Pilgrimage

I really like driving through wide open spaces.

Everyone should go on a road trip every once in a while. It forces you to think. Especially if you are smack dab in the middle of no where. All the emptiness becomes a wonderland as you ponder your life. Thoughts and memories come swirling around you and nobody can stop them but you. (OR your four kids, if you happen to be traveling with them. :)



I've had so much on my mind and no time to ponder it all. This journey was exactly what I needed. I looked deep and found answers. I was able to let go of some things that were bothering me. They are now, even as you read this, rambling somewhere on the prairie with the tumbleweeds.

There were a few blessed stretches on the journey when I looked back and saw this:
I love being with my children. This journey helped me remember that. Now you're laughing, right? How can being in a car for two days with four kids make you love them more? Well I'll tell ya: You either get along or you drive straight to the funny farm.

All journeys have beginnings and ends. The beginning is so exciting that we often can't sleep for all the anticipation. The end is bitter-sweet. Always the bitter and the sweet.

One of the best parts of a long journey far away from home is the fresh perspective it gives home. You remember the old saying: you can't see the forest through the trees? Sometimes it helps to go far away to appreciate all that is really there.

The paradox for me on this journey was that I was traveling to be with my parents, sister and brother--home. I didn't grow up in Wisconsin, but it's sort-of home for me, because that's where my parents are. I didn't grow up in that house, but my children find many, many of my childhood memories in my parents' attic.

And so, part of me is there, in that house with those who created my first "home." But the older I get, the more I realize how much my home means to me. My little, humble home. My routines and chaos. My pots and pans. My husband and children. Jeremy and I have lived in 5 different houses in the 12 years we've been married. Each one of them is connected by a thread of home-ness that we created with our songs, laughter, children and tears. There are happy and sad memories connected with each of them, yet we think of them all fondly.

We had a wonderful journey to Wisconsin this summer.
We played and played and loved and played.
We were sad to leave, but along the way...
I found home
again.