Journey of a Thousand Miles: Nature Calls

Monday, September 1, 2008

Nature Calls

So Saturday morning it was quite chilly in the tent. We were all awake and I was snuggled up to Kendall. (With two sleeping bags between us, mind you.) Eli wanted to go outside with Kendall. When I protested Kendall leaving, he laid it out, plain and simple: "Nature calls. Where there is wood, I must burn it." Yes, he loves building fires.

3 comments:

Dave Gloria said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; September 2, 2008 at 12:03 AM
Dave Gloria said...: Karissa and I are not sure if Eli or Kendall said that...but we're really hoping your house is not made of wood! -Mom; September 2, 2008 at 12:04 AM
J said...: An interesting reinterpretation of nature's call!; September 4, 2008 at 10:25 AM

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"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu

July 1, 2008
This journey so far has taken me one thousand and four miles from my hometown, but I’m having trouble putting my finger on the single step that began it all. Was it Monday afternoon at the border when they gave me my official document allowing me to pass? Was it Saturday morning when we started the car and drove out of Goshen in our funny little caravan? Was it in February when we came up to Red Lake for a job interview at the hospital? Was it two Christmases ago being up here with Kendall’s family and all of us rating our desire to live up here? (I can’t say my number on a scale of 1 – 100 was high, but it was the highest of all the in-laws, so I guess I’m the chosen one.) Was it three years ago almost to the day that Kendall first said, “What if we’d move up here?” (I tried to ignore that one for several months, thinking surely it would go away.) Or was it June 10, 2000 when I married Kendall and made some solemn promises before God and all these witnesses? Was it a night before Kendall and I were married when we talked about moving to Red Lake? (It was a far off and romantic possibility at that time.) Or was it living in and visiting different cultures at different times in my life? Could the first step have been when my parents brought me as a baby to this same area for a year of voluntary service? (Kendall wasn’t born yet, but I surely saw his parents as they chatted with mine from time to time.) What about when my dad lived on a nearby reserve for two years before he was married? Or when my mom visited this town with her family as a teenager? Or maybe it had something to do with choices my grandparents made? Or other ancestors farther back?

At any rate, moving into this house where I slept for a few weeks as a baby and where my dad stayed as a teenager, has made me very aware of roots. And how they affect our lives and choices and passions.

I suspect there is no single step that began our move a thousand miles away from Indiana. It seems, rather, to be a coming together of so many different factors. (Not the least of which is marrying a man who has taken this land as a very part of his being. And for all the ways I can tease him and get annoyed at some of his woodsman ways, I really do mean that in a reverent and respectful way.)

So here we are, a thousand miles from nowhere. (Oops…I meant a thousand miles from Goshen.) I know that we safely made the journey here, but mostly our journey is just beginning. And mostly I’m excited.

Journey of a Thousand Miles

Monday, September 1, 2008

Nature Calls

3 comments:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao-tzu

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