Around Vermont

Vermont seems to be one of the go-to vacation places for New Englanders–especially when you want to get away from everything for a while. We went camping in two different parts of Vermont this summer–first in South Londonderry which is in southern Vermont and then in Barton, which is in northern Vermont (just about 30 miles from Canada I think). Here are a few pictures and highlights from our little camping adventures (some pictures are from last year but I really wanted to share them

This is Crystal Lake in Barton–Darren’s family has camped here every year since before he was born; this was my fifth year camping here.

Every year when we’re in Barton we go to the Orleans County Fair. This year at the fair I tried fried dough for the first time and am absolutely and irreversibly in love with it; I should have taken a picture but I ate it too fast to stop and snap a shot; I also road the ferris wheel which terrified me

On our way home from camping in S. Londonderry we stopped in Brattleboro and explored the shops on Main Street. We had lunch at a sandwich shop called The Works–it was so yummy! The food was so fresh and flavorful–I wish it was closer so we could go more often. The building was really cool too–they used lots of recycled and refurbished items from the local area to create a very arty, unique look. Here’s a couple of pictures of the food and the shop

Vermont just sustained heavy damage from floods caused by hurricane Irene so I’m not sure how downtown Brattleboro looks today but if you ever get the chance to visit the city, be sure to check out The Works–also, Beadniks, a fun unique shop also on Main Street–they sell vintage toys and games and beautiful greeting cards and beads of course; we spent a good part of an hour in there checking out all the fun stuff–some of the games and toys brought back memories from when we were kids, like pongo sticks  and paddle boards. Click on the links below to check out The Works and Beadnicks!

Beadniks

The Works

Finding Life in Death

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I’m writing this post about being a widow for, and with the permission of, my friend Ashley who became a young widow last year.

Ashley and I became friends haphazardly–we had gone to the same church for years but had never connected until we ran into each other one day at the mall and struck up a conversation—which ended with us deciding to room together in college that fall.

Ashley is what I like to call crazy. I love her but she is crazy. She is epically distractible and shockingly funny and always in trouble. Ashley road to her wedding in a police car–in her wedding dress and veil and no, this wasn’t planned. Ashley rides most places in a police car as far as I can tell. Every time I talk to her, she tells me about another encounter with another crazy small town cop who has no idea what to do with her. She has a warrant out for her arrest–not because she’s done anything so bad, but because she’s done a couple little things (speeding tickets, etc.) and just can’t quite remember to make her court dates. The last time I talked to Ashley, she made me laugh like a hyena with her stories about Uncle Virg and their night out on the town–getting kicked out of the town and an art museum in the same night. Sometimes I think she has to be making these stories up because there is no way anyone could actually have a life this eventful–but then you spend a day with her and know it’s all true.

I, on the other hand, have never been pulled over much less arrested. I’m the quiet type. I would rather stay home and write and create things and mind my own business. So basically when we’re together, I do things I wouldn’t normally do and Ashley stays out of jail–it’s a beautiful thing.

So imagine the two of us–stubborn, sure of ourselves–but with polarizing differences trying to share a tiny dorm room (with two other girls, by the way) while surviving on no sleep, caffeine highs, and the stresses of college life. By the end of the first semester, Ashley had moved across the hall because we just couldn’t deal with each other. We remained friends, but went our separate ways both in college and after. We graduated, married, and started out on life. Ashley and her husband went to Africa then came back and settled in a house they built together in Missouri. My husband and I went to Massachusetts.

Then in August 2010 Ashley’s husband of two years was killed in a motorcycle accident. I was up in Maine and my mom tried calling me all day to let me know. When I found out, it took a minute to actually process what my mom was saying—Ashley’s husband was dead. I was shocked. We were still so young. Ashley was only 25. We had all just gotten married and started on our lives–how could Cliff, at 26, be dead? I remember walking back to my mom-in-laws house and standing in her kitchen while she cooked; she wanted to know if everything was okay and I muttered no and told her my friend’s husband had died and I lost it. I rarely cry but I cried then, right in front of my mom-in-law and she held onto me and prayed right there that everything would be okay–but it couldn’t be okay, Ashley couldn’t be okay. This was the worst thing imaginable and it had happened to somebody I loved.

I was so worried about Ashley. What would she do? Would she make it through this? What do I say and do? “What” was the only question I had and no answer to go with it. I started writing Ashley on Facebook and we reconnected. At one point, I mentioned on Facebook that I was reading “Walden Pond” by Thoreau and Ashley commented on how much Cliff loved Thoreau and how they had always wanted to see Walden Pond. I told Ashley Walden wasn’t far from here and that if she could ever come for a visit, we would spend a day at Walden. That sealed the deal and Ashley flew in for a visit in late April.

