walking the race

It’s a holiday Monday here in France. There are families out on their patios, lingering over their noon meals, and teenagers biking through the little village where I live. I’m in an empty house, my housemates having left Saturday for two weeks of vacation.

This afternoon, I sent off my good friend, Amber, who was here visiting for the weekend. What’s funny is that I didn’t drop her off at the train station. We didn’t load her backpack in the trunk of the car and go. Nope, leaving this little point on a map meant that we set out on foot to the nearest bus stop. Amber was laughing, because in Paris, where she lives, getting on a bus is at worst a five-minute walk. Here, it was over an hour, through fields, forests, vineyard, and hamlets of white-stoned houses and potted flowers.

It’s been—gosh!—almost three years now since my Honda Civic got mysteriously ill and I sold her for a pittance before heading to France to be an au pair. Since then, carless is the word for this girl. In city and utter countryside, in the US and here in the country I’ve adopted, I have been living the adventure of not owning a vehicle.

Easier said than done, let me tell you! Like many of you, I grew up in Suburbia, where each person comes and goes as she sees fit. But, as I have discovered, relinquishing the ownership of a car means giving up your independence. Where transportation is concerned, I have come to move to the rhythm of others. I can borrow a car from my (generous) housemates when the Papa comes home from work. Carpools are good for long distances, but their timing is up to the driver. The closest bus comes three times a day: early morning, just-after-noon, and early evening.

With all this, a person learns to wait. “Se patienter,” we say in French, “to patient oneself.” Once again, I find myself living slower than the people around me, a snail on a leaf watching my dragonfly friends buzz and flit. Where to find the sense in this? How to justify it?

What I do know is that I am learning the value of things and the meaning of distance. As I communicate with people about transportation and am helped, I weave and construct new relationships. Sometimes I have to wait for hours in an unknown location in between modes of transportation, and it gives me the opportunity to explore. I know back roads and woodland paths that locals don’t.

This scenery is becoming a part of me, and I a part of it. I am seeing fields, hamlets, villages, and cities in great detail. And I don’t just see; I also smell, taste, touch, and listen. It’s my great pleasure to know, now, where to go to renew my wildflower bouquets that both smell and look vibrant, and collect precious handfuls of wild cherries that make me pucker. I’m watching a patch of Saint-John’s-wort put out its flowers so I can learn how to steep it in oil for sunburn treatment once they are ready.

Recognizing a thing or a place, and knowing its name, is to honor it and bless it. Tracing the hidden bumps of the countryside is intimately knowing it, and I feel as if I am slowly earning legitimacy in this place through this knowledge.

All of this reminds me that the Father’s kingdom is topsy-turvy. You gain your life by losing it, as Jesus says.

rhythm of winter

Winter is settling into the Loire. You can tell because things are freezing, now; they take most of the morning to thaw. The nettles become white, every tooth and spike covered with layers of crystals that exaggerate their form. While the Loire and the Thouet continue to move fluidly, the smaller streams have become still, their surface a bit matte. Within, you can see reeds and leaves, motionless like mannequins in a store window.

There’s a back-and-forth to all this, yet, because things do thaw during the day. The light may creep onto them at 9 or 10 or 11, and the twinkle of frost becomes a flash of wet. All day they bask in the warmth. Do they become relaxed, like a cat in the sun? Or have they started to get nervous about the shivering approach of evening? If it were me, living out there, I would be anxious.

These things, on the other hand—natural, outside things—are used to this changing, and they are adapted to it. Maybe they even need it. Isn’t there a side of me that needs the cold, hungers after the freezing? Winters low on the frost factor are lacking in satisfaction—for me, anyhow.

I think of the grape vines, how over the course of autumn, they suck their sap back, from the tips of their leaves, through branches, down into the trunk, and finally below the soil into the roots. Do you think they enjoy this somehow? Is this their version of cuddling up in bed with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book? They retreat to the darkest, warmest room of the house, cover up with a meter or two of good soil, and drink in the yummy minerals the snow brings along. They are relieved, perhaps, to put aside for a few months their appearances and their working. They rest, content to be and to appear only what they really are.

The entire landscape is utterly conformed to this likeness, to these bare bones; forest and field are filled with subtle color and gaunt silhouettes. Some call it sad; others, chilling. Some call it lovely.

“And what about us?” I can’t help asking, in a city with lights always on, and outdoor figures fluffed and stuffed, adorned and colorful. Where is our rest? Where is our nakedness? I feel outdoors a rhythm I don’t dare enter into, inside. No, it would alter me; it would change everything. I am afraid of it and not strong enough to give into it.

pushing out, pushing on

 I push out into the light: it’s morning. I’ve overslept my alarm, and that’s ok. There’s the church bells coming at 9, but these days they don’t tell me when I have to arrive, or where. 

