10/52

10/52

This Saturday with a warm breeze in our hair and the hot sun on our shoulders, Kyle and I went on a bike ride and took a trail we hadn't explored before. We rode a few miles to its end, through fields and tunnels. On our way back we saw a little dirt path jutting off the trail. We hopped off our bikes and followed it to a creek bed. We climbed on fallen trees that made bridges across the water. We hopped from rock to rock and watched a squirrel dig up an acorn from a hole, then run off with it in his mouth. He hopped onto my bike's front wheel and then scurried away into the grass. We mostly just sat cross-leg on a big, flat rock and talked while the sky got darker and the wind got colder. We made it home just as the rain started. We ate Mexican food while watching This is 40 (we give it a D-) and listened to the huge booms of thunder and heavy, heavy rain. It was a wonderful, wonderful day aside from one little thing: 

This beautiful boy had his first official biking accident on this trip. He flipped over his handlebars and then the bike landed on top of him. He got scraped and bruised and his bike suffered a little damage but he was a tough guy and held it all together. He limped home pushing his bike while I pushed mine beside him. Luckily we were just a few yards from home and luckily the road was deserted of cars. As far as accidents go, he was really lucky. I was a nervous wreck, though. He twisted his ankle and hurt his knee and I was worried about a cracked bone or torn muscle. He is just fine today, though. Really, really lucky boy. 

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Linking up with Jodi's blog for her 52 project.

I didn't have any instant film on hand this week so I took our photos with my Canon. There's a local store that sells it--for $35 per pack. A bit much when it's only $14.5 online. I love supporting local + small businesses but that's quite a mark up. I'll be back to using Instax this next week after I order some.

9/52

Linking up with Jodi's blog. 

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I am a girl who was raised in a thicket of trees. I climbed barb wire fences to roam through neighboring property. I steadied myself on moss-covered rocks in muddy creekbeds. I would walk from our small three-room cottage across an enchanted field. In the summer the cicadas, awakened from seven years of under ground slumber, roared at me from branches and bushes. In the autumn it was quieter. In the spring, the birds sang more sweetly than any other time of year. A girl and her thoughts, her imaginary dreamworlds, walked across the field and onto the little dirt and gravel road to her grandmother's. Trees, unchecked in number, flanked the road on either side. Cabins and tiny houses, abandoned or otherwise vacant, hid behind bramble. My grandmother's was the tallest house. It had two floors. It was at the end of the path... the road was very much her driveway. There were prolific gardens lined with stone, and a crumbling bird bath that stood in the lovebed of colorful flowers and honeybees. The whole spot overlooked a river that I was never allowed to go down to alone. My grandmother let me when I promised to be safe. She put a lot of trust into my six-year-old body. Down handmade steps that I slowly scooted, just to be especially safe, was a large rock that jutted out over the water. I watched fish come to the surface and cows graze on the fields across the rushing waters. I stared at a mystical overgrown island that I still think about to this day, wanting to explore all of that green. 

So much green. 

The color of my life is green.

Living in the city, even such an eco-minded and small one as I call home today, drains me. I was not meant for concrete streets or afternoon trips to the mall. My green thumb could never be contained in pots on a balcony. My soul could never be nourished by looking out my window to see apartment buildings and storefronts. It is a way of life that is just fine. But it is not just fine for me. And it is not just fine for him. 

I am so grateful for this opportunity. I am so lucky to share it with the man I love.

Friends, we are moving. It's a little cabin in the woods, close enough to kind neighbors that we can walk over to drop off a loaf of bread on a Saturday afternoon. It is a place settled by trees and by squirrels, deer and bugs. Humans respectfully reside in humble fashion. It will be a 30 minute commute to the university, to the grocery store. It will be okay. It will be closer to the kind of life we grew up living. Closer to the life that we want to live with one another and the way we will raise our one-day child. There will be a rain barrel, a compost pile, a fenced-in garden of massive proportions. Green tomatoes will be turned into the most delectable of southern treats and by God that kettle will boil each morning, warming water for steel cut oats and for tea. Chickens will cluck in the yard, roaming freely, and be shut up at night safe from coyotes and foxes. The rain beating against a tin roof will lure us into unplanned afternoon naps and the root cellar will house our home-canned goods and over winter our carrots, onions, and the like. I did just buy 195 onion bulbs, after all. (For $3.90, mind you). 

It will not always be easy. These earthy skills are instilled in us and we have a fervor for developing them more, but there will be days when I sit on the floor, exhausted and overheated, in July's unbearable fire thoroughly convinced that I cannot battle aphids any longer, I cannot sweat another drop, and that my back will surely break from bending over to harvest fruit after fruit and pull weed after weed. There will be innumerable good days. I've spent four years returning to my roots.

This May, I'm planting them. 


P.S.
March is here and I cannot wait for the color to return to my photos and consequently to this blog. This endeavor so far has been rather bland.