I was nervous about her visiting because I didn’t know what to say or not say and didn’t know what she would be like. My sis-in-law and I picked her up at the airport in Boston and we talked a little about our college years and what an adventure it was trying to live together. We rode the train into the city and hung out for a while in Quincy Market. I didn’t exactly mention to Ashley that I had ridden the train into the city from home and there was therefore no place to put her bag so the poor thing had to drag her rolling suitcase all over the cobblestone streets of Boston while my sis-in-law and I laughed ourselves into hysterics watching her–always there to support. The first thing I noticed about Ashley when she got in was that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor; she was telling stories about her family and we were laughing so hard people were turning around glaring at us. The whole time Ashley was in Massachusetts was like that–filled with laughter, fun, memories, craziness suggested by Ashley and carried out by me (I have not before or since stolen anything from a state park)–it was the most fun I had in forever.

I was amazed by how well Ashley was doing. She was laughing and talking openly about Cliff and part of me thought this all must be an act to hide how much pain she was actually in; she’s just laughing and telling stories to distract from the heartache, I thought. But then Ashley and I talked on the phone a couple of days ago and she said something that changed me and my understanding of her and others who have lost loved ones–she said her sense of humor saved her life. She said people probably thinks it’s a little irreverent to be talking and laughing so much after losing her husband, but who are those people to tell her how to respond to and deal with her own heartache?

People always have a script they expect you to follow and when you veer from their expectations, they criticize you for not behaving as you should (or as they think you should). Ashley said people are ready to move on with their lives but expect her to be doom and gloom in order to portray her heartache–otherwise she just must not have loved Cliff enough or must not miss him enough. It’s a double sentence; have your world ripped away from you and then live under the assuming eyes and judgments of others with your every word and action.

I have learned a lot about both life and death from Ashley. I’ve learned that death is undiscriminating.  I’ve learned that the thoughts you have and things you do following a death do not always make sense to even you and especially not to other people. Ashley told me about sitting on the bathroom floor crying when the toothpaste ran out because it was the last of the toothpaste she and Cliff had both used. Every end becomes another little death of something you shared. I have learned that it’s ok to talk about the person who died and making that person an unspeakable is one of the worst things you can do because the one who has to go on wants to talk and remember and doesn’t want the person they loved to be something they can’t talk about. I’ve learned it’s okay to laugh and enjoy life after death–that this is a road to healing and survival and not a belittling of the one who is gone. I’ve learned that there is no such thing as a “normal” way to behave after death–that each person must survive and deal with their loss in their own way. I’ve learned not to say, “I’m sure there’s someone else out there for you” because that makes them feel like the one they lost was just wasting time holding a place until someone else comes along. Not to say, “time heals all wounds” because time does nothing. I’ve learned not to put the person on a timeline and expect them to be to at certain place by a certain time. I’ve learned that it’s okay to be mad at or hurt by God after death; I believe God understands.

I’ve learned that death is no laughing matter but sometimes to survive, laughing is all you can do.

Seeing With My Own Eyes

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I have a lot of questions about Christianity and the Bible. These questions are something I’m often told to be careful about–that is, asking too many questions could be dangerous or lead me down a dangerous road. I always wonder why it is people feel this way–why is it dangerous to ask question? If a question has a good answer, then asking the question is the best way to get to that answer, right? Maybe people are just afraid there aren’t good answers or hard questions will show the weak spots in the answers. I think perhaps people misunderstand me too; for instance, when I ask a question that sounds like I’m doubting God or the core beliefs of Christianity, then people get defensive and tell me I have no right to question God or Christianity. But I’m not so interested in questioning God himself as I am in understanding and knowing him better and these questions are part of that process for me.

I think sometimes we put too much faith in our “beliefs” and too little faith in God himself. We are so sure of our own beliefs and understanding that we refuse to let God open our eyes to anything new. How can we be so sure our church, denomination, books, pastors and teachers are right about God and what God wants? Isn’t it possible that God is bigger than even our beliefs about him and can sometimes surprise us or change our minds? I’m not out looking for new revelation or throwing everything I’ve ever been taught out the window–I’m just trying to keep my heart, mind, and eyes open to what God has to say–even if it seems to contradict something I’ve always been taught or believed.

I recently decided to start a project that I hope will help answer some of my questions–I want to read every word of the Bible with my own eyes. Obviously lots of people have done this before and many do it every single year on a Bible reading plan but it’s not something I have ever actually done myself. I don’t want to read the Bible just so I can say I did, but I want to read it with an open heart and mind–one that’s ready to either change or affirm my beliefs about God.

Now, I know some will read this and will want to answer all of my questions and I know you mean well in doing so. I’m open to everyone’s thoughts and opinions and actually really hope people will comment on this so we can have discussions and learn from each other. But at the same time, I know this a journey I have to take no matter how many answers people can give me. I need to read and understand the Bible for myself and seek out my own answers and not just accept the answers of others (even if those answers are right or the exact same conclusions I will eventually reach). I’m not looking for quick, accurate answers; I’m looking to see God with my own eyes through his word and whatever else he uses to help me know and understand him.