Today, I choose the banks of the Loire, heading east. This morning is an illumined morning, inside and out. My eyes and my heart catch the rosy glow of the rising sun upon the water, and I greet the seagull with joy. 

The river runs its course, steady on, as if pressed for time; it continues on from Angers to Chinon, and will find the sea by the time the day is done. Quite the accomplishment. 

While the city plays out on my right, with much to discover, I am not concerned with her today. Give me nature. The pavement opens to cobblestones on the left, and I follow them down to the water’s surface, losing the most invasive drones of traffic. The bare, brown structure of coneflowers are clambered over by still-green thornbushes, some still attached to their dried up fruits. At the water’s edge, there are baubles of yellow on some fall flower. I am grateful for these late bloomers. 

The day stretches before me, and I have as much choice for my activities as for this morning’s route. Sometimes I wish there were a structure, a path. Today, however, I am glad for the freedom. 

---

I push out into the night. It’s barely evening; dinner is still an hour or two away. Yet the sky has gone dark and the kitchen windows have lit up. Those not home yet from work seem to be out on the streets and sidewalks; there are many passer-by to dodge on the narrow sidewalk. They can see my breath from far off, but avoid eye contact. 

Across the downtown, I take a fork in the road at a high, stone wall. A grim 80’s building appears behind some hedges, its large windows revealing active figures within. The parking lot is abuzz. I climb the steps, grocery bags in hand. 

Inside, tables are set up, and lines are formed. I can’t help but smile. Into the warmth we all come to pick up fresh, local food. The baker comes out from behind her table to greet me warmly and see how the job search is going. She passes me two large, round loaves sparkling with seeds; their aroma envelops us as we talk. There is milk from large coolers, wedges of aged cheese cut and wrapped, flour scooped into jars, and abnormally-small eggs from young hens just beginning to lay. 

Then I wait for the veggies. We all wait; there are items to be weighed, and it takes time. I am glad there’s a little boy in front of me for entertainment. When I make funny faces at him, he says nothing but “Bah!” with a growl. 

It’s my turn. It’s my favorite moment of the week, I think. I weigh funny-shaped carrots from the bottom of the crate—the rejects. Radish, turnip, leek, cabbage, frisé lettuce. The farmer and I chat. I don’t know which cabbage to choose, and take the closest one. There are tall, elegant lettuces called “Sugar Bread” laid out in the basket at the end. Their form is like Van Gogh’s poplar trees waving in the wind. Into the bag, tenderly. I thank Gregory for the beautiful vegetables, and cut through the line and out the door. 

 In the street it begins to feel like Christmas time. The classy clothes shops are setting up their storefronts with sweaters and fake snow. Homesickness strikes and I feel the sting in my eyes. 

Not tonight, I decide, not this time. In midstride, I register where I am. I remember the thousand times I had imagined living in France, tracing cobbled streets and passing by wonky houses—not as a tourist, but with groceries. Not visiting, but living. Not alone, but with friends. It is a time to be thankful.

a wwoofing update

A couple of explanations, first.

One, I am a bad traveler and forgot my power adapter. The one I bought at the airport doesn't work. Therefore, my connection to the outside world is a bit more limited than imagined.

Two, I have a beautiful, new-to-me digital SLR that I am getting adjusted to. However, no laptop means no pictures, yet. Sorry to all who are waiting.

Three, I was hoping to launch a separate blog for my wwoofing adventures and keep this one for more personal reflections. Alas--time lacks for this wwoofer, as do the photos I would like to anchor said site with. Maybe next month.

I set off three weeks ago from Kansas City, intending to spend the growing season (March-fall) traveling from farm to farm in France. My mission is to explore various varieties of farming activities and areas of this country I love. To do this, I'm using WWOOF France, an association that provides a directory of organic farms who are willing to host people like me with room and board in exchange for work. No money is exchanged, only ideas, skills, cultural identities, and other intangible treasures.

Upon my arrival, I spent a week amidst my Parisian friends. It was so joyful to reunite with the Chapuis family (the kids being 9 months older and wiser than when I left them), house-church friends, and the YWAM Paris team. I was able to practically prepare things like my French bank account and cell phone, and arrange transportation to my first host farm.

I'm nearing my two-week mark here, here being La Ferme des Vignes, La Grande Verrière, Burgundy, France. I decided to come here because of the hilly landscape and because they raise goats for cheese-making and bees for honey--two areas of production that intrigue me but that I knew nothing about.

