1.27.18

The land knows you, even when you are lost.

~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, 

Braiding Sweetgrass

     My sister Molly turned 22 this past Saturday. My mom, my other sister, and a few various relatives of questionable character made the 2+ hour trip to surprise her at college. I was going to go with the evening before, but as events unfolded I ended up making the drive up the next morning by myself. They told Molly I wasn't coming because I was called in to work at the last minute, so it was a surprise when I showed up the next morning, holding a giant pink troll pillow in front of my face at that. (I would have screamed too, had I been on the receiving end of that situation.)

     Heading out in the early morning by myself, heading eastward on I-86, I was reminded of the weeks last Spring when I drove my neighbor to her therapy appointments. She loved my little truck, and raved on and on about how wonderful it was. We would talk the entire hour it took to get there, and the entire hour back, stopping at the gas station on the Indian reservation to fuel up because at the time it was 30 cents cheaper there than at home.

     I thought of that, and then as I drove further into less familiar territory, through one county after another, I thought of the day two years ago when my sister Sadie and I went to visit my cousin where he goes to school. We took some of the very same back roads I was driving then.

     I flipped through local radio stations, caught some of American Pie on one, the tail end of Hotel California on another. I sped through areas where the speed limit wasn't marked. I was giddy with pleasure, because it was a beautiful morning and I was on the road where I wanted to be.

     When you're on the road, you pick up a little piece of every place you pass through. That's why I like to go the back roads rather than the straight, boring Interstate; you see more of the real world that way. Big farms, double-wide trailers, and pristine Amish houses lined the road at intervals. The poorest county in NY state is also the most beautiful. And maybe this is just me, but when I've been someplace, no matter how long ago it was, if I ever pass there again I'll remember. It's weird, almost like a sixth sense. The sense of direction.

     What is it about the land?

     When I was growing up, and still now (well, I guess I'm still growing up, :) I always had an acute awareness of the land. Maybe because I grew up working with it. People want a nice house, nice car, nice clothes. I want all of that too, of course, but I always wanted land. I wanted to see it and explore it and own it. The beautiful thing, too, is that you don't even have to own it; as long as you have feet, or wheels, anyplace you go to becomes yours. At least that's the way I've always felt about it.

     After being at school all week, and working, and trying to prove things to people that I'm not too sure of myself, it was life-giving to get behind the wheel and just go. The places I've been make me feel welcomed with familiar feelings, and the places I see for the first time offer me something I've never had before.

     It's the little things like this I think the Lord gives us when He knows we need to be reminded. :)

******

     The birthday celebration was very nice. I don't have any pictures to show for it because the storage on my phone is completely full, but it involved our first-ever experience with Air B'nB, shopping for a wedding dress (not for my sister) (for me) (JUST KIDDING), and trading keys and driving other people's cars. I didn't get to see my sister nearly enough but I'm still glad I got to see her at all. :) Mercifully they went to Panera Bread the night before I got there.

     Now it's back to the daily grind.... How was your weekend?

~ Emma

same old stomping ground

My mom asked me the question not long ago. "Why don't you blog anymore?"

She was reading it. Some of my other relatives too, while I was gone to Colorado, were reading it, hoping I'd post from there. I honestly don't know who else read the stuff; but Mama, she wanted to know why I wasn't writing anymore.

"I don't have time," was the evasive answer I gave her. The easy way out.

In reality, that's only the tip of the iceberg. A legitimate reason, it's certainly a factor. What is time these days, anyway? Every morning I get up, I put on the same makeup, I get in my truck and go to work or I go to school and then I come home every night dead exhausted, too tired to do anything but laugh at the things my sister says. I haven't written in months, not like I used to. For awhile I thought it was because I got lazy, but no. It was because life got so big all of a sudden it overpowered the words.

     The truth is, I went away to Colorado for five weeks, I came home, and I have more to say than ever before, but I don't quite know the words to use yet.

