(I am a bird.)

The summer mint has been cut, which means there are only traces of it wilting in the fields and those traces, they linger, and I can tell just how swell it smells (like heaven) right before the sun sets. Sometimes when I'm here, I think I'm still a girl. Ben Folds says it hurts to grow up. And we never do it all at once.

Which means, for me, that my heart breaks a little each time I come (here).

My grandma is ninety-two and I hugged her puffy white hair today as she sat way low in her wheel chair. She told me if she had known I was coming, she would've made a cake. Which made me giggle. Then smile. Then tear up because my grandma lives in a rest home and hasn't owned her own stove for six years now.

Tonight, I can hear Cathy Ernshaw say, "I wish I was a girl again."

I wonder what my grandma wishes. I wonder if her heart breaks and mends like mine.

That seems to be how things go.
Breaking, mending.

Mine almost always mends itself during the moments when I can see myself in my child. Incredible moments. Miraculous, even. Moments that seem to remind me that because I have him, and because he is mine, I have ties to magic forever. And whenever I feel too old, I have to remind myself, (or, he reminds me), that life is full.

And it evolves. And changes.

And it makes my grandma nod in disbelief that she's had nintey-two years that she's spent and tucked away, and sixty-seven great grandchildren to prove it.

And while she spends her afternoons drifting, Morgan's little toes are alive and his eyes are dancing.
And I'm dizzied and holding my breath, wishing time would linger. Longer. For a while.

Still,
the years go on.

For grandma, for Morgan. For me.


And we're still fighting it.

We're still fighting it. 

You're so much like me. (I love you.)

Happy Camper(s).

Last summer was the first in twenty years that I didn't find myself in the pretty mountains of Anderson Ranch. I sort of grew up there. And I've always gone back. I've always belonged. I suppose I took last summer off because of (new baby) Morgan. And because instead of the always two-hour drive it was before, it now takes four hours from where home is now. I missed it like crazy. And then came this year. And I shopped and I planned and I packed warm coats and gloves and hats. And we made it just in time. The pretty, in-between time in the season where the nights are cool and the afternoons are perfect. Where summer lingers. But just a little. Just enough to say goodbye.

I said hello to everything we passed.

And everything is still there. The rocks are still aligned along the road. The trails are still blazed. The trunks of the forest trees are still achy and crooked. Even the river still bends the way it always used to. The way it always will. All of it reminding me that I used to be a girl once. And that my life was magical and pure.  

And now I've poured that magic into my own son, who finds purity in dirt and twigs and leaves, who loves to run and touch and be.    

And I realized that all of the places I've always belonged changed with Morgan. They deepened. And someday I'll lay with him and point out the stars in the sky, and I'll show him how to find shapes in the clouds. And I'll tell him how delicious the sky can be at dusk. And I'll show him. And he'll see.

His wide blue eyes will see.   

Next year, we'll make it back. And the next. And the next. And the next. Until I'm as old as my grandma is now. Until I'm the one rocking in the chair and bringing bags of candy and telling children to stop playing in the campfire.  

Until I'm old. And have as many stories and grandchildren as there are stars. 

Until then. Maybe longer.

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And now for a million and one pictures. Because it's my blog. And I can.

Morgan and Landen

Breah's sleepy head Raegen.

The boss.

The fish boss. And some pretty kokane.

Chandra's Sweet Hadley.

Aunt Jackie.

How adorable is this chair?

Lis, Dude and Jace.

Kenzie and Maximus.

Lis and Brooke.

Eyes turning green, perhaps?

My husband and brother.

Yellow shirts + mountain folk + family picture = slight redneckedness.

(mom's worst idea yet!) Dad was not a happy sport.

Pink helmet couresty of Hadley.

Lissie seven months!

And last, but not least, pictures from our date with the mountains (and Bella).

The End.