Lightning

Yesterday was packing day.  That means the kids and Todd get to play at the pool, usually miniature golf and any other camp games (horse shoes, shuffle board, whatever happens to be around).  It's usually a day of putting things to right.  Loads of laundry (which means scraps and bits of reading time for me) and general cleaning everything out, packing away, and loading the car. 

I like moving day.  I wouldn't say I look forward to it, but usually by the time we leave a place, I'm ready for another spot, another adventure, another arch nemesis (dust at one, mud from the lake at the next, the frigid coastal wind... every place has something).  Yesterday though, I was dragging my feet, not ready to leave the Pacific Northwest.  The schedule, the itinerary for next few weeks hasn't been in my wheel-house of 'normal' for a good long while.  Even when we're "camping" (it's closer to tiny-house moving in my opinion),  I've got all my things.  I get to spread my kitchen the way I want, decide on bedtimes and adventures.  I like being without obligations and unfettered from anyone else's schedule but my own (heavily influence by the kids).  Today started the first of many days in which we're in a place for sleeping, then on to the next.  If we're not driving (which there will be loads of that) then we're staying with friends or family. 

Yesterday, I did my normal moving-day thing.  I swept and cleaned, but this time I wiped down the tent, I packed it with greater care, because it's going away until the end of August.  Many of you out there can't imagine living in 180 sq. ft. with four small kids, but I personally selected every piece that's in that 180 sq. ft. and, well, I get attached easily.  It's been five years since I was without my own space traveling cross-country.  Mind you, I've done it three separate times with the church and another one in there on our own, with various numbers and ages of kids.  It has been done, and I'm personally over it.  It's a deep sigh.  The deep sigh only a good teacher in the middle of state mandated testing can understand.  It's a depths-of-your-soul resignation to the seemingly endless tedium when there are so many other things which could occupy that space of time.

We left Western Washington this morning, with all her splendor shrouded in a thickening veil of smoke and soot from a fire raging in British Colombia.  We expected it to get better as we drove east, having preselected a very scenic and off-the-beaten-path byway, but most of the majesty was tented, hidden from view.  At one point, visibility was half a mile, if that.  The fire made it easy to insist on coming back, and that's when I began to think through why I've been so reluctant to change gears from our previous planned gypsy path to another gypsy path.  I'm not sure I've come to any good reason, other than we're coming and going, too quickly for more than a check mark on a laundry list of things to see, places to go. 

I loved watching the movie Bucket List.  I genuinely have always found Jack Nicholson to be hilarious and Morgan Freedman is just spectacular.  Maybe if I knew I was dying, I'd have a different thought, but I remember at the end of the movie realizing that I am not a "bucket list" type of person.  I do not now nor do I think I ever will have a list of things I wish to check off.  I'm a priority person to my bones.  I have a list of priorities that are so marrow-deep within me that there's no compromising.  That list of priorities has enabled me to be free, in the moment, to enjoy a place, a person, an event, whatever.  For example, I'm not a planner.  The idea of planning anything doesn't terrify me, it just makes me weary to my core.  Yet I have a high priority on people, specifically my people.  So when my little brother up and married on a Thursday and called me about it afterwards, I vowed to throw he and his wife a beautiful welcome-to-our-crazy-crew shower... and when she got pregnant and (finally) allowed me to throw said shower, I enjoyed every minute of it.  For me, it's not the action, it's the motivation that always matters.  The motivation for the shower-- my love of a baby brother and his wife.  The planning and preparing?  Take it or leave it.  It's why I bake, never cater.  It's why I love having large groups at my house, but not "host".  To some, that may feel like semantics, but to me, it's vastly different.

We've been motivated by a deep sense of priority to family and being outdoors together and in what John Muir calls the glorious cathedrals.  One of my favorite quotes by him:

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

We've been out of step with our own priorities, those priorities of pray and play, beauty and bread together.  I rather incredulously insisted we recalibrate, refocus.  This current leg of the journey, packing most of our gear until we're back in California the end of next month; it's bittersweet.  I'm excited to change plans, see people who weren't on our radar because they were all too far away.  I'm excited about family and celebrations.  I'm not excited to feel this heavy pressure of checking places off a bucket list.  Glacier National Park.  Check.  Wenatchee State Park.  Check.  Snoqualmie National Forest.  Check. 

Today, as we were driving in what I can only imagine is a stunning valley (air quality from the BC fire) on the far reaches of apple country in Washington State, a golden eagle swooped down and made a u-turn right in front and above our car.  We were all so excited, and I was breathing a deep breath of appreciation when Cooper emphatically calls from the back, "Golden Eagle.  Whew!  Glad I've seen one of those now too.  What eagles are left Em?" 

For a few weeks now, we'll be checking things off lists.  Our tents are packed and we're in pop-up tent contraptions; we are stripped down to a bare-bones basics.  I much prefer this type of camping, because it actually is camping.  But as we head east, and look forward to all the Midwest will bring, tucked into the back of my mind is a stubborn, almost toddler insistence that soon, very soon, I'll get my way.  Soon, very soon, we won't be a family who sees a golden eagle in majestic flight and drive on.  Soon, we will stop for a while.  We'll talk about eagles and their life cycles, we'll try and catch more glimpses.  We'll have a conversation about conservation and threats to that particular species.  Because somewhere in those tight-fited regions of my mind, I know where I want to steer my zoo, and check lists are near the direction, but in the completely wrong spirit. 

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work. 

-Mark Twain

I'm not ready to settle for just the thunder... not yet anyways.  I'll wait a bit, see some beautiful places and beloved people,  and when that's all done, I'll come back to our priorities, and we'll watch as the sky is ablaze in the lightning storms.