God said, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 29:12-14

I’m taking God at his word and looking forward to having my heart and eyes opened to his truth–whether that is just exactly what I’ve always believed or something radically different.

Missouri’s Quiet Lure

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People here in New England often ask me why anyone would live in Missouri; that always makes me smile. They also ask me where Missouri is as they stare blankly trying to picture the United States map and the location of the (rather large, right in the dead center) state…somewhere…but where? Not that New Englanders aren’t smart enough to actually locate Missouri…it just escapes them due to its total lack of interest. The descriptions of Missouri that I have so far received from people who have never been there are as follows:

Flat, windy, tornado-ridden waste land that is hot and dry. Often mistaken with Kansas as if they are one entity. A place with no trees, water, or hills primarily housing cows and corn fields.

With this hellish vision in mind, can you blame them for blocking it out of their memory of the US map?

Like New England is stereotyped for its winters, Missouri is stereotyped for its nothingness. And like most stereotypes, it is wrong.

I suppose much of what is listed in that rather bleak description of Missouri is factually correct—it is flat, windy, and tornado ridden—but that’s not all. It also embodies the Ozarks which are studded with mountains, rivers, and caves—not at all flat or dry. And some of the things people make sound so awful are my most loved memories.

I grew up on a 24 acre farm in what we like to call the middle of nowhere. Our driveway was a quarter of a mile long and winding from our yellow farmhouse  set in the middle of the fields to a gravel road leading to Higginsville and Lexington. Being situated between a gravel road and farm land provided a lot of dust. Dust. Dry feathery dirt. But without dust, there is no sunset, not one to revel in at least. I remember the sunsets in Missouri being nothing but epic. When you combine all that dust with heavy storm clouds, you get the brightest shades of pink and orange and the darkest violets and navies all mingling together with the fleeting sun in one last hurrah each night.

Like the dust, the endless corn fields too held a little bit of magic. The places where the tractor turned while seeding left perfect bare circles in the middle of all that tall corn. I would go out to the fields at night and lay on the dirt in one of those circles gazing up at the night sky so clear and bright you could pick out the star formations. I was lost in an ocean of corn and that little bare circle was my secret castle among the endless rolling Plains.

Next to our house was a field no one farmed that grew tall with prairie grass. I remember lying in that grass, watching it rock like the ocean’s waves all around me. It didn’t feel empty or desolate, just quiet and vast. William Cullen Bryant captures my thoughts in his own writings about the Midwest:

The Prairies

“These are the gardens of the Desert, these

The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,

For which the speech of England has no name—

The Prairies. I behold them for the first,

And my heart swells, while the dilated sight

Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! They stretch

In airy undulations, far away,

As if the Ocean, in his gentlest swell,

Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,

And motionless forever. Motionless?—

No—they are all unchanged again. The clouds

Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,

The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;

Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase

The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!…”

I keep this poem on the bookshelf in my living room because it calls my heart back home and reminds me of those quiet days when I all I had to do was lay in the grassy field and watch the clouds go by.

All these thoughts about Missouri were stirred up when I saw a picture my mom posted on Facebook of the Katy Trail in Rocheport, Missouri. How many miles have I walked and ridden on this trail! The Katy Trail is a 237 mile railroad track that was covered over with crushed limestone and converted into a walking/biking trail. I had all but forgotten about this trail until I saw my mom’s picture of that familiar tunnel. Now my legs are aching for a long jog down this forgotten path.

Every place has its lure; you just have to go there and find it. Check out the link below for more information on the Katy Trail:

Bike the Katy Trail

A Bunch of Guidlines, a Few Commands

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Sometimes I wonder how so many different kinds of people can call themselves Christians and read the same Bible and yet come up with such vastly different beliefs and standards.  I think maybe the reason is because we read into what the Bible actually says and we pick and choose what we’re going to take literally and not so literally.

But what I’m finding is that the Bible has lots of big guidelines and a few specific commands; I think Christians generally get this backwards. We major on the minor (clothing, hair styles) and minor on the major (love others just as much as you love your freaking self). We wring our hands over what music styles are appropriate and care nothing about being patient and kind when people disagree with our particular standards and convictions.

God is pretty straightforward about what really matters to him—that’s why he gave us the 10 commandments (and just 10, mind you).  And if God is not so very straightforward about something, should we be losing so much sleep over it ourselves?

God told us not to kill people or have affairs; we know without question what he wants here.

