Midwest Trip

I took a 6 night, 7 day trip to the Midwest to visit my friend Cherry and my friend Kelly.  This was the longest that Phil and I have been separated (by 2 nights, I think) and the longest that the children and I have been separated (by 4 nights).  It was an interesting trip and I have so much swirling around in my head that I have had trouble processing it all today. 

I will try and break down the trip through pictures...

This was such a "happy" moment for me.  I had the whole trip in front of me to look forward to.  It was early morning, my favorite time of day.  I was very early, which is also my favorite.  I had a couple of hours to kill with nothing on a to do list, no place to go, no one to monitor.  There was nothing and I had nothing but a bag and several choices of entertainment (read a magazine, a book, listen to audio story, crochet, sketch).  I got a tea, turned on an audio story, started a new crocheted project with my new yarn.  It was perfect.  

On the long trip to Saint Lewis, I did not have a window seat.  On the long trip back, I did not have a window seat.  Just what is it with people and their window seats!?  Most everyone had the shutter closed!  How could you not want to see the mountain ranges as you pass over them?  How could you not want to see the grid work of roads and fields, the clusters of homes in the towns, the horizons.  I truly don't get it!  But then, we bought a house specifically for a view so what do I know LOL.

This was my view, the brightest thing in my cramped little seat.  This guy, reading and observing these nasty scarred up feet.  Ewwww!

I can't remember what pictures these are from.  I did have a window seat to Minneapolis and to and from Cedar Rapids plus, I did ask the guy next to me to take a picture as we flew into Saint Lewis.

Here is what I noticed...

There are no mountains, no substantial hills, no rolling plains...the midwest is flat flat flat!  I love my Oregon mountain ranges, the foothills, the valleys that are only flat in places.  It made me feel oddly claustrophobic like I needed the space defined and boundaried because the vastness was closing in on me.  Nothing makes you feel small like a towering mountain or a rushing river cutting through steep terrain, or a road winding through the hillsides, or ravines, or a thick forrest at the edge of a field.

The other thing that I noticed was that people don't garden.  People have pristine lawns with a few strategically placed trees and maybe a small border around their homes.  No urban farms, no flower beds, no raised beds in the backyard.  It was weird...just big lots and perfect green as we flew in and out of the airport.

I also noticed perfect grid systems.  Farms were rectangles, roads were straight and intersected at right angles, homes were right off the road.  It was very mathematical, very designed, very purposeful except for the meandering streams and rivers and occasional ponds or lakes.  I wish I had more pictures to show what I mean.  Alas...

My first stop was in Minnesota to visit my friend Cherry.  Cherry and I met as consortium students in Kenya (or perhaps we met in London on our way to Kenya).  We were young 20 something students, on an grand adventure, foreigners in a foreign land, we became fast friends and spent hours and hours together on a daily basis for 5 months.  She visited twice, once when we were still in college and I was living with my Aunt and Uncle and once to be in my wedding party.  I hadn't seen her in 19 years.

So, our visit was rather interesting.  As it turns out, we really have very little in common from our lifestyle to our parenting to our interests to our personal styles.  And yet, we filled our weekend with non stop talking and catching up.  We never had a moment of awkward silence.  I personally feel that you should never lose contact with the people that enter your life and make their mark.  We have known each other for very nearly 25 years and even though we really only keep up through facebook, we remember and appreciate our friendship and I am grateful for that.  

We stayed on their boat, "The Black Cherry" all weekend long.  Saturday, my full day there, was rainy and awful so we went antiquing and I bought a birthday and Christmas gift that I am really excited about (but sheesh, packing it through the airport was no easy task).  Sunday was beautiful and we took a tour of the Mississippi. 

She may be under 5 feet but she is a 6 feet tall in personality!

I kind of fell in love with this house, which is weird because it is a little Frank Lloyd Wright and not at all something I would imagine as a dream house.

So lovely!

The town that is closest to the marina where the boat is docked is Redwing, famous for its crockware (and yes, Redwing shoes as well).  If I was rich and not traveling, I would have stocked up!

Red wing with your mother's maiden name?  Yes!

Sunday, the weather was beautiful so we took a ride up the Mississippi before I had to be at the airport.

