Friday, February 4, 2011

I Don't Want This

December 7th, 2008. Washington, D.C. A newly minted 18-year-old steps out of the National Portrait Gallery from the G Street Entrance. A short cape is draped over her shoulders and hides a smart vest and blouse. A knee-length skirt hits the tops of her tall heeled boots. She has just spent two hours going through the halls that tell the story of America in art. It's a Sunday morning in the nation's capital, and the streets that were dead when she entered the building at eight are only just beginning to warm up. She makes her way to the corner of the street and hails a cab, as if she's done it a dozen or more times. She rides back to her hotel in the "Crystal City" of Rossalyn, VA, to spend a day relaxing before an evening monument tour. By the end of the trip she would've ridden in planes, trains and automobiles and dined everywhere from Ethiopian food-serving dives to nationally renowned restaurants.

Now let me tell you about another girl. It's the peak of the summer of 2006 on the flat and rolling plains of Washita County. This girl has unplugged from life for a week and decided to come learn a thing or two about those dying arts women everywhere used to know. With her grandmother's help, she makes herself a nightgown from a late 50s pattern out of ivory cotton dotted with clusters of Wedgewood blue diamonds. She picks and shells black-eye peas and helps make a meal of them, some fresh corn, some homemade bread and the best chicken-friend steaks you could ever imagine. And that corn was a hard-won delicacy, too; two days earlier she had gotten up at the crack of dawn to pick it and shuck it, and the next day sat around with her great-grandmother, great-great aunt, and grandmother in the shade of a storage shed and washed the cobs, listening intently while the three aged women reminisced about when they were the 15 year-old girl's age, sitting in the shade of a storage shed and washing fresh corn, listening intently while aged women reminisced.

If you asked me to list the top ten happiest moments in my life, I'm not sure the first scenario would make it on there. The second one? Would be near the top.

I wouldn't change a single thing that happened in my life. I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now and I know it's because of a million little instants in my past 20 years. And when I was ten, moving to the big city was all I wanted to do. Truthfully, I can't see myself moving back Custer or Washita way. I like the idea of being near my parents, and you couldn't pry me from my newfound Church family with the Jaws of Life. And being near enough to the city that trips to see friends, attend an event or take up some extra activities at Church doesn't take a two-hour drive one way is a nice thing.

But I ache for the country.

Every time I go to one of those big eastern cities I get claustrophobia. I can't stand not to see the sunset and the wide sky and the glorious tapestry of the stars spread out each night. I hate that ordinances and space constraints in my own city keep me from some of the projects I'd like to do, or animals I'd like to keep. It's bothersome that any home I could find in town would need major overhauls to be anywhere near off-grid. And running to the store for every little thing drives me nuts. My selfish reasoning makes me look at those around me who have gotten tangled up in thankless jobs that suck the life out of them and demand everything they've got, and I cringe in horror at the idea that I could face the same future. For my own good, and my own desires, I want to jump off this runway train called City Life. But it runs deeper than that.

Someday, Lord willing, I want to be a mother. And I don't yet know the faces and names of my children. I don't know who their father will be or what he will look like, which of our genes will be more dominant. I don't know if I'll have all boys, all girls, or a few of both. I don't know if they'll number one or twenty.

I do know that I love every one of them. I want them to have the best life possible on this silly earth. I want them to feel fresh air in their lungs, to taste apples off the tree and stain their fingers purple picking blackberries. I want them to know how to sew on a button, how to carve a roasted chicken, how to chop wood and how to swaddle a baby. To gather eggs and collect milk and harvest grain, to learn step-by-step how to take corn from seed to freezer. To feel the cycle of the seasons and see the wonders of God before their eyes. When they reach adulthood I don't want to have to step back and say I shielded them from hard work, taught them nothing they needed to know, and showed them by example to strive for nothing but status and success.

I wouldn't trade my life so far for anything. And I wouldn't trade those four fairy-tale days in D.C. for anything either. But when I remember Washington it comes to be in shades of black and white and grey, with the occasional muted blue. Even when I recall my days in St. Eugene, mealy tan walls and navy blue uniforms, dark red brick and grey autumn skies flood my memory. Nothing exciting, nothing offensive, nothing out of the ordinary.

When I remember that week in the summer, I see color all around me. The purple of my long skirt, the yellow of the corn, the lush greens of the plants around me, the red of my great-great aunt's dyed hair. The black grease stains on my Dad's white shirts, the rich brown wood doors and windowsills in his house. Red strawberries and purple currant jam, pink steak ready for the skillet. The faded teal of my grandma's 60s sewing machine.

And should my daughters ever sit, one day, in the shade of a storage shed, washing corn while a 15 year-old girl sits with them and listens intently, or should my sons ever sit back in a favorite chair to tell a story to a grandson, I want their childhood memories to be full of vivid color and taste and smell and sensation.

Of course, let's give my selfish heart it's due. Quite frankly, I'm a bit of a wild honeysuckle vine. And I'd much rather be wrapped around a tree by a creek than clinging to the side of some drab old concrete building.

3 comments:

  1. A country girl living in wintry DC, I used to sometimes walk past the the embassy with an evergreen tree in its front garden just so that I could pick a leaf and keep something green in my pocket when the ache for the country got too hard to bear. I loved DC, but oh, I was glad to escape to the woods in Maryland, and oh, how I missed fields and trees and green.

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  2. Such a beautiful post, Miss L. I pray that the Good Lord brings you to that place where you can bring up your children in tune with the nature that He has created for your, and their benefit! So good to see you blogging again, and that my prayers for you in some way have been answered, by God's drawing you to a Traditional chapel. I too have moved on since we last communicated, and my family has been blessed with a move to a parish (FSSP, I'm afraid, lol) where we can regularly attend the True Mass, and are near to many other like-minded Catholic home educating families.(A rare thing in jolly old England, at present). Community is so important, isn't it? which is what I detect you are finding in your chapel, along with worshipping in the way that God did intend His Church to do. God Bless you, and keep you, and may you ever stand firm in the Faith.
    Elizabeth.

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  3. Elizabeth! I'm so glad to hear from you! I must thank you for your prayers, as they have indeed sent me exactly where I should be. I can't even say how good it is to hear from you! How have you been?

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Hello and welcome! This blog deals with many aspects of my daily life, from the sweet and silly to the sad and stressful. And like any blogger, I CRAVE feedback.

There will be times when this blog deals with weighty issues of doctrine and theology. I welcome various differing opinions and believe civil, healthy debate is a good thing. However, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, as the saying goes, and I will defend the Church if She comes under attack. Thank you for understanding. :-)