In the words of Chester Bennington

When you miss someone, you look for ways to remember and feel close to them.  While I didn't see my son all the time when he lived an hour away, I miss him terribly.  I've been listening to lots of his music while I sit in his old room.

My cowboy who moved out West to where the sky is so vast.  I know he is listening to good music, soaking up nature, sipping good bourbon and saving lives. I am so proud of him, and I am not the only one.

Lincon Park hits me in all the feels... some things that Chester sings make me think of my son!  Here's to my cowboy.  

Weep not for paths left lone

Fall wide awake

This is not the end this is not the beginning

All the world in front of you, with eyes wide awake

YOU ARE brilliance

It's hard to let you go

All I want to do is trade my life for something new

I will keep you in my memory, leaving out all the rest

In the kitchen one more chair (for you, always)

If your armor breaks (I'll help you fuse it back together) 

Just cuz you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there

Sitting in an empty room

Let that mistake pass on

Pretending I don't feel misplaced it's so much simpler than change

I hope you find something you've wanted all along, somewhere to belong

The sun will set for you (I hope it is many moons from now!)

How fall looks on me...

I wrote this last fall, but it seems fitting with turning 49 yesterday.  

Even more fitting that all of our kiddos are embarking on new seasons of their own.  Gavin even bought a cowboy hat yesterday with a new bed set for his new apartment in Wyoming.  

I hope when winter eventually catches me, that those who know me, will remember the integrity in which I try so hard to cultivate... I think I may forever be a lone leaf clinging to those I love and all that I believe in.  

Here's to whatever season you're living in your life right now! 

This morning I stepped outside to a crispy chill. The sun, raising later, going on 8am, makes me feel weary. Still the beauty of this morning's sunrise was not lacking. I wish I had time to go somewhere with my Canon to photograph the stunning display of God's artwork. It is quiet without the songs of the summer birds filling the air and I watch my breath form in a cloud before me.  The view of our street is stunning in the golden glow of the season. Fall just looks so damn good on this world!

Have you ever marveled at the relationship with nature and, how it so ironically symbolizes our own humanity?  Birth, growth, change, strength, frailty, beauty, balance, purpose, resilience and death?  

When I was young, Fall was my favorite season of all!  I thought of her like fireworks, the grand finally of her summer where all the leaves painted themselves into a spectacular show.  I loved everything about the season; the cooler weather where I could slip into sweaters and thick hoodies, sip on a cup of cider and sit fireside.  I didn't acknowledge the coming of winter and the coldness and darkness soon to follow.  

Decades later summer is my choice.  I love to feel her sunshine on my aging bones.  I love sitting on my porch surrounded by ferns and flowers and the glow of fireflies.  Fall feels all too familiar to me, as if I am the season herself.  My childhood was spring, motherhood was summer.  Here I am at fall, not nearly sunset.  

Recently I heard that if you are young, you look forward, but if you are old, you look back.  How true. In all my years I have never wondered more about my future or spent more time in my memories as I do right now in the fall of my life.

Social media post things like "Fall is going to show you how beautiful it is to let things go."  There is some truth in that, but in this season in my life, I am reaping the rewards grown out of seeds sown in my past because I hung on.  

A storm was brewing on my way to work yesterday morning.  The leaves were raining from the trees in masses, swirling in chaos.  It reminded me of people and how they react to the hard things in life.  At the first sign of trouble they are out of there.  They let go because everyone else before them has too.  They let go because they don't want to be left behind and worse, alone.  Not me, I will forever be that crinkled colorless leave clinging to the integrity of the things I breath for. 

So much of life is just one mundane Tuesday relived over and over until a storm comes, or a season changes and you have to adjust.  I've always admired those who seemingly let things go and ride off on the breeze with wild abandonment. I wonder when they land in the pile of everyone's good intentions and empty encouragements, do they see how far they have fallen and regret letting go?  

A storm came to redirect me nearly a decade ago.  Looking back it was a perfect storm because it landed me my grown-up job, it aided in my kids becoming better humans, I learned invaluable lessons, and it solidified a relationship that is now nearing 2 decades of seasons.  

When you can hold hands with the same person who has seen you in your youth and grows old along side of you, that is worth holding onto.  When the sum of all your hard work lands you a job with purpose, that to is a gift you gave yourself by having integrity and faith in the unknown.  

It is hard to share these vulnerable happiness in my life now, because I am always waiting for life to blow me down.  In some ways this is inevitable, no one gets out of here alive.  Still I want to remember this time in my life where I am living the answered prayers of my past. Maybe fall looks good on me too!  

Prom Queen

You've been dressing up to this moment all your life....

 

Last words...

I scribble notes in random journals, diaries and notebooks all the time. Today I stumbled upon one with the last conversation that I  ever had with my grandfather, we called him Grumps!

Grumps was sleeping when we left (Macey and I).  Nana kept yelling "Russel, Russel they are leaving."  I took his hand, it was cold.  I kissed his forehead.  "I love you." I told him "I know." he said "I love you too." 

