The story of a decade

It’s NaNo time again.  That time of year when people all over the world come up with an idea for a story... and an ambitious plan to type a bunch of words every day... for a total of 50,000 words during the month of November.  I have succeeded in cranking out those words 10 different times so I know I can do that part.  This year I've set my hopes a little higher; I plan to end up with an actual story that can be edited and published.   

Here are a few of today’s unedited lines…

Riding the rails...

Sure enough, the railroad offers a different vantage point.

Cuts through cities and small towns and farm land...

Backyards and industrial yards...

Cuts through them quickly. In the blink of an eye…

Clackity-clack.

…

Sell the Christmas tree farm?

That’s just crazy!

You’re kidding me; right?

Well, sure we want to travel and have some adventures…  but we most certainly want to come back home… to this amazing place!

…

How dare they?

Don’t they know that good kids come back home and put down roots?

They get married and have 2.5 kids.

They land respectable jobs and buy a nice house with a big garden and a white picket fence.

They put down roots and contribute to society.

They go to church and raise their kids in the fear and admonition of the LORD.

They are faithful and responsible.

Don’t they know that faithful and responsible also mean unchanging and unwavering?

The Christmas tree business

Living on a tree farm is an awesome thing. And our tree farm was pretty spectacular complete with horses and wagons (and sometimes the sleigh!) and the quaint little log house filled with Grandma Betty's hand-dipped chocolates and mugs of hot cocoa and a roaring fire in the fireplace .

I remember the first year we sold Christmas trees. We didn’t have the log cabin in place yet and besides we had very few trees that were big enough so we sold them out of our garage. This was definitely a learn-as-you-go venture. 

It didn’t take long to get caught up in the excitement - watching people choose their tree and tie it on top of their car and head down the driveway. As one dad was securing the tree and Mom was loading the kids in the car, their little guy stopped and turned around to tell me, “THANK YOU for our Christmas tree!!!” His joy gave me a teeny peak into how fun the Christmas tree business might be.

By the next year there were lots of boys around - some young boys and a bunch of bigger boys working the tree lot and the fields.  Lots and lots of boys through the years. Mike and Mike and Tim and Jeff and Jeff… and Ricky and Ben and Sam... and a whole lot more.

By then we had acquired and moved the old log cabin to the farm and we had put in many late nights restoring it to be our sales office, the face of the tree farm. That was when things got really exciting!

That first opening weekend was indeed grand. Lots of people showed up and lots of horses, too.

There were the teams that we had arranged to pull wagons and give free rides around the farm and there was also a large group of local riders that came for an outing from a nearby town. This outing became an annual tradition for them and for us. Interestingly enough one of those riders from the early days is now the owner of the farm.

Our “horse people” were a great asset to the tree farm. Our main driver, Grandpa Ed, could take people exactly where they needed to be to find the tree they wanted and then swing by awhile later to pick them up with their freshly-cut tree. 

We had a phenomenal crew. Our daughters and our parents all helped in various roles during those early years - as well as those boys mentioned above. Some of these guys grew up with us through the twenty years that we sold trees. For example, in the early years the three Whitson boys were just little tikes excited to ride in the horse-drawn wagon - and then eventually ended up working on the farm once they got bigger. And there was Sam who was barely in school when he and his parents appeared on TV from the tree farm. Dick Fabian came from WNEM-TV5 to do a story for their Take5 program and filmed Sam and his dad cutting down a Christmas tree. Sam kept coming to the tree farm through the years and eventually he became part of the crew.

There were families and there were traditions. Bob’s siblings wanted to be part of the festivities so they started a tradition of gathering in the wreath shed on opening day to make wreaths together. Who can forget the battery-operated lighted wreath that Ron made for the front of his car!

There were friends who came home from college with our girls. First from Bethel College with Stacy and then Angie. Then from North Park University with Wendi. And then there were the Moody boys.

