BLACK HILLS

I imagine he thinks this is his life now: Wake up, get a treat, pee, get in the car, ride all day (with nice moments of ball-chasing at rest stops), eat dinner in a strange room every night, and sleep on the bed with Dad. I wonder what he thinks or feels about Hannah’s absence.

Last week, two days before we moved out of our house and headed west, I gave my dog, Hannah, to the new owner of our house in Bloomington. She will be enjoying the enchanted forest for many years to come with her new guardian, David. Hannah loves men, so I think this was an easy shift for her. At least I hope to God it was. I’ve never given up a dog in all my life. But I could not coordinate a cross country move with two dogs, nor find a place that would rent to us with two largish dogs plus cat…

 

CLAN MOTHER IN A BOX

Yes, that was me who packed my “Thirteen Original Clan Mothers” book away in some unnamed box by accident. And it would be me, also, who has packed away just enough things to make life more chaotic than usual.

While the new moon beams her darkness down to us this coming Sunday, I will be boxing the last of our belongings in preparation for the movers on Monday morning. They are coming at 8 in the morning, an hour I find uncharitable. Perhaps it’s for the best. Maybe being in a fog for part of moving day is not such a bad thing.

I want to let you know that I won’t be able to attend to my prayer ceremony this Sunday. But I will be holding all of you in prayer as I go about my last evening in this house, boxing, taping, sweeping. I’ll be back in better touch on the other end of our journey, when I reach Camas, Washington.

If you would all help me out by carrying on the prayers come Sunday, I would be so appreciative. Pray for each other and for all of us as we face this crazy summer of 2012.

 

WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

We had a thundering rain storm a few days back. Bigger than any I can remember. Rain came down in sheets and the sky stayed black all afternoon. The next day, when Carter and I walked the dogs down into the hollows, it looked as though a tide had come through the creeks and washed the place down to bare sand and stone. Gone were the leaf piles of last winter. The ferns and bluebells were bent down flat on the forest floor.  In the smooth, bare, brown creek sand, I saw the tracks of wild turkeys, opossums, and squirrels. I wondered to myself how the box turtles had fared in the storm waters…

 

RIBBONS OF HOPE AND PROMISE

There are some days when I believe I would prefer hemorrhagic smallpox to a cross-country move. Four days ago, on a very sunny and humid midwest morning, I gulped down my coffee and hurried out of the house to procure a cashier’s check to secure the lease on a small house in Washington state. Choosing a place to live sight-unseen makes the hairs raise on the back of my neck, but that’s what is necessary right now.