So many things I had  remembered about this trip to say good-bye to  him...and yet I didn't remember this moment until I read it today.  I remember leaving their home, backing out of the drive-way, knowing I would never see them again. I remember crying and Macey not  understanding the enormity of the good-bye we had just said to her great-grandparents. 

I miss my Nana and Grumps. My sorrow for them shows up unexpectedly these days.  Just like finding a journal in which I wrote our last words to one another in. I still worry he doesn't know the amazing impact he had on the person I am today. 

I love you

I know

I love you too!

Pretty good words to leave on, however it doesn't make me miss them any less.

The sea, it speaks to the soul of me...

Many mornings I wake with thoughts of Maine, memories of my Nana and Grumps, and the longing for my childhood. I feel the memories catch somewhere in my throat with a desire so deep and wide that I know it can never be filled.  Somethings are too wonderful to ever be replaced.

These feelings are no stranger to me.  I've felt them many times, especially in the summers when I could no longer get away and visit my favorite place and people.  The passing of my carefree childhood was replaced with school, work and eventually adulthood.  I missed Maine!  I missed my Nana and Grumps even when they were alive and thriving.  Here at home in Indiana, I would walk by a pine tree, and the scent of it would carry me back to the summers I spent with them.  Or, I would see a homemade swing, hanging from a thick tree branch and think of the one my Grumps made for me over 40 years ago.


Occasionally I will encounter a stranger whose "R's" will roll with that distinctive New England accent and I feel a comfort and connection all at once.  And should I hear the chiming of cemetery church bells, counting out the passing of time, I recall the ones that surrounded my grandparents home on Barnard street in Kennebunk.  When I heard those bells at night, or in the early mornings, I would count down the hours in my head to when I was allowed to get up and start my day.  I loved that place and the people who lived there so much that I never wanted to sleep!

As a young girl, my friends at home were collecting fire flies in old jars and I was collecting snails and starfish in plastic beach pails.  My friends would be traveling a few hours to camp for a weekend, and I was traveling days to cross the big bridge with the "Welcome to Maine" sign where I would stay for weeks!  My friends would be sweating in the Midwest sunshine, and I would be braving the seaweed in water so cold that your teeth and body ached when you submerged yourself into it.  My friends would be eating hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob, while I was consuming grinders, whoopie pies, lobster, steamers, blueberries, sea scallops and my Nana's terrible cooking!  I don't know how many times my sister and I would secretly called up my Uncle Billy to come and eat the left over Mac-n-Cheese that clotted itself together in a big clumps shoved inside tuber ware.  (However, Nana could make a mean spaghetti sauce, reserved for special occasions. It was an event that took her nearly all day).

Yes, it was the people there that I loved so much!  

Yes, it was the place that I loved so much.  

But now I understand it was the way that these people and this place made me feel so alive!

It was also that anticipation of being with the people and the place that I loved so dearly.  

We never said good-bye, just until next time.  

That empty pang that eventually finds us as adults, I feed that feeling with a trip to the sea!  Even at a young age, I found walking along the waves made me feel as near to God that I believe I will ever feel this side of Heaven.  It is the same reason why I never wanted to sleep when I was there.  I wanted to be alive and soak up all the magic and possibility of the day.  This is why I believe I love the beach, and it is why I'm always planning another road trip to it... the anticipation to something wonderful, and walking on any shore line makes me feel grounded.  Each shell washed upon the shore, feels like a hand picked gift from my Maker, even the busted up and imperfect ones.

God shows himself in many ways, even in broken things.  

Life was different thirty, forty years ago.  I got up each morning and was set free to ride my bike all over my grandparent's hometown.  There were no cell phones, no GPS tracking.  However everyone knew who my grandparents were, and no doubt my own husband has exclaimed, "every single person in that town who knew Barb and Russel, knew I was their grand-daughter, Kary, visiting for the summer from Indiana".  Equipped with a bike, a 110 camera, a library card and my very vivid imagination and I was off.  Carefree, no worries, no sorrows... just the impending marching of time going forward that would count off our time together  a million times faster. It is true, time does fly when you are having fun!

And fast... not just time, but everything so fast and pulsating.  Running on a pair of skinny legs that would blow my hair out behind me catching the sand as I ran along the tide.   At 47, it is the unrolling of Jeep windows, cranking the volume of the radio, singing loudly with my hand filtering the wind through my fingertips, over a four mile bridge, trying to hold on to all my Nana and Grumps showed me!

That little girl in search of adventure, and imagination ... it grounds me always in these mundane and uncertain days of  my older life.  I'm glad I got to meet myself at such a young age, so I can recall her especially now that I have gotten a little lost and well aged along the edges.  The mid-west girl with the best grandparents ever that showed her the sea is the balm to this soul!  In secret maybe the sea is what keeps them close to me... Until next time!

Bluebirds

These guys are hard to get photos of... they are so ski-dish.  This is the 2nd year that have come to eat at our feeder, and camp out in Macey's shop made bird house. 

Quarantine Day # 19

The weather was finally nice enough, so when Macey asked me to take some photos of her, I said okay.  Her daddy and I are lucky enough to admire her beauty everyday...