There were students from around the world - some who lived with us for a year and some who visited for a weekend. Matthieu from France, Eugene from Russia, Priscilla from Costa Rica, Juliana from Colombia - as well as Jo from Finland, Cheng from China, Yukka from Japan… There was a large Lebanese family from down-state who came every year. Wonderful fascinating people converging on a lovely Christmasy spot.

There were field trips.

There were crafts and crafters.

There were singers. When our friends who formed the folk music group Living Truth came to get their Christmas tree, of course they serenaded all of the other customers with beautiful Christmas music.

…

Year after year people kept coming back - driving from as far as Detroit to get their tree. Actually some of our trees went out of state - to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Dakota and Virginia… 

There was lots of fun and lots of hard work. Certainly the fun exciting days outnumbered the difficult ones but there still came a point when the time was right to close down the farm. We set up a self-service system and sold trees by appointment - mostly to friends and neighbors - for a few more years. And now we've sold the farm.

After 25 years of Hidden Hollows Christmas tree memories, this year is quite different. Oldest daughter and hubby had earlier followed the tradition of planting Christmas trees in their back yard, so they have been harvesting their own for a couple years now. Middle daughter is starting new traditions with her young family - exploring their new neighborhood to find a Christmas tree somewhere else. *sniff* Youngest daughter can’t have a real tree in her apartment - for maybe the first time ever. And this is our first year without one as well. No wonder we are feeling a little nostalgic! *sniff, sniff*

In fact, when we see cars with trees on top coming from the tree farm near our current home, we sort of feel left out. I guess we feel a bit of a vacuum where the excitement of the Christmas tree business once was. 

Are we sorry about our decision?  Do we wish we had stayed at the farm?

Nope. Because while there are lots of things that we miss, there are a whole bunch of things that we DON’T miss!!! Things that makes us tired just thinking about them. Things that we are no longer able to do.

But best of all is the freedom that we have - now that we are no longer tied down to the tree farm!

• Tied down to the schedule - when we were too busy and too tired to do much of any holiday activity.
• Tied down to the work - both hard physical labor and lots of time-consuming mental work.
• Tied down to the place with all of the maintenance and repair of several buildings as well as the trees and the grounds.
• Tied down financially. That’s the biggie. We are now free to do other things. To spend our money in other ways.

There are always trade-offs. Pros and cons.

Life is simpler now. Less restricted.

We are quite happy with our decision to sell the farm and live on the road. 

Time marches on. We make changes and tough decisions. Life brings joy and loss. Even good changes carry pain. But I'm learning that I don't need to hide from the pain and loss. To the contrary, as I take time to feel it, I am actually choosing to honor and cherish the beauty of those wonderful years.

So when Mariah Carey starts to sing “I miss you most at Christmas time” and I sing along, this year I might not be singing to a person. Instead I may be addressing that magical time and place. It is a conscious decision to embrace the sadness as well as the joy of the amazingly awesome memories from our life on the Christmas tree farm.

A lovely spot - for a season

Best campsite we've had in a really long time. We have all the shades open because there are NO next-door neighbors ten feet away on the next lot. We are nestled into evergreen trees. Lush bright green grass all around with bunnies hopping here and there and a mourning dove cooing overhead. A refreshingly cool breeze sneaks in through the screen door.

Maybe the best campsite ever! Well, except no sewer hook-up. But hey, we have a holding tank so it's all good. Probably I mean the loveliest campsite in terms of beauty and privacy and peace and quiet.

...

It really is beautiful here. Serbian spruce just inches from our dining window. We love Serbian spruce. Actually we are surrounded with lots of the kinds of trees that we would choose to plant if we wanted to create a lovely spot.

Oh, wait; we did. We planted these trees. Many, many years ago.

...

Perhaps an explanation is in order...

Well, you see; there is a big event happening here tomorrow night. It's a concert at the amphitheater that Bob and his "boys" built several years ago. This event was already in the planning stages when the property sale went through last fall. We could have looked for another venue, but the new owners said we could have it here. How cool!!! In fact, they seem to be rather excited to see how it works to produce a big event like this because they are hosting a wedding here in a few weeks. Talk about a win-win situation!

