironic? Isn't it the human condition? We may really like or love somebody for years but it isn't until we're faced with losing them, possibly forever, where we finally come forth and tell them how much they mean to us? How much we'll miss them?" She knew exactly what I was saying. And we never did say goodbye to each other. She said if we don't see each other here again on earth we'll see each other in eternity where we'll be lunch ladies together again feeding all the baby angels. Oh, I do LOVE that woman!

And so a new chapter starts tomorrow, finding homes. I am excited and full of anticipation as we prepare to step out into our futures. As much as I've loved this old house we've lived in for the past 28 years, like my daughter said the other day, with everything coming down off the walls, the boxes stacked all over everywhere, "It doesn't really feel like home any more, Mom."

No, it doesn't.

But when those things go back up on the walls, back on the refrigerator, when my bird feeder is hung outside a window and new birds I've never seen before perch to eat, when my grandsons come rushing in to stay with me in our new house...well, it will begin to feel like home.

I truly believe that.

Home is where the heart is.

The fire is the main comfort of the camp... -- Henry David Thoreau

(I got this amazing photo here)

My Dear Hubby is an amazingly intuitive man. He has a keen sense of knowing when I'm reaching the end of my rope and am in need of some 'me' time. Or at least some 'down' time. Where no one can reach me. No one can interrupt me. I'm left alone to enjoy a day in peace and quiet. Sometimes those days are ones where I'm left at home alone...but those are so rare I hardly even know what that feels like any more. So when he suggested we take a drive up into the Mt. Hood National Forest and go for a campfire/picnic yesterday, I was all for it.

We left at 6 am and traveled up the Columbia River Gorge highway, heading east to The Dalles. We watched the sun come up as we drove along. Hardly another vehicle on the highway. Once we got east of Hood River the Columbia was as smooth as glass...the play of Nature's lights did tricks on the mind and the eyes. You couldn't tell where the shoreline began and everything shimmered in subtle shades of mauve and lavender. I saw a couple of pelicans, sea birds I've never spotted before so far upriver - about 160 miles from the ocean - floating peacefully in a sheltered cove. As we reached The Dalles and headed south into north central Oregon, the rolling hills of fruit orchards, the contrast of green grass and bleached-out stubble from winter grass and grain crops, the dips and swoops of the highway as it meandered thru the landscape, began to ease the stress in my shoulders. I could feel myself begin to relax. I knew I'd been stressed and tired...but until that moment I hadn't realized how much.

We turned off on to a gravel road. One of probably thousands I've traveled on thru the woods and desert with Dear Hubby the past 36 years. We saw deer run across the road. We saw a Canada goose perched on a rock outcropping...probably protecting a nest. Hawks glided lazily above. We eventually found the spot we'd had a similar campfire/picnic at several years ago and set up our day camp. We got a big, warm campfire started. I sat down to read and keep the fire burning, and Dear Hubby took off with his longbow for a 'walkabout'.

It was a little cool at first but as the sun began to creep steadily higher and shone down on me thru the pine and fir branches, I took off my coat and soaked in the warm rays. I got lost in my book, listened to a woodpecker high in a tree overhead tap-tapping for his breakfast. And before I knew it, Dear Hubby was back. We started a big pot of coffee on the Coleman stove. We roasted hotdogs on the fire. We had a lovely feast.

Another walkabout. A book finished, another started. Time to pack up and go home. Another beautiful drive down the Columbia, back to Portland and reality.

As we sat in the living room last nite Dear Hubby told me, "I've taken a lot of trips and done a lot of things with different friends thru the years but I've never enjoyed any of them as much as I enjoy spending a day like today with you."

The first day of Spring.

Love still blooms.

Button? Button? Who has the button?

When I was a little girl my mom had a quart jar shaped like a little bear with a hat on its head. It's where she stored her buttons. On rainy days...boring days...I'd sometimes take down the jar and play with them. Not that there was much I could do with them imagination-wise, but I liked sorting thru them and making piles of similar colored ones. Most were ordinary but some, like the little lemon-shaped ones of yellow or brass ones, were a bit more unique. I don't know what happened to that jar. I wonder if it's still at my father's home where my stepmother lives, stashed away in 'his' room of belongings he'd brought along from our family's former life when he married her. I think the odds of ever claiming any of that old stuff is history now.