     Colorado changed me, for sure, but I think what changed me more was coming back home and seeing everything differently. I found out who I am by playing the part of someone I'm not. I found my swag, and it's not flashy or expensive. More like a ballcap and a helping hand. The two best things I ever heard said about me came from two of the people who know me best - my sister, who periodically tells me I'm hilarious, and my crazy cousin, who says I am bold. If I could be known for two things, that's not a bad deal. I want to be bold, and I live to make people laugh.

     Brantley Gilbert says it the way I wish I could, but only he can because he's the boss:

     The ones that need me got me
     The ones that doubt me can't stop me
     Even the ones that said, forget him
     You can bet they ain't forgot me
     Either wanna hit me or hold me
     The ones that hate me don't know me
     And the ones that don't trust anybody trust me
     Yeah, the ones that like me love me.

    Now I'm as settled as I ever was in this valley, my stomping grounds, where the ones that need me got me. And now I ache like crazy to write again. I thank my Lord for one heck of a summer, and for bringing me right back where He wants me.

    It feels so good to be writing from this space again. There will be more stories coming, I promise you! Thanks for sticking around.

     ~Emma

   

On going and coming home again

   
     Last night there was a super moon -- the closest the moon's been to the earth in sixty-eight years and will be for a long time, they say, so we observed by building a big fire and burning all the cardboard boxes left over from the stand. Then we howled at the moon, just a little, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

     A few days ago I got on a plane and flew for the first time in my young life. I thought I'd be scared out of my wits and my plane would be late and I'd get lost and probably be kidnapped or something equally horrible. Turns out the only thing I have to worry about is my imagination, because it wasn't really scary. What it was was incredible. From the moment we took off till we landed again I couldn't stop staring out the window, wondering how this was possible, what those towns down there were, how anybody could tell where they were going without road signs but marveling that there are people who can. The day was cloudy and gray when we took off, but we rose higher and higher until the plane burst through the layer of clouds and then suddenly everything was bright, and the moon was so close I could've reached for it, and the clouds looked like fluffy white hills, like in that Barbie movie my sister and I used to watch over and over. I guess everybody else on my flight had done it a million times, because they all dozed off or scrolled through their phones. But I'm from Stillwater and it was a pure miracle.

     Landing in Indiana, I spent the weekend with a very special girl to celebrate her birthday...we went to Barnes & Noble (and I succeeded in NOT spending all the money in my wallet, which proves there's always a first for everything) and her first country concert, and I got to meet her folks and get to know her better and it was a huge honor. It takes awhile to process, so many new things happening in just a few days -- flying, meeting people, eating squid, learning more about how to be a friend.

     Sometimes it's hard to know who you are in a place you've never been to before, without the people you've known all your life. I like to think I'm a strong personality and I can hold my own anywhere. I think that, and then I'm thrown into a new situation, where my folks aren't with me and everything is different and I can't really remember who the ball cap-wearing, cider-drinking, sarcastic, flippant Emma is or how to be her. It's not a bad thing, really, because you learn, and it's exciting. But it stretches you, at least it stretches me, and it's not the easiest thing in the world.

     Here's the easiest thing in the world. When you get off your plane and walk out to the main terminal and see your mama and your sister, and hug them and tell them all about it while you go back to your car and then talk and laugh all the way back, knowing that you're going home.

     Friends are gifts, all of them, and each one the Lord sends your way for an important reason. But there's nothing like your family for feeling at ease, or for making stupid puns, or speaking your mind, or asking hard questions. When you come home to your family, you let down all your walls and everything they keep in and nothing, not a thing, has ever been as natural or as right.

     At least, this is how I felt yesterday. I'd only gotten three hours of sleep so basically everything anyone said was funny and I was probably acting halfway inebriated all the way home from the airport but with Mama and Sadie, it doesn't matter. Here's to the mothers and sisters and fathers, and brothers if you have them, who don't care if you're an idiot and if your laugh sounds like Fleischmann's old girlfriend on Northern Exposure and love you because you're one of their own.


     "Why do you go away? So you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving."     ~ Terry Pratchett


     Many, many thanks to A and her family for letting me be one of them for a few days, and to Nanoo for thinking I was pretty enough and interesting enough to possibly have a boyfriend somewhere. ;-)

     ~Emma