What this means is that we have come back "home" to Hidden Hollows for a few days to get ready for the event. Yes, it is a little strange to be back home, but have it not be home anymore. Except that we do feel at home because we brought our little home with us. And because the owners are letting our family use the log house as a staging area for the happenings. That old log house has so many memories from selling Christmas trees to college friends coming home for Thanksgiving, from celebrating Christmas with uncles and aunts and cousins to hosting youth group retreats - and most recently the two of us living there for a couple years.

...

This is just too bizarre. How can it be that we get to come back here and enjoy this place - even though we let go of it and it no longer belongs to us? Just terribly amazing!

How wonderful that we were able to create this place decades ago! That we were able to enjoy it through the years and to share the enjoyment with literally hundreds of other people. How wonderful that the new owners have graciously invited us back for this week. How amazing that so many of our old friends are able to come for this event. It is exciting to hear from so many that we have not seen for years or decades.

...

And here's the kicker.

Yesterday, we were sort of shaking our heads about all of this. Marveling that we get to be in this beautiful place for a few days and to enjoy such a fun event but also marveling that we don't have to stay. We are not tied down here anymore. We don't have to stick around to mow the acres and acres of grass every week. Hubby doesn't have to start cutting firewood for the winter - because we will be long gone before the snow flies. And he is pretty happy that he is not the one making the mortgage payment or maintaining and repairing everything around here.

...

To everything there is a season.

We have enjoyed so many lovely seasons here. And now we get to enjoy seasons in other places. Nice how that works!

The BIG day!

Today is the day!!!

The closing on our property sale. Woohoo!!!
How surreal.
I have never done anything quite like this before and didn't know what thoughts and feelings to expect. It almost seems like there ought to be bells and whistles - or tears of nostalgia - or maybe doubts and fears and second-guessing. Or something.

I'm not sure what I feel. Oh, yah, there have been moments of most of those emotions. Certainly moments of nostalgia. There have been triggers here and there that set off the tears or fears or sadness. But mostly there is a sense of wonder - that this is really happening. Finally. We have worked hard for this. We have made difficult decisions and huge sacrifices. We have prepared as wisely as we know how.

But even beyond our own efforts, we have been blessed by so many good parts to the process. Things that we never could have orchestrated even if we had known enough to think of them.

The timing, for example. Oh, my, the timing. Sometimes, the timing felt interminable. Other times, for a brief moment here and there, things seemed to fly faster than we could possibly keep up. But the timing has indeed been a blessing. We did not have to deal with it all on a sudden or rushed timetable. Four years was a good length of time for me/us to process the joys and the sorrows of such a huge move - even as we process the piles and piles of STUFF. Yah, we probably could have moved a lot faster in that department, and hubby often wished we had, but hey, we have continued to work on it. Piece by piece. Processing, sorting, pitching, selling, storing.

And here we are.

The RV is stocked and almost ready to go. A few select pieces of furniture are nestled into the little "apartment" in our daughter's basement which serves as a landing spot between our travels. Many cherished items have been sold and hauled away. The rest of our possessions are being carefully packed and stacked in a 10' x 20' storage unit for the next few months or years - while we do a bit more wandering and exploring.

The timing has been good in allowing us opportunity to try some things out. For example, a year ago we had no clue if we would be able to survive in a 28-foot RV. Now we do. After living in it for seven months, we have learned that yes, we love it and can thrive in that small space.

So yah, the timing has been good - even though there were moments when we wondered if this was EVER going to happen.

Besides the timing, there are other blessings as well.
Probably I'll write about those, too.
Sometime.

Heading home

Well, we have turned another corner and once again headed east.

Heading home.

I remember many journeys and many times of heading home.

I remember giddy excitement of looking forward to being home.

...

It's different this time and I find myself pondering why.

What was it about home that called out to us after a journey? Were there things that we had missed?

If we had been camping, we were probably looking forward to a hot shower - or other comforts of home. Or maybe modern conveniences.