Another childhood memory of buttons was playing "Button? Button? Who has the Button?" during inside recesses on especially rainy days. That, and "Heads Up Seven Up", I believe the other game was called. I'm dredging the names up almost 45 years after they happened, so bear with me. I grew up in a small town along the southern border of the Olympic Rain Forest in Washington State so we had a lot of indoor recess days.

Which brings me to the obsession I seem to be observing on a lot of blogs now with blog buttons? Does everyone have a blog button? What is the need of a blog button? I'm a complaining old fuddy-duddy, I know, but I find a long list of them in a sidebar very distracting. But, like all other blog 'fads' that come and go, it seems to be the 'in' thing right now. Not for me. I'm not a follower. My blog will remain button-free. Sometimes I think it will remain 'entry' free...I seem to be going thru a bit of a no-time-to-sit-down-and-think phase in life right now. But I plug away when I find a chance. Too many things on my plate right now to focus here. But that's ok. Or so I tell myself.

Turn around and they're one, turn around and they're 4...

I stumbled across this gem today, sticking out cockeyed from a bookshelf Dear Hubby and I have in the bedroom. As I went by and began giving it a push back in alignment with the other books I stopped when I realized what it was: an autobiography written by my son when he was 9 years old. As well as that, there was also a biography in it he wrote about me:

"When my mom was little she had a dog. My mom has 3 brothers. There names are K, T, and E. K is the oldest of her brothers. My mom ran away one day and when her dad found her and her friend he took them to have ice cream. One day at school she was caught reding a book when she should be working. Then her teacher took the book and burned it up. She married a man named D. She loved D. He looks nice. She had my sister in 1977. She had me when she was 22. Her favorite foods are apples, popcorn, and elk meat. My mom is very pretty. She has brown hair, beautiful eyes. She loves me very, very much and I love her! She likes writing and reading and a hole lot of stuff. She likes watching baseball games if there exciting. She is a busy mom. She is very alergic to cotton wood trees."

It was my Mother's Day gift that year. Taped inside is a paper tulip he'd made and given me, too.

I write about my grandboys a lot. But when I read thru this little journal this morning, this book written by my son who is their father, it transported me back 22 years ago as if it was yesterday. And I remembered the darling little boy with the flyaway hair, the skinny little butt that needed suspenders to keep his pants up, and cowboy boots splattering thru every mud puddle they could find. And I marvelled and was appalled at how fast those years have gone by. Did I treasure them enough, him enough? And as I searched my heart I knew that I had. But if I'd only known then what I know now I would've treasured them more.

I Tell You...

I tell you I am a wayfaring stranger.

I tell you I listen to

melodies

written for only

me

to hear.

I tell you I am alone.

Misinterpreted.

Misunderstood.

I tell you I am on a lonely road.

I tell you I see things

images I can't explain

to even you.

I tell you I am invisible.

Invisible.

Evaporated.

I tell you I am a mystery.

I tell you I am unknown.

Strange...

living in a world

I don't understand.

I tell you I am aching.

Troubled.

Lost.

I tell you I have secrets.

I tell you I am enclosed

caged

behind the

bars

looking out.

I tell you I am airborne.

Drifting.

Directionless.

I tell you.

I tell you again.

And

again.

-- MissKris2005 -- July 30, 2006 --

Loneliness is a place that I know well. It's the distance between us, and the space inside ourselves...

And I've got a longin'

That's hard to find

Won't give me no peace of mind

Something that I've lived with all along

Days and weeks and months and years

Filling in the time my dear

Tryin' to find the place where I belong

--Annie Lennox "Loneliness" --

I'm almost 56 years old. You'd think at my age most people would have learned their life lessons by now, wouldn't you? Not so for me. I'm going to spill my guts once again so go grab a cup of coffee or cup of tea and settle in. I dunno how long-winded I'm going to get on this one.

Maybe it's from sitting on the couch with my daughter this morning and talking about friendships and self-images and others' perceptions of us. Maybe it comes from doing some more soul-searching lately. Whatever. But I've come to a painful realization of how I've limited my own life in years past. Me. My actions. My reservations about letting people in, letting them get to know me. My fears. My inadequacies, either real or imagined. Oh, this is so hard to admit to the world in general but especially to myself. It is so hard to peel back the layers of skin and see myself as I am, the time I've wasted. The opportunities missed.