Olivier and Julie, along with their 22-month old daughter, Colline, have enthusiastically integrated me into their home and professional lives, including a rigorous schedule (They have, however, given me the luxury of a day off on Sunday, which is not the case for them). For the curious:

7 Wakey-wakey
7:15-8:30 Milking the goats, feeding and inspecting the kids
8:30-9 Little chores or preparing breakfast
9-10 Breakfast (locally produced artisan bread, home-made jam, herbal tea)
10-1 Putting the goats and cows out to pasture, cheesemaking or other work
1-2 Lunch
2-3 Rest
3-5 Work outside or in the barn
5-5:30 Snack break
5:30-8 Milking and kids
8-9 Little chores, dishes (a once-a-day hoopla for one of us), preparing dinner
9-10 Dinner time
10 Down time and bed time

Several times a week, there are interruptions for either Julie or Olivier, such as the CSA delivery on Monday nights or the market at Autun on Friday mornings. This week I was able to accompany Julie to the market and participate in selling their artisan cheeses.

Although the schedule and amount of work have taken some getting used to, I am thankful to be pulled into what they're doing. They often insist that I do the more interesting or challenging activity in order to learn; they, on the other hand, will do the dishes or other grunt work once I am capable of doing the trickier stuff on my own.

So it is that I am accumulating new skills. I am getting better at milking the goats; we use a machine, but have to do the first "pull" by hand, so it's coming slowly. Olivier taught me how to chop wood with an axe the other day, and though I have a few gnarly bruises on my shins, I chopped a pretty pile, too. The many steps of making several kinds of cheese are beginning to make more sense. Friday Olivier let me make the tomme cheese, which mean my arms to the elbow in a copper vat of nearly 100 liters of warm milk (very pleasant, as it has been quite chilly still). Herding the goats is doable now, thanks to our border collie, Fanfare, although the cows are another story.

Aside from all I'm learning, there are a couple of outstandingly wonderful things about being here. The landscape is just lovely; we're halfway up a large hill with another hill across the way, green pastures and budding woods spread out before us. I can't get enough of it, and when I'm tired or discouraged it helps to just look up and around. The other is the quality of hospitality and congeniality with which I've been received here. Though the home is a mess and I have been put to work, I feel accepted and given to at the same time, especially since the French are often much slower to open their inner lives to strangers.

The days is drawing to a close, and I'm going to go outside for another walk before the sun goes down. Please comment or ask questions if there's something you are interested in or want to know!

taking and making shape

It’s a gloriously temperate Thursday night in Kansas City. There’s a group of a dozen or two people laughing in the living room below me. 

What am I doing? I’m pumping my fists in the air to some music, joyful that I am learning to knit socks. 

I knit, but I don’t have a knitter-brain. It’s just something to occupy my hands, sometimes, a way to create what I want to own. The fact that stitches work together to create something shapely out of yarn is pretty miraculous in my world—hence the celebratory actions! There were a bunch of things on a pattern, that I executed (thanks to a little help from a British lady on YouTube), and now I have part of a slipper. 

The thing the knitting bloggers tell you is to follow your pattern and trust that it will work, especially when dealing with sock patterns. “One step at a time.” 

On the wall above my desk I have a yellow piece of paper with a freehanded map of France on it, and little names of farms I might like to visit penciled in. Below that I have some Post-Its with the names of the people who run these farms. These are reminders to me of where I am going, who I am going to, soon. Still, they are abstract and hold only a breath of a form, like a connect-the-dots design.

Tonight I looked this map while I was in the middle of being amazed by my sock pattern’s success. They are alike, in a way. I’ve not felt like the greatest adventurer or risk-taker, in my life. While I have experienced some wonderful escapades, the great travels and things of that nature have seldom been my idea. They have made me very, very afraid. The thought of experimentation has found me crippled with fear. Failure. Lack. Being alone. Not being enough. 

What if there was no reason to fear? What if there was assurance that things will be taken care of, that there will be enough? These questions outline the back-and-forth movement of my thoughts and emotions as I prepare to go. Deep fear and insecurity mingle with simple lack of knowing how to proceed. 

There’s a moment of choice: I look at another possibility. I am loved. I am capable. I will never be left. My dreams are good. I make a decision to follow through with my plans: buy a ticket, make a transatlantic phone call, write an email. Furthermore, I share with joy and anticipation. I laugh and rejoice. 