Depending who we had been with, we might be missing people - friends or family - and be anxious to see them.

If we had been gone a long time, maybe we were looking forward to just getting back to a normal schedule. Or maybe we needed to get back to our own doctor or dentist and other services available in our home community.

...

But this time, things are different.

As for the comforts of home...

Well, THIS is home. It has been our home for over seven months now and it really does feel like home. This rig. This tiny house on wheels. It is fairly comfortable - and in some ways more modern than the old log cabin that is waiting for us. In fact, we have a bigger shower in here than in the cabin - so I'm not too excited about that down-grade.

As for family and friends...

Yes, I am terribly excited to see the littles (AND their mommy) and to bask in hugs and songs and laughing all around for days and days. And yes, we are looking forward to seeing our extended families and our good friends and enjoying more hugs and great conversation. But here's the deal. We have been wonderfully blessed to have time with dear ones while out here on the road, too. Time that we wouldn't have had at home. There were great times with two of our daughters and other loved ones. Plus we met new friends along the way as well.

Then there's the matter of our weird schedule upon arrival back in Michigan. We will arrive "back home" in progressive steps - stopping here and there along the way to visit kids and grandkids and siblings and to celebrate a momentous birthday - probably all before we even get "home." I'm actually kind of wondering when I'll feel like we're home. Will it be when we hit the Michigan state line? Or will it be when we get to our daughter's house where the little sweeties live? That's where my aching arms get to finally embrace the little ones that I've been so homesick for and where I can get down on the floor and laugh and sing and play and be silly. In a very real sense, I'm guessing that I will feel like I made it back home at that point.

It's certainly not that I don't want to go home to the log cabin. I bet I'll be pretty excited to get there. It will be fun to have more space and to find stuff that has been packed away in storage. It will be fun for both of us to have our own desk again. And I know that I'm going to thoroughly enjoy my comfy old beat-up couch.

But maybe it's that I don't have to be there in that particular location in order to feel at home any more. I have now felt at home in other places as well as we have been practicing the art of building a life on the road - and a home on wheels.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty thankful. It has been an amazing journey. And yes, there will be wonderful things about getting home - wherever that turns out to be. And then I need to make those phone calls to set up those appointment for dental and medical check-ups! Oh, yes, we also need to pick up our box of mail from the post office and sort through it all.

I guess we'll know that we are home once we begin jumping into all of that "normal" work.

Oh, and when I can get back to my own hair stylist... Oh, yes, THEN I'll feel at home.

Redbud trees will help

One year ago we moved out of our house. The house we built when we were newlywed youngsters and lived in for 40 years. The house where our kids grew up. And some other people’s kids. And a whole bunch of foster kids. The house that at least 45 people have called home. The house with the biggest kitchen in the county where we served meals for dozens of people at a time. The house where our kids brought their friends home – from school, from church, from college. Then their friends brought friends who brought more friends…

It was home. It was our home, but it was also a place to share and a place to be healed. Not only the house, but the property with its forts and log cabins and climbing trees and campfires, has been affectionately dubbed Rivendell by some who made their way here when they desperately “needed to get underground.”

…

RIVENDELL

“That house was a perfect house,

whether you like food or sleep or storytelling or singing,

or just sitting and thinking,
or a pleasant mixture of them all.

Merely to be there was a cure
for weariness, fear and sadness.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

…

When we started talking about moving out, we wondered how we would cope with the loss. Surely we could survive somewhere else, but would we be able to thrive? It wasn’t hard to imagine some of the things we would miss the most - certainly the solitude and beauty of this place as well as the secret doors and passageways and other personal touches built into the very structure of the house and carved into the site plan of the property. There were the evergreen trees we had planted – thousands of them – and the apple trees, and the flowering redbud trees. There was my husband’s rose garden and the waterfall he built. There was the sun garden on the hill built for me with love by my gardener sister after my cancer diagnosis. There were lilac bushes and a magnolia that were birthday gifts and there were the trails - miles and miles of trails. What a lot of beauty to leave behind.