You know, shy people are selfish people. Really. We get so wrapped up in worrying about ourselves we forget about how the other person might be feeling in the same situation. We see only our needs, our wants, our yearnings. We don't even begin to think about how the other guy might be feeling the same emotions, the same self-doubts we're feeling as well. Maybe even tenfold compared to ourselves. And we freeze. And we don't reach out. And we go away disappointed. Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again. In ourselves. Ourselves.

I just looked at the calendar on my computer, down where Time is listed. I had a huge shock when I realized it's November 21 and it was 33 years ago today I became a Christian. Especially since I'm writing about the topic I'm writing about at the moment. Because it has been relationships with people within my church that I have limited myself from more than anywhere else in my life. 33 years. Oh, that is painful. Because it's just been lately where things have begun to open up for me. Well, in the past few years, anyway. First it was my friendship with Karen. Then going out to dinner with a couple we've known for 31 years. Then getting on Facebook and...tentatively...putting forth the effort to say hello to those within my church circle, to 'Friend' some of them. Sending notes and cards and emails to people I know. Showing myself friendly. Because, by setting so many limitations on myself these past 33 years I have not shown myself to be very friendly. And it hasn't been because I'm not friendly. It's because I've been afraid to be friendly. Dear Hubby, thru the many different areas he's been involved in thru the years, has gotten to know a lot more people than me. And when people have said to him, "You know, Kris is so nice but she's so quiet!!" he's always amazed by that. He tells them, "You don't know my wife! There isn't a shy bone in her body!" Maybe that's been true in every other venue of my life...but definitely not at church.

What is so humiliating about confessing all this is by looking at it in retrospect I can see these issues have been because of me. Because of my attitude. My building the castle walls of defense around me and blaming everyone around me. Never myself.

Because...you see...by letting myself begin to reach out tentatively and letting that armor crack, by opening myself and allowing myself to be vulnerable...something that is very, very hard for me to do...I'm finding that people in my church are responding to me like everyone else does. That they're finding me nice. And likable. And thoughtful. And funny. And interesting. That I'm not that lump of dough who's been occupying the same pew space for the past 33 years. That I have a voice. That I'm really and truly a person.

It is of course possible to dance a prayer. ~ Glade Byron Addams

Somewhere on the inside of this aging body is the soul of a dancer. I had a little friend named Annie when I was around four years old and her parents were Austrian immigrants. Her mother loved classical music and quite often when I'd go over to their house to play, she would have old 78s playing on the record player. My parents loved popular music of the day...Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Patty Page...but it was during the many hours of play at Annie's house that my love of classical music was born. Bach, Strauss, Beethoven...one of my favorites was "Swan Lake". I can remember Annie and me dressing in flouncy bouffant underslips that belonged to her older sisters and she and I would dance around their living room, pretending we were prima ballerinas. That is where my love of dance was born, too.

I spent my childhood dancing around our living room on top of my Dad's feet every Saturday night when "The Lawrence Welk" show would come on. At the close of every show, Mr. Welk would go down into the audience and ask ladies to dance with him...that was my signal it was time for me and my Daddy to dance so I'd hop on top of Dad's feet and away we'd go. My Dad was a very elegant dancer and I would feel as if I was transported into the TV, becoming a part of the swirling screen of dancers. I outgrew that when I got too big to stand on top of his feet.

I became a huge fan of "Where the Action Is", a teen music show that would come on TV in the afternoons after school. There were dancers on there called the "Action Kids" and I just loved one of the girls named Lesley. I wanted to grow up to be just like her some day...I was around 10-11 at the time. My childhood best friend Angie pretended she was another dancer named Jerilynn. We had HUGE crushes on Fang (me) and Harpo (Angie) of Paul Revere and the Raiders. We would take my transistor radio out into her back yard and turn it to KBKW radio in Aberdeen and we'd dance all over the grass, learning how to do all the footwork and hand-motions the Action Girls made while they danced, plus the fancy little steps the Raiders would do as they played their instruments. We thought we were so cool! And our vivid imaginations would transport us to another world...we believed we were those girls and that Fang and Harpo were our boyfriends.

I never took formal dance lessons of any sort. We didn't have the money and I don't think I would've ever conformed to something like that, anyway. I was such a free spirit. As I entered in to my teens, my way of escape thru some very hard years was to close myself off into my bedroom, turn on my stereo, and dance for hours on end. I was light as a feather on my feet, as fluid as molten metal...no one ever came to investigate because no one ever heard me. I would light candles and put on a stack of albums and dance until they were done...then I'd put on another stack and start all over again. My mind would drift away into the music, my body would take over. I could leave my misery for those blessed hours. And then I got married. And I stopped dancing. Except...every now and then when I was alone in our house or apartment and a song would come on that would deeply move me...I'd find myself disappearing into dance again. But not often. I had no reason to escape anymore.