God said to dress modestly—he didn’t say exactly what modest is. Why? Because depending on your culture and the time in which you live, “modestly” can and will mean vastly different things. This is why God gave us discretion and common sense. Honestly, if God had an exact, specific dress code in mind when he told us to be modest, then he probably would have told us exactly what that was. Maybe it doesn’t matter as much to him as it does to us. Maybe it shouldn’t matter as much to us and we should worry more about loving people who irritate us since we know for sure what God meant when he said to love other people.

God doesn’t say a lot about music either, as much as people might try to lift verses and say that he does. God did tell us to worship him in spirit and in truth. So if we have the right spirit and truth about our music, does style really matter so much and is it worth spending so much precious time arguing about? I don’t think so.

Technically, if we are true believers then we’re supposed to belong to the same family in Christ and a family should be able to live under the same roof (or attend the same church). Instead we have thousands upon thousands of different churches (or families) because we disagree on something minor and let it separate us. How are we all going to live in heaven together, anyway? Oh ya, the people who disagree with me probably aren’t Christians anyway (said satirically of course).  I think maybe we need to get over ourselves a little bit and get back to the clear commands of Scripture. After all, if I really applied myself to obeying all the clear commands of Scripture alone, I probably wouldn’t have any  time left to judge someone else’ haircut or outfit anyway.

Have You Tried Love?

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A couple of things I’ve learned about counseling are—1) you can’t help someone unless they want to be helped and 2) usually once someone is ready for help, they already know what needs to be done and just need to get out there and do it. Sometimes people do get lost in the jumble of life and need some direction; sometimes they need a word of encouragement or a good kick in the pants, but for the most part, they don’t need hours of counseling and therapy, they need to get out there and do best what they know they should have been doing all along. Honestly, so much just comes down to love. If you want a better marriage, a better parent/child relationship, a better relationship with coworkers or whoever, loving these people will go so far.

 Love is:

Patient

Kind

Love Doesn’t:

Envy

Boast

Love is not:

Arrogant

Rude

Insistent on its own way

Irritable

Resentful

And does not rejoice at wrong doing but rejoices at the truth

Love:

Bears all

Believes all

Hopes all

Endures all

Love never ends.

So before you give up on a marriage, child, coworker, friend, whoever—try loving them in real actions (not just in thought or word, but in action). It’s hard to fight with someone who is patient, kind, humble, polite, giving, and puts up with you no matter what. It’s nearly impossible to get along with someone who’s impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, resentful, and doesn’t believe in you. So think about your actions or inactions. What are you telling the people around you by the way you behave around them? Can this problem be solved if you were a little more loving? Probably. It’s worth a try at least, right?

See 1 Corinthians 13

Salisbury Beach

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Salisbury, Massachusetts

The sun is proud and intense drenching us in its hottest summer rays.

I love the way the water changes colors as it rolls to land—morphing from navy blue in the depths, to green in the rising waves, to the purest white sea-foam as it comes crashing to shore, and finally, brown as it mingles with the sand and is drawn back out to sea.

The waves hollow out pockets in the sand that fill with bubbling water and catch your unsuspecting feet in their grasp. The shallow water pulling over these pockets stirs the sand, causing it to rise in wispy billows like dark storm clouds beneath the waves.

Sometimes I wonder how I could have grown up so far from the ocean (in Missouri, a land-locked state). And then I watch the waves as they billow and roll and somehow it reminds me of home and the vast, sweeping Plains. The waves swell and sigh like the corn and wheat rocking and bowing to the wind and two places so different somehow seem so much the same—vast, boundless, and loud with their silence.

Walden Pond

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Concord, Massachusetts

Walden Pond

Even the birds are quiet in this quiet place; they sing below their breath, in a whisper, as if showing respect for the beauty of quiet. The wind rustles through the woods, across the water making the trees sigh and yawn with the motion—that is all, the rest is silence. The wind is cold but the trees flirt, taunting the warm air to come—blushing crimson in buds ready to bloom.

Misquamicut Beach

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Westerly, Rhode Island

The ocean rumbles, crashes, swirls, and spins. The waves lap, roll, build until they smash against the shore. This is a place of constant motion, constant churning sound—and yet it is quiet, peaceful. The ocean with its billowing waves sings a lullaby of rest. It breathes it briny breath and kisses my face with saltwater kisses. A tiny bird hops and frolics on the beach in the shadow of the violent crushing waves. A ladybug works on her tan. The water rolls in undulating, ever-changing shades of green then brown before morphing against the sand into perfectly white sea foam.  The ocean is timeless and yet never the same.

Hampton Beach

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Hampton, New Hampshire

The dark, water-laden clouds billow above taunting with stray drops of rain. The wind is strong, violent, driving and throwing the sea. The temperature is perfect; the beach is our own. The sky and the sea are the same threatening shade of blue-gray, tossing and reflecting off each other as they make the tempestuous transition into spring.