Stitch by stitch, things are taking shape. A season is becoming visible to me, now. From where I sit in my Kansas City home at the Bolers’ house at the beginning of February, I look forward. I see months of discovery, experimentation, joy, perseverance, and so much love. There will be laughter, hikes, bee stings, breathtaking landscapes, smelly clothes, criticism, tears, so very many wildflowers, and knowledge of how to make them useful. Many of the people who populate these reveries have faces already and bring smiles to my face. Others have names. Others are a dream in my heart of welcome, instruction, and if we’re lucky, a little romance. 

The moment when shape begins to exist is a good, exciting time. I am grateful for it.

...and then I bought a house.

 The news is out and the deed is done. I bought a house. Ta-da!

“So, are you not going back to France, then?” is the logical next question I get a lot, a good one if you were been told by me upon my return to Kansas City that I intended to go back to that beloved country come springtime. When I respond that no, my plans to return to France have not changed, you might become very confused. Or, perhaps that already happened to you and you remain befuddled. I don’t blame you. But I am doing lots of explaining these days, to help convert the Befuddled to the Befuddled-But-Excited.

That’s what I’m here to do this evening. Let me tell you the story.

It all began several years ago. I had been learning about gardening for some time and had begun to read books like Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America, which revealed to me the dire state of agriculture in America. During this time, I discovered that the vast farmlands of the Midwest that had spoken to me throughout my childhood were in danger.

My grandparents on my mom’s side passed away within a year of each other, around this time. This left an inheritance to my sister and myself, our mother no longer being alive. It also left a material question: what would become of our family’s land? A portion of our great-grandparents’ original homestead had been owned, loved, by our grandpa. Would we purchase it together, and keep it in the family?

Becca and I decided this would be more complicated than it would be fruitful, and so we allowed the land to be purchased by the farmer who had been renting it for years. It was hard for me; I felt a responsibility to the land and it seemed nearly treacherous to turn it over to someone who was likely using the type of agriculture I had villainized in my mind. Yet, at the same time, the inheritance provided a rare opportunity. While many wannabe farmers’ primary obstacle is the purchase of land, I became aware that the money I was receiving would be a valuable leg-up to the eventual purchase of property.

Over time, I have set it apart, in my heart and before the Lord, to the sole purpose of caring for the earth. Practically, I have been unsure of what to do with that sum in the meantime, and hesitatingly put it in the bank, separate from my personal finances. While I was in France last year, I had some interesting conversations about money. Jonathan, for whom I was working, questioned the ethics of putting money in the hands of banks, since the morality of their choices can’t be known or fully trusted. Another friend told me about money he was going to receive after his father’s death, and challenged me without knowing it when he told me how he was already looking at it as the Lord’s, not his, to control. When I told him about my own situation, he asked me bluntly, “Well, what is your money doing?” I could not answer, but knew that at the very best it was not doing anything good.

I returned to Kansas City in the summer and found many friends who were shifting households. Many of them were looking to establish new community homes, but finding it difficult to rent homes in Midtown. One night, a scheme popped into my head of how I could buy a home here and yet be free to leave the country. I drew a diagram on a Post-It and put it somewhere. For two months, I hopped houses, at once enjoying the generosity of friends and the pleasure of living life with them, but also longing for a space of my own.

Then I moved in with Jonathan and Kate and their son Matthew. This was itself a miracle and a response to specific requests I had been making to my good Father for months. Jonathan is uniquely up-to-date on world news and economics. It wasn’t long before he was briefing me on the economic future of our country and the eventual demise of our currency. Of course, I thought of the nest egg I had sitting in the bank, a number on paper that could as easily and quickly disappear as it had become mine. Next to that thought was one of matronly protection; it was given to me and I must not allow it to be diminished or destroyed. It had a purpose to fulfill. Could the number become something concrete and yet useful? Jonathan and Kate had used the realty services of a friend to find and purchase their home; they sang his praises. After several conversations with them about the scheme I had outlined and hidden on the Post-It note, I called Rustin and told him about it. We talked about the present and future real estate market. He told me he would pray about this and we set a time to talk.

On my end, I prayed for specific traits in a home that were a must: separate living spaces for couple / singles, sun and / or extra space in the yard for extensive gardening, good bones, a well-laid-out kitchen, needing some, but not too much, work. A week and some later, Rustin and I were touring homes in Midtown. We looked at six. The first four were gross. The fifth responded to all my criteria, and felt peaceful and graceful to boot. We decided to move forward, so I invited a couple of friends whom I trust to come feel it out. They came out two days later.

That afternoon, I had a massive breakdown. Though I loved the idea of owning a home, I knew the responsibility it is, and it overwhelmed me. Could I take on a property without knowing who would live there? Would it force me to work and live with people I didn’t trust? Would it submit me to years more adaptation to the whims of those around me? Would it tie me down and prevent me from pursuing my dreams? Fear and loneliness closed around me as I wept. I called Rustin and told him that I didn’t think I could commit to anything, and asked him and his wife to pray for me.