And don't forget the winter scenes. Oh, how stunning and spectacular - and oh, how cold. Now THERE is something we didn’t mind leaving behind.

We talked about what we would need for a “sense of home” somewhere else. We thought of certain things that could maybe help us feel at home. Sure enough, throughout this first year away from that house, we’ve discovered lots of things that have helped – from my cherished wind chimes to a handmade cabinet, to a unique piece of pottery, to a certain cute little basket, to a favorite plate and matching coffee mug, to a comfy old shirt or cozy warm blanket. We have a couple small bookshelves filled with our top titles and authors and we have our favorite music downloaded on our computers. We also have the priceless stack of photo album yearbooks chock full of memories. We have hearts full of gratitude - AND we have each other.

…

It was a momentous move – and I am happy to report that we have found a sense of home – first in the teeny, tiny little bunkhouse and the old worn-out travel trailer where we camped the first few months, then at The Cove in a small fishing village on a tropical island, and now in the quaint little historical log cabin at the front of the Christmas tree farm.

We have noticed some things about ourselves and our surroundings. We have observed that beauty is one thing that helps us feel content – beauty in nature, obviously, as well as in art and music, but also in people, in culture, in relationships. Our lives have been enriched with so much beauty.

One year later, on this anniversary, I feel much more confident – because I now know that there are lots of places out there, just waiting for us – places where we can find a sense of home. There are beautiful people all over the place. And there are flowers and trees. Yep, there are palm trees and pine trees. And there are flowering redbud trees. Sure enough, there is a redbud tree just outside my window, this window by my writing spot in this new place, this place where I now feel at home. Yes, redbud trees will help.

We feel at home here - for the moment – but we look forward to more new places as soon as we can get out there. I know there are flowers and trees of all kinds - even redbud and magnolia - other places in the world. We look forward to finding other places of beauty, to meeting more beautiful people and fascinating cultures. Most of all we look forward to being together – for as long as possible – because our companionship is the biggest and best reason for feeling at home.

This first year since the big move has been amazingly wonderful.

I can only imagine the beauty waiting for us in the next year.

...and the next.

Life on the road: six months

Date: November 18, 2012
Today marks one month in the new place and six months "on the road"

Location: the new/old cabin – way bigger than the little tiny cabin and way smaller than the big house. We like it a lot.

Outside:
A couple weeks ago it was cold & rainy & downright harsh as the outer bands of Hurricane Sandy reached us. Seriously. We lost ALL the leaves from the trees during that windy spell, but then we’ve also some nice long times of Indian Summer. Currently the big thing happening outside is the start of hunting season – so we are avoiding our normal walking routes.

Recent happenings:
- NYC was devastated by the super-storm formed by the collision of the hurricane and a huge cold pressure system
- President Obama was re-elected. The loudest friends are very upset and disappointed and fearful while other friends are quietly relieved. Gotta’ love having a variety of friends!
- We survived yet another "time change" week. Why, oh why, must we do that every year, twice a year?
- Fighting and bombings increase between Israel, Palestine, and Syria

Miles traveled: Mostly we’ve stayed put right here – getting settled into our new place – although we did make a quick trip to help with the kids when their mama got sick. We love having the flexibility to pick up and go when needed.

Walked: back and forth and back and forth between storage sheds and cabins and many trips up and down the stairs in both cabins

Current writing project: Participating in NaNoWriMo for my third year in a row

Current domestic project: Jumping back into the sorting and downsizing. This is Phase Two – or maybe Phase Three: pulling things back out of storage and discovering what else we can get rid of.

Hubby is: editing photos &/or building a photo book

Noticed: lots of amazing things while participating in “31 Amazing Days” challenge

Made me drool: pot stickers!

Reading: Just finished two books about the realities of being gay.

Watched: old episodes of “Mentalist” and now Christmas movies

Accomplishments:
- 31 Amazing Days challenge, blog posts every day during October!
- Right on track with my word count goals for NaNo

Looking forward to: the holiday season – living in a Christmas-y cabin!