Another Day of Rest

Some days

are working days.

Some days are playing days.

And some days are resting days.

Today was a resting day.  Sometimes my body just... won't.  Last night, I woke a dozen times or so in pain.  Who knows why.  By morning, I knew I wouldn't be able to drive, so Guy shuttled Ellie to seminary and back, and took care of Grandpa before leaving for work.  Bless him.

Resting days are hard when you have things to do, and don't want to rest.  The mind gets busy running on hamster wheels; loops of thought with no resolution, that of course never get you anywhere.  To-Do lists nag.  Children seem lazier as you notice each time they stop their tasks (since you have none of your own).  Dust bunnies dance, dirty dishes taunt, and laundry lingers.

Tomorrow will not be a resting day...

7:30 am - Seminary pickup in Jackson
8:30 am - home to fix Grandpa's Breakfast, pack everyone's food for the day
11:00 am - shopping back in Jackson
12:00 pm - drop off handmade jewelry at gallery in Sutter Creek (yay!)
1:00 pm - meet with our homeschool charter supervisor in Plymouth
3:00 pm - back to Jackson for piano lessons
3:30 pm - head to Fiddletown (back out past Plymouth) for Jonah's reading lesson
5:30 pm - back to Jackson for a presidency meeting
7:00 pm - Young Women's activity
9:00 pm - clean the church

'Prob'ly a good thing today was a resting day.
Looks like Thursday may end up being one, too.



(The view from my favorite resting spot)

The Distance Between Trees

Nano invited me on an evening walk with her tonight, and Daddy joined us.  We wandered the long way down to "The Creek", not to be confused with "the creek" to get to Old Spring Road.  The Creek, as the kids call it, importantly, is where the water of the creek that darkly skirts our property line spreads out over a larger collection of flat boulders in the sunshine, joined by a few hidden springs, creating pools and cascades that are a little more fun to play in and far more showy than the sometimes trickle of water that dutifully borders our lot, with its occasional pomp and circumstance of a stormy day or spring snow melt.

As we picked across the closest thing to a bridge the stones have to offer, Natalie urged us forward, worrying, I think, that we might stop and turn back here as we often do when we reach this point.  But our pauses were not reluctance; we were getting the first looks at what is left of the woods below our property where the forestry service had recently been manicuring (today, boys and girls, the role of the forestry service will be played by low level criminals in orange jumpsuits with chainsaws and 1-2 years left till parole.  Oh, yes, a few DID escape on foot, thank you for asking.  Nothing like getting a recorded call from the Sheriff's department while you are 500 miles away on vacation, that, by the way, if you see three 6-footers with tats on their faces, please kindly call 911.  Not a huge problem, right?  They might simply do a Goldilocks impression and use our house for two weeks.  But oh, wait.  Number Two Son and Grandpa are still home.  We call Grandpa, and he jokes that he might just invite them in for a poker game.  Oh, my... he was kidding, right?).

Guy and I were disoriented by the massive changes.  Our once thick, lushly packed woods (because once you live near woods for a while,  ownership is simply a mater of sentimental opinion), now gave the distinct feel of a state campground, minus the fire pits and tired picnic benches with dented, green, metal trashcans chained to them.



My heart was two parts broken and one part thankful.  When you live in a forest, the first year you see the trees.  The second year, you can't see the forest for the kindling.  Every dead tree with low, dry branches (literally called a "fire ladder", by the way), seems as menacing as a dark figure in a seedy alley once had, back when we had to be careful taking the trash out at night, not because of bears, but car-thieves.  By year two, you WANT the forest to be tidied up.  The wild fires of the last two summers still smolder warmly in memory.  And what most folks don't know is, if the forest around your house has been tended to, and if a fire does come, you make the fire department’s short list for attempts at saving all of your earthly possessions.  There is the grateful part.

I tried not to look too long at the massive piles of dismembered tree limbs along open slopes in neatly spaced intervals, or to notice that I could see too far, and too much sky.  Instead, I talked Sunday-evening shop with Guy, and answered the constant bubble of six-year-old inquires, all the while using a stalk of horsefly weed to shoo the gnats from my ears and nose.  



We followed ant trails into large circles of chaff littered about their nests in perfect symmetry, the castoffs of late-summer grass-seed collecting.  Nano gathered and then abandoned many heavy rocks as we walked, always favoring the pink ones.  We walked further than we ever had on the ancient road, wondering at pioneers that may have walked it too, until the pines gave way to mesquite scrub, and we heard backyard chickens in the distance, signalling we were headed to civilization and should go back to our woods, such as they now were.



As we walked toward home, I looked up the lengths of the mammoth pines around us and stopped, smiling.  There they were, hearts, high up where branches had once broken off, leaving heart shaped scars in the mother tree.  I would not have seen them had the forest still been crowded in around them like before.

Earlier in the day, Ethan had come for a visit.  Two parts joy, one part sorrow.  He never stays long due to crack-of-dawn work alarms, but I relished seeing him.  As I hugged him, I felt through his shirt that he is skinny, but not too skinny this time, and his smile twinkled in his eyes.  Long black curls tumbled out from under his cap.  His work clothes showed the long, industrious days they have endured.  He laughed, and hugged the Littles.

He has a belated birthday gift for Jonah Boy; a small but surprisingly strong crossbow.  He passes it my way for parental pre-approval, and we both know I won't say no with Jonah just in the other room, waiting anxiously.  The funny thing is, that at that same age, I wouldn't have given in to a crossbow for Ethan, my risk-taker, my wild one.  But Jonah, his hair neatly combed to the side and set with hairspray seven days a week, needs something a little more adventuresome than playing Nerf darts with his little sister.

Jonah's reaction fills Ethan, you can hear it in his chuckle, and he sets in right away on safety (thank you!) and how-to's.  We pull a few castoffs out of the dump pile that waits in the driveway, and before he knows it, Jonah has his own shooting range, target and all.





We watch them shoot for a while, Jonah forever careful and reserved, and then visit and eat watermelon.  Ethan even tolerates a few pictures.  It had been 5 years since we have had a family picture together.  I love it, pixels, blur and all.

(Maybe there were a few more pictures than he knew about...)

But the sun hung low and it was time.  It was just so good to see him, and so hard to see him go.  He is learning so much, having a whole life I don't really know much about.  But as he talks of electrical panels and conduit and what he will do to get my kiln set up for me next time he is around, I am beaming.  It's so strange when your children break away completely from the mother tree.

But I guess the space between us lets me somehow see him better.