Ive had a lot of people ask me about how on earth we manage to make epic, 2500-mile or more treks with a van that's fairly bursting at the seams with what I've affectionately termed "my huddled mass of humanity". It sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen to most people, apparently, and it tends to baffle them that we could possibly enjoy or even crave these kinds of adventures. I guess it's in the blood, at least to some degree. Christopher is related to the guy who chiseled out the Bozeman Trail through Montana to the goldfields of the Pacific Northwest (so if you ever saw my last name and asked, "You mean like Bozeman, Montana?", the answer is yes). And I am directly related to William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame who, well, pioneered the great American West (with no disrespect to the Native Indians--they didn't have to pioneer their own home, I guess). Somewhere in my DNA, my husband's DNA, and now doubly in the DNA of my children, is a hard-wired lust for adventure and westward movement. This explains a lot. Maybe.
But this post isn't about all that. This post is about the nuts and bolts of actually doing a real-live adventure, of living to tell the tale, and of somehow getting a really big kick out of it all. So I offer up my top 3 Teri's Travel Tips, while they're still fresh on my recently-traveled mind:
1. Plan your route carefully.
This seems like a no-brainer, but the fun is in the details. The longer your trip, the more diversions and distractions you're going to need in order to stave off boredom, fatigue, and mutiny. I like to have a couple of handy references at my command when charting a new journey. Google Maps tells me how far and how long and which route is best, and on my iPad, will even give me a couple of alternate routes, in case I'm feeling super-adventurous. I usually am.
Once the basic route is chosen, it's time to decide on where the best lodging can likely be found. For a family of epic proportions like mine, this can be a problem. We call around to every hotel in town sometimes, looking for someone who will take a family of 8, either in one room or two adjoining rooms. This can get pricey, but there's little alternative if tent-camping is out of the question. We've recently begun looking into AirBnB.com, where individuals rent out their extra rooms or entire houses on a nightly basis to whomever they please. Cool idea, and looks relatively safe.
The next part is the funagonizing one. You need to decide what sorts of attractions/sights you want to see during the course of your adventure. The fun is that you wouldn't believe how many cool things there are to see in this country, even on a short trip. Take a look at Roadside America for thousands of quirky attractions--paid and free--that you'd never know were right along your route. I also bust out my handy National Parks Passport map, which give me the low-down on where every National Parks Unit in America can be found. Every.single.park.unit has a Junior Ranger Program where your child(ren) can spend anywhere from an hour to a day learning about the ecology, history, anthropology, paleontology, and culture of some of our greatest landmarks. At the end of this little adventure, kids earn a shiny Junior Ranger badge and/or patch and a certificate (and often, a nifty pencil!) and are sworn in by an actual park ranger. Our kids have collected somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 of these little trophies, from South Padre Island to Yellowstone and everywhere in between. This is a *major* part of our travels, an always hotly-anticipated discovery when we begin trip-planning. Now, the agonizing part of this is that you'll inevitably have to say no to some of the exciting things you'll discover in the planning phase. This is a severe bummer, but at least it gives you 1)a deeper appreciation for where you're traveling and 2)a reason to return!
2. Snack-time is sacred.
Road-tripping in our family is the only time we really get to snack out, so this ends up being one of the most exciting aspects of travel for the kids. We try to keep it relatively healthy, with cheese sticks, yogurt-in-a-tube, carrot sticks, and whole wheat crackers. But I'm not gonna lie--we have our share of cookies, and chips, and--gasp!!--cheese in a can. There is no quicker way to make my children happy than to pull a can of Easy-Cheese out of the snack bag. It's like magic.
But the trick here is not just to snack non-stop. I bag up all sorts of goodies in little snack-sized ziploc baggies, and I only dole them out on certain occasions. One of those occasions is when the little sailors are getting mutinous (read:bored and tired) and have had it up to here with being crammed in an over-packed van with half a dozen siblings. When attitudes sour, it's time for something special. I also like to keep things exciting by doling out schnackies at certain way-points, like when we hit the 140-mile marker on the Interstate, or see the first roadsign for our destination town. So here are some of my all-time favorite road foods:
*Cheerios
*Teddy Grahams
*Austin Crackers (those little 6-packs of peanut-butter and cheese crackers)
*Easy-Cheese and Wheat Thins
*Cheese Sticks
*Yogurt in a squeeze tube
*Those neat little cartons of (very expensive) organic chocolate milk
*Dried fruit
*Nuts
*Tangerines (the smell of the peels helps to, you know, keep things fresh)
*Stainless Steel water bottles, filled with delicious iced-tea from home (we usually travel with 2 or 3 gallon coolers of home-brewed iced tea in a variety of flavors. During this last trip, I made a yummy concoction of rooibos and peach detox tea, which was not only aromatic and delish, but also completely caffeine-free and loaded with antioxidants and minerals).
*Prunes (inevitably, somebody gets plugged plumbing during a long trip. Prunes are a quick remedy!)
3. Save the cheerleader, save the world.
I view my role in a successful trip as several-fold. I am a driver, a navigator, the resident oral historian, the event planner, the food-banker, the referee...and the cheerleader. Kids on long trips need pep talks. A lot of them. Sometimes the only thing standing between a large family on the road and World War IV is that valiant, optimistic soul who can single-handedly fight off the doldrums with a rousing, morale-boosting chat. Kids need to know how much longer this leg of the trip will last, where is the next attraