home IS where the heart is

today, my mind has been running a slide show of memories, all connected to this place, all part of what, or where makes me, me. 

the pasture where every year, around easter, we would go walking down cow paths and picking crocuses as a family. 

laying in swaths of wheat under a summer night sky, counting shooting stars with my dad, brother, and uncle. 

driving around, as a family, in spring checking how the crops were coming up and shooting gophers - the sun will forever be setting in this memory; that lovely golden, bathed in honey kind of light that i've only experienced on the prairies.

the dark ominous blue sky of a summer thunderstorm, the sweet, fresh smell of rain about to fall, the unearthly still before all hell breaks loose, the stark contrast of the green trees against that same sky, and huddling close to mom for comfort. 

the seemingly never-ending road through rolling hills of grain to the lake; the sudden glimpse of misty blueness and the more obvious hills of the river breaks that serve only to taunt you with their seeming nearness and then crush your hope with the rest of that interminable drive.  THEN, the suddenness of land giving way to blue water and soft sand. 

the downy softness of a duckling, caught so that my dad could show me. 
the sight and sound of water rushing through washouts and culverts when spring finally thaws the heart of winter.
the sun, hotter than expected after driving in the air conditioned coolness of the tractor, beating down as dad and i grab a handful of wheat from the hopper and he teaches me how to make wheat gum.
the tiny clearing in our trees that i always called "the place where time stands still" where i would sit in quiet, verdant solitude and listen to the birds.
the hoar frost that allows winter as lovely a garment as spring and has always caused me to believe that if i did SOMEthing right, i might make it into fairyland yet. 
so many scenes, and my words can never paint the picture as clearly or as beautifully as i still see it.  each scene, each memory, is connected by place, just as they are also connected by people.  for me, home will always be an intricately connected web of people and places.

just the melody

i always feel like i should apologize when i've been gone this long.  then i realize that the limited readership my lowly blog can boast probably isn't horribly put out when i haven't blogged for awhile.  this is mostly for me and MY free time has been limited at best this summer. 
i have a confession.  i WANT one!  that said, i will pray for patience and God's perfect timing cuz i know that, while mine is not always bang on, His turns out to be exactly that - perfect.  that's all i'm going to say about that. 
i have now been up for 2 hours.  ava woke crying at 4:30...exhausted (cuz i stupidly waited for curt to come home and only had been sleeping for 4 and a 1/2 hours), i made a bottle, went upstairs, changed her bum and rocked her and put her back down to sleep.  then i went and laid in bed with my eyes closed for an hour...thought better of it and came up here to 'play' on the computer.  i HATE 4 hours of sleep...even more?  i HATE, HATE, HATE 4:30 wake ups.  that's all.
i recently finished our latest finer things book.  i didn't like it.  i think it was well-written and that the writing explored the complexities of what it is to be black, to feel like you're at the bottom...but i still didn't like it.  i didn't like the characters - the depressed ones, the not depressed ones - they all seemed like they were playing the part in some poorly written play.  and, if i'm completely honest, they reminded me a bit of myself, or the self that i hope nobody else sees, but the self that i'm afraid everyone DOES see.  so needy, so self-pitying, so BLIND to what it real. 
i like to think that i'm not like that at all...but there are times when i give in to self pity and i can't see what is REALLY real - things just seem too bad.  there are times when i feel like a player in a play - a poorly written one - where i struggle to find the right words, to say the right things, but they all come out stilted, sounding pretentious, sounding completely untrue whether they are or not. 
so am i?  like the characters in the book, i mean?  i often feel like i display an image that, in talking with people, most of the time, is NOT at all what they see.  so it comes to this - do you ever really know yourself?  or is it just nicer to believe the good stuff people say about you rather than the crumby-ness that you see in yourself?  which is real?  are they both?  this question has consumed me off and on for many years.  i hadn't thought about it for a long time but good ol' ann packer made me think of it again.  i waffle back and forth...sometimes i think I know the real me, other times, i know that i'm not really THAT great an actress, so what others see is me, still other times i'm pretty sure i'm a combination of the two me's.  no answer...but the question will probably be back.

