Tag Archives: Missouri

Kansas City

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Over Thanksgiving, I went home to Kansas City for the first time in almost three years. It was our first time flying with both kids and as soon as we got into the air, Roman–who was sitting behind the wing, loudly announced, “Oh no, something’s wrong with the engine! We’re going to crash!” So really, it went as well as expected 🙂

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The last four months since my daughter was born have mostly been spent at home caring for my babies. The days get long and lonely sometimes so it was just nice for a week to be out of the house and with a few of the people I love most in the world.

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It’s funny how something as simple as food or coffee can bring people together. We flew across the country to share a special meal with family and ended up sharing lots of meals, moments, and memories along the way.IMG_20171129_130542_235.jpg

My little brother would go into the kitchen to prep food, turn on some jazz, and eventually, almost everyone would end up in the kitchen working on something. I stood at the sink on Thanksgiving washing a gazillion dishes. My grandma stood beside me drying, and though it was a simple act I repeat at home several times a day, it was nice being in the kitchen together sharing an ordinary task with people I love.

I got coffee with my best friend who I haven’t seen since March and got my nose pierced with my sister-in-law because she’s braver than I am and wouldn’t let me abandon ship once I was there 😉IMG_20171129_125538_981.jpgMy parents and grandma were saints and let the couples go out to dinner kid-free one night. We ate fabulous Indian food and my little brothers made me laugh until I almost choked.20171206_190908.jpg

Each morning we’d sit around the kitchen table with coffee and some crazy toddlers and start our day together. It was noisy and chaotic and frustrating sometimes for sure. But I think that’s how families always are. They make you swear off your lineage right up until the moment you have to get back on the plane—then you just want to cry because you miss them so much and know they won’t be at your table tomorrow morning when you sit with that cup of coffee.

Being together. That’s the thing. Life is pretty routine really—meals, dishes, kids making noise. But when you get to do these pieces of life together, they’re warmer, deeper, and richer because they were shared with someone you love. I miss my people, these pieces of my story. But how thankful I am for one loud, busy, caffeine-fuled week together. I’ll take a hundred more any chance I get ❤

Memory

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The summer air is tangible, thick,  heavy on my skin. Humidity hangs visibly in the hazy air.

The wind is blowing; it never stops blowing here. There is a restlessness in this place–a constant motion and sound cutting through the trees, bowing the prairie grass gently from side to side.

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Everything seems bigger than me–the grass to my waist, the scruffy trees I climb barefoot and brown, the sky stretching out in ocean spans above the endless rolling farmland. I disappear into the cornfield, feeling smaller still with prickly stalks over my head pressing in around me.

I find a dusty bare spot in the field–a circle of dirt where the tractor turned and no seed was planted. I can smell the corn, sweet and tangy. Everything smells green here–did you know green is a smell? I can remember it–the green–the smell of green grass, green crops, green trees. Everything was green and brown and blue— the sky, the dirt, the oceans of prairie grass swaying in that humid Midwest wind.

My bare feet are brown and dusty, callused as leather and as good on gravel as any pair of shoes. You don’t need shoes here–you can climb the trees better without them–toes moving confidently against scratchy bark and branch.

I was a tomboy then. A little bit wild. Scrappy. A girl… not a wife, not a mother. A wildflower and a dreamer making plans to leave and go somewhere bigger. I did not know then how hard it might be to find a place bigger than a Midwest summer–bigger than that sky or those swaying fields of crop.

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I left. I married. I became a mother. I saw the worlds I dreamt of under apple trees and night sky.

It’s good. I’m happy. I’m proud.

But I’d give almost anything for one more day under the Missouri sun–barefoot, brown, laying in a cornfield watching the clouds roll by. I’d lay there til the stars came out. I’d watch the fireflies dance in diamond bands across the still-hot night air. I’d listen to the peepers and crickets sing their song in chorus with that ever-moving breeze. I’d hold on to the smell of green–breathing a little deeper and tucking away that Midwest magic in the pockets of my heart and soul. I’d whisper to my tomboy heart, “You’ll need these someday so hold on.”

Patience.

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I’ve watched the rain fall and freeze these last few days. The sky is moody, unable to decide if it’s winter or spring. Fluffy white clouds are pushed along by chubby clouds of slate brimming with rain one minute and sleet the next. The sun breaks through now and again, threatening rebel patches of snow and inviting the timid little birds to sing. The flowers are not so brave and have yet to poke their little heads up through the cold sod.

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This world ebbs and flows in the rhythm of seasons—the hot days of summer are caught on fire by the burning leaves of fall, fall gives way to winter as the last leaves drop and tuck away beneath a wintry blanket of snow. Winter holds on forever and every year I forget spring will ever come again.

And then, just when the last shred of hope is slipping through our cold fingers, the birds come home and the snow gives way to rain and we are reminded once more that nothing in this life truly last forever—however good, however bad—this life is made up of brief, ever-changing seasons of warmth and rain, of heartache and hope.

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Life in New England teaches me patience. Through the long winters and slow advance of spring, I learn to wait. Missouri was not this way. Missouri winters yield to spring in violent cracks of thunder and electric fingers of lightning stretching from heaven to earth. The warm and cold air spin and dance in confusion knowing one must win and the battle will be fought out in violent tornadoes that ravage and forsake every bit of ground they touch.

Missouri springs are not quiet, not safe, and certainly not slow. Spring in the prairies feels as though the very land you love is trying to hurl you off of it, trying to crush and destroy you or eat you up in its loud, rumbling belly of thunder. I’m not being dramatic; I thought more than once that I would die in a Missouri spring and never see another summer.

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Sometimes, in New England, I think I will die in the winter and never see another spring—or perhaps the whole earth has died and there are no more springs to be had—now I am being dramatic.