I thought of my Gramps on the muddy Mississippi.  When he was a young adult, he went down the river with some friends.  I don't know much about the story (except they found a dead body) but it was an adventure he had and I missed him...as I often miss my grandparents.  Aging puts the preciousness of life in perspective.  

Then, it was on to Iowa to spend time with my friend Kelly.  Kelly and I met on a parenting website a good 6-7 years before we met in person.  We knew of each other through posts and discussions and got to know each other when it just so happened that her husband took a job transfer to Oregon and wound up in Silverton, just over a 5 minute drive from my house.  We had our lifestyles in common with a larger family (those hers is twice as big as mine), homeschooling, and similar parenting.  She moved back 5 years ago and we visited on a road trip to Chicago but hadn't seen each other in several years.  It was immediately being back in what is familiar but without having to be in charge.  

Kelly is an extrovert, a relationship oriented person, and my opposite in terms of personality.  I admire her adoration of teens LOL!  Kelly is also one of the bravest people I know.  She is battling motor neuron disease and expects a diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gerigs disease) since the majority of similar diagnosis eventually become this.  She is affected in both legs and an arm and talks about her wheelchair on order and all its functions without depression and feeling sorry for herself.  She astounds me and I am so so so glad that I got to spend this time with her.  In actuality, everyone's future is unknown and yet, we have expectations and assumptions.  Kelly "knows" her fate in a more real way than most.  She told me that when she loses her voice and can no longer communicate, she can at least pray for her children.  She is my hero.  

Iowa from their mailbox.

Big chairs means a lot of people to visit with.

We took a day of adventure and went to an Amish marketplace, to a German village, and drove around the amazing Iowa countryside. 

The Iowa countryside.  I love Iowa...for the storms, for the farming, for the "ideal heartland community" that I have in my mind, for the history, for the Amish and that simple living that I picture (which is know is idealistic), and of course for the Pint family.

Kelly took me over to her parent's house and her Dad insisted on a Combine ride to see how the corn is harvested.  It was fascinating!!

On the way home...

One should always take a picture of a store with your child's name.

I sent this picture to Phil because this literally cost me 20$ in Chicago and I practically choked when I had to pay!

I have to be a little cautious about how I word the ending of this blog post...  As my children have gotten older and found more of their independence (as much as that is possible in our situation), I have also found mine.  While I couldn't imagine leaving little ones, it was a different experience leaving teens and elementary aged children.  Phil's job has forced a different season in our relationship because he is gone a lot and our country living often pulls us to weekend work away from one another.  We don't spend the time together that we once did and I have grown begrudgingly accustomed to separation.  I was not lonely nor was I longing to be back from this trip which made me feel terrible.  I am grateful for my life but stepping away from it didn't give me this magical rejuvenation and zest for life like I was hoping it would.  The last couple of years have been hard with the move, fixing up this disastrous house and property, the ever increasing demands of homeschooling, Phil's new job that demands so much of him, teenagers, etc..  I have grown weary.  Stepping right back into laundry, cleaning, the to do list, catching up on what didn't get done while I was gone, having very naughty boys that required lectures and consequences multiple times throughout the day...was hard, and it didn't make me miss being here and that made me feel very sad.

A common thread running through most of the relationships that I know is a mother-child conflict.  I bring this up because it was brought up a lot over the past weekend and I am sorry for a friend's anger and resentment toward her mother.  As I was muddling through the frustration of multiple lectures, having a child accuse me of being in a really bad mood (when I wasn't), and hiding out this evening while Phil took over dinner and child needs, (I couldn't make it one day all the way through without a needed break and I was gone a week),...I wondered...will my children resent and feel angry at me because I wasn't the perfect mom?  That I withdrew in the evenings?  That I struggled with patience and being loving? Will they be able to see that I was just a sinner trying the best that I could?  Will they hold my failures and my weakness against me?  Will they withhold grace and blame their struggles on me?  Why is our human nature to hold such a high standard (unattainable) in that particular relationship?  Honestly, it is the most influential relationship in human existence aside from the Lord, perhaps even more than that of a spouse.  A mother goes from carrying and birthing her baby who is helpless in every way to releasing them to their independence as an adult in just 18-20 short years.  It is boggling when you think about it.  And a child/young adult doesn't...not until they see those years slipping by when they realize that their teens are learning to spread their wings.