i want

it seems like always, everyday.
i want.
the want comes oozing out of my pores.
sure, i want stuff...i mean there is SO much stuff to have!  like THIS dress or a different one from Dress911 or a trip to EVERYwhere!  or a cowboy hat to wear during the summer.  or...the list goes on.
but it's more than just STUFF that i want.
i want time, i want friendship, i want confidence.  i want to know.  i want MORE.  i want to be pursued.  i want to be loved passionately.  i want to be PASSIONATE!  i want to be who i'm meant to be and not just who i'm trying to be.  i want to be grown up.  i want to be a kid.  i want time to slow down, i want time to speed up.  i want to be sure.  i want to be reckless and spontaneous.  i want to be responsible and reliable.  i want to inspire and to BE inspired.  i want to be held.  i want to run free.  i want to lay on the grass and look up at the clouds and watch them floating by forever.  i want to pretend.  i want to DO something!  i want to be more like people that i admire.  i want to be me...
i want

maybe this time

what is it about me that makes me such an ass?  i just cried my way home tonight.  all because i don't want to be the way i am and feel the way i feel and take things the way i take them.  why do i say things that i don't totally even mean to them?  why do i blurt things out that are as COMPLETELY opposite to what i think they think when i don't even believe it myself?  besides, everything is taken out of context anyway since we've never actually had an actual conversation.  it's just little sound bites...maybe if we actually could ever talk we'd find that we could at least see each other's point of view.  but, i'm supremely uncomfortable especially on 'their turf'.  i've never once felt like they've thought i was doing a good job or even my best attempt at a good job.  i've always gotten the impression that they are really sorry for anything or anyone that i happen to be involved in or with.  i pray every single night that God will protect ava bean from my wrong thoughts, feelings, and actions.  and i cry.

home again, home again, jiggety jig

i'm on day four of no boy.  i miss him.  i can't sleep properly, ava can't sleep properly, it's lonesome around supper-time when he usually comes home and i get to talk to him and leave ava with him for a bit so i can have a break, it's lonesome after suppertime when ava's in bed...i guess i kinda like him.  and i miss him...and, although i mighta cried the day he left, i've survived and tomorrow evening he'll be home.  hurry home to me, curt.  please.

and the rain came down

yesterday the rain came down!  it only lasted for a few minutes, 15? 20?  but it made a HUGE impact.  when it was over, curt, ava, and i went for a ride to see what waterfalls we could see.  it was AWESOME!!  i LOVE to hear waterfalls in saskatchewan.  it's been a LONG time since we've had a summer storm like this (i think the last time was 5 years ago the day before our wedding but i kinda missed that since we were busy rehearsing and i was panicking over the lack of sunshine-y-ness for my wedding day.  that said, it WAS sunshine-y on my day, which incidentally was june 18).  sadly, i forgot the camera for our drive but when we got home the water was running in earnest into our lake, over the trail south of our yard, and through the culverts!  it sounded marvelous!  it looked even better!  and callie?  well she thought it felt like christmas if christmas was in summer and included swimming. 

open the floodgates of heaven

we’ve been getting a lot of rain lately. it’s WET! for the first time in years there are puddles in the fields! many people are complaining about the incessant rain that keeps them out of the garden, out of the fields, that hides the sun. but, once again, the sky is darkening and the rain is threatening and i feel my soul lift in expectation. my anthem lately seems to be "LET IT RAIN, OPEN THE FLOODGATES OF HEAVEN, LET IT RAIN!" and yesterday when we listened to that song at uncle jon’s, i felt God speak to me. we had just been praying for the people who were flooded out in maple creek and southern alberta and talking about the devastation that had occurred there and i felt God asking me...”do you REALLY want my floodgates to open? do you REALLY want my rain? do you REALLY want all of me?” i replied quickly, ‘of course’ and then i started thinking about it – when the floodgates open, when it REALLY rains, there is what probably looks like devastation...in truth, when God moves in a big way, it most likely doesn’t look orderly and calm and i think it might look a bit devastating. i pondered that for a moment and then replied back to God, “you know what i can handle, you are faithful, and YES, i want You, i want to see your floodgates opened. LET IT RAIN, LORD!”  i didn't feel God speak again but the words of the next song said "if He put that cry inside of your heart, He will answer the cry inside of your heart" and so i'm believing for overflow, for increase, for the floodgates of heaven to open wide, and for it to RAIN.