Circumstances came along that changed my freedom to dance. It was a time in my life where a lot of my creative forces left me because they weren't encouraged. That quiet little spirit of light in my soul died way, way down to just a little flicker in the core of me. But it smoldered quietly there, patiently waiting to find its way back out to the light. When I would do silly little-kid dances with my children to "Music Box Dancer" or "Jungle Book" or "Sesame Street", that little ember would struggle to come out. But I'd push it back down, again and again. And then came a day when I couldn't live that way anymore. There was too much inside...my music, my books, my writing, my poetry...especially my dance...that was crying out for release. And I let it out....and at first it was a tentative trickle, kind of feeling its way and wondering if it would be dammed up again. Then I decided I didn't care who might disapprove or condemn me for it, as long as I didn't feel it was coming from the One who leads me along. For me, dancing is a type of worship. I feel close to God when I am letting the very essence of me guide my feet, when I am lost to the outside world around me.

There is something beautiful about being home alone and turning on the stereo...of a quiet house with no one to watch this older woman letting the music flow thru her, flow out of her. There is something beautiful about the peace it brings into this older woman's heart. Because inside the heart of this older woman, the soul of a dancer still lives.

Lack of....well, just lack of.

The past two nites, when the alarm has gone off at 1 am for Dear Hubby to get up, I haven't been able to fall back to sleep even tho I still have over two hours from that point until I have to get up. My brain has been going in to overdrive. Some of the thoughts that have flooded in have been about the goofiest things. Things I don't even normally dwell on. And a lot of those songs with ear worm lyrics that play over. And over. And over. Again. Blech. All day yesterday and last nite it was a song from "Jungle Book"...the one that goes, "Ooooh, ooooh, ooooh...I wanna be like you-ooooh-ooooh" or something to that effect. It drove me crazy but every time I started in on it again -- I found myself singing it during most of my waking hours -- Cooper would grin and begin bouncing his head in rhythm with it. The child is easily amused. We also spent a lot of time marching and dancing around the dining room to "Looking for a City" by the Chuckwagon Gang but that's a whole 'nother story.

Yesterday it was like Autumn kind of crept in on cat's feet. Which reminds me of how much I love this Carl Sandburg poem:

The Fog

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.


It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

And Autumn here in the Northwest...except for a few exceptionally beautiful Indian Summer days...means the return of low gray clouds that blanket us for months. And months. And months. On end. Oh, and don't forget the rain. I took the boys for a rather quick walk yesterday because I desperately needed apple juice and coffee filters and thought for sure it was going to begin raining before we got home. Only a few random raindrops that plop-plopped down on my forehead and that was it. But I felt kind of restless and...melancholy...all day. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I saw a man entering in to a store and he could've been my father's twin. My dad's been dead for 3 1/2 years now but whenever I spot someone who looks similar to him or my mom...she's been gone 20 years...it still causes my heart to skip and is like someone thrusts a knife into my heart and gives it a good, hard twist.

I feel like it's been ages since I've written anything of substance...anything of mine on here. Well, outside of the poems I wrote about my grandsons that I gave to my son for his birthday. My brain is loaded with thoughts. My days are gone before I know it. Oh well. I know someday I'll be sitting around twiddling my thumbs as I rock away my days. But, in all honesty, I hope that's never true. As long as I have my health I hope to be busy. Time is so precious I don't want to squander it away.

And, with this rambling free fall thru my head this morning winding its way down, I'll post this and go take a shower. It's only 4:20 but my day starts soon.

For me...for my 54th birthday

I Am I See

I am a child born of snowdrops

in a land

where

raindrops

rule

the skies.

I am mid-century woman

and

I am a

child

of the ‘60s.

I am Mother and Wife.

Friend

and Foe.

I am Fire

and I am Ice.

I am changeless

and then

I change

yet again.

Where rivers run deepest

is where
I dwell,

in the dark waters

where shadows dance

in the passing

light.

I am passion and I am pain.

I see peace

in

the ocean’s

rage.

I see freedom on

the wings of

the osprey.

I am the daughter of

sorrows

who found forgiveness

in the end.

I am a woman

and in my hands

I see

time.

I see years of

a Life well-lived.

I see me

and I see

serenity.