A Weekend for Memories

Twenty-two years ago tomorrow I embarked on a most courageous journey in tandem with the love of my life. It has been a wonderful adventure every step of the way.

This weekend happens to be Memorial Day weekend in the USA. For some it is a time of reflecting on those who have died. For others it is the launch of the season of summer fun. There will be parades and picnics and visits to cemetery plots and hikes in the woods and camping trips and visits to the shore and, where it is warm, fun in the sun and water. A weekend, hopefully, spent with family and/or friends.

My mind goes back to that Memorial Day weekend over two decades ago, the one where I said “I do” till death do us part. It’s a good thing I couldn’t peer into the future, as much as I would have been tempted to do so had there been that option. Best to take life’s pleasures and pains one day at a time. I remember so clearly looking out across the campus in Kirkland, Washington, where we were married. Kim and I were following the photographer’s orders to stand here or there, all for the cause of making memories.

It was a clear blue sky day, “glorious” Kim called it and for more than mere weather reasons. The rhododendrons were at their peak and in the distant west, across the Puget Sound, the peaks of the Olympic Mountains shown white in the brilliant sunshine. My mind wasn’t looking very far out at all. Just taking it one step at a time. It’s all mapped out, this day, and good thing, too, for, unlike the weather, my mind was shrouded in fog. Not a fog of fear or doubt or anguish, just all fogged up from anticipation and joy and excitement. A day to savor the intoxicating mist of love.

For this old trail walker, that day was a trailhead to be remembered and cherished long after. Thanks for the journey, Kim, and for the many more miles ahead.

Marking Time

Amazing how time moves so quickly. The less we have of it, the faster it goes. Explain that to me from the laws of physics.

Today his mother and I make the journey with our Number Two Son to his new college home. School doesn’t start for another 15 weeks or so, but this is the day he registers for his classes and gets oriented to the life of a collegian.

It’s not a long journey. Stephen has chosen a school not far from where we now live, George Fox University. And yet, though the miles are few, the distance from home to that dorm and campus life is a very giant step. For him and for us. You’d think that having done this already with our Firstborn, we’d be prepared this time around. Sure, we know the routine. But the heart, I sense, is never going to be ready. No sense putting it off.

The university calls it “Genesis,” this day of orientation, when future students and their parents learn the ropes of college life. Genesis, a time of fresh beginnings.

Life is a trail (and a trial, too, sometimes!) – as much as we’d like for time to stand still, there is only this incessant moving on. The important thing is to savor each step, each turn in the path. So we’ll savor this one as well, his mother and I, including the pains of separation and the thrills of expectation.

That Rite of Spring

I often wonder if my partiality to this season is because I was born in mid-April. Whatever the reason, there is something very vital, rejuvenating, invigorating to me about Spring. It is indeed the time of new beginnings.

Few activities symbolize Spring more than putting a garden in, something that tends to occur in May in this northern clime. I like the whole process. Adding the previous year’s compost to the garden plot and tilling it in. Buying the seeds or starter plants. Plotting the layout. Smoothing out, then mounding the soil. Putting additives (or not, depending on how organic you prefer to go). Planting the seeds or the starter plants. Staking and stringing. Watering. Then taking in with your eyes what your hands have wrought.

I love kneeling in the dirt (though that gets harder with age) and feeling the dirt with my hands (gloves withhold some of the pleasure for me), the warm sun casting an approving glow on the scene. “Dirt” itself has much of life in it, especially soil that is healthy… the myriads of microorganisms as well as that great visible sign of organic health, the earthworm.

I’ve been putting in gardens lately and also creating some landscape where there had been only the rudiments of suburban yardage. I sense in all this activity something very productive – the created expressing something of the image of the Creator. Long live Spring!