The next day, I woke up with a scripture and a song in my head and heart. In the presence of all my questions, he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:19). He sang, “Draw near to me, and I will draw near to you. Pull on the strings of my heart, for I long to respond to you. All my love is for you; all my love is yours. I’ve made a place for you here, so come on! Come on!...” (Bethel Loft Sessions). Then he spoke some things that brought clarity to my freak-outs.

Peace came. I got excited. I thought how the house corresponded to specific prayers. Other “coincidences” filled me with joy and confidence. For example, a girlfriend, praying for me before my departure from Paris, told me she saw the number 4, and felt like maybe there was a choice for me during my time in Kansas City involving a 4. A taxi lives on the curb in front of the house. You want to get a ride? Call 444-4444! I had a conversation with the Lord about the address of the house. Previously, I had disliked the street it’s on, without real reason. “Why here, Father?” I asked. Immediately, I saw the number 37, part of the address and the cross street. “Psalm 37,” he whispered, firmly. Ah, yes! Psalm 37! The psalm that I have held onto for several years! The psalm that has many promises for the humble, the righteous; that encourages us to dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness; that says those who trust in the Lord will inherit the land. Of course. I won’t complain about the address any more!

A day or two later, I woke up ready to make a decision. I let Rustin know I wanted to make an offer. While none of the details following the purchase were clear, I sensed that my faith would create a reality beneath my feet as I walked in it. We went through a couple of weeks of inspections and back-and-forth. Even though there is still some risk that things behind the walls are not in great shape, it felt more and more like the best decision, as I continued to walk through the house and share about the process with friends and family.

And so I went to some banks, borrowed a car, and wrote a really big check. I received three keys in an envelope, and a house became mine. I became a Homeowner.

There are lots of amazing things about this story. I am really humbled by it—most of all that God has made me a steward of something big. It means he trusts me, and that’s so cool. The other thing that baffles me is that this story is only beginning. I have been given an incredible, young, trustworthy, capable friend as a general contractor. We’re really thrilled to be working together and dreaming over this home. Every time we meet, we finish by a series of “Thank you!” “No, thank you!” that goes around at least twice. I love that. In the months to come, we will partner in the restoration and equipping of this house. It will be made beautiful. During that time, Father will provide some people to live in and love this home, and partner in its destiny of welcoming people from outside.

I will prepare the home and prepare to leave, at the same time. I will depart from here, leaving my things and friends in it, and fly freer because I am anchored to it.

home and moving on

the home of my youth...

Today is a sad day, a day of a rite of passage. 

While I’ve been making sandwiches and cleaning tables at the Filling Station, bantering with my co-workers, my dad and step-mom are managing movers and moving trucks. They’re emptying the house my sister and I grew up in, and filling a new one that is just for them. 

For months, I’ve been preparing for this. I mentally began sifting through my belongings while still in France. Then I came home, and donated several big bags and boxes of band t-shirts and miscellaneous home décor in within several days of touching down. Then came the drawn out, finer-tuned process of choosing and organizing memorabilia from childhood, and parting with what I can. There was the rental of a U-Haul and a storage unit and the mobilization of heroic volunteers to pack them. Lastly, only a few days ago, there was that inevitable final packing of the stuff that hasn’t gone anywhere else. 

In this, there is for me a clear turning of the page, summed up by the rather dramatic “I DON’T HAVE A HOME ANYMORE!” that has echoed through these months. My parents’ home has been like an anchor to me, in all these years of singlehood and the jumping from home to home and roommate to roommate that involves. There, I could go back and put my roots down, be who I always have been while I remain who I am today. That home has remained stable while so many other factors in life have continued to swirl and change. 

Now, however, is the time for that to take on a new shape as well. Dad and Joan need a place that’s theirs, not my mom and dad’s and my sister’s and mine. They need a home adapted to who they are now. Truth be told, so do I. I wouldn’t have chosen this, being the nostalgic sort, yet I can tell it’s just the thing for this season. Time to call the past done, to take responsibility for its remnants I intend to haul behind me through life. Although it’s right, it’s not easy. I grieve losing this place and the with-ness of the past that it embodies. I will also miss the ease of navigating its rooms, its drawers, its stairs that I know by heart. More than anything, I will miss the faint presence of my mother that I experience only there. 

So, in this time when my childhood home fades from my life and I plan to go migrant this spring, I long for Home, without even really knowing what it means. A constant comfort to me is this passage from Hebrews that tells me I am not crazy, but am actually in the best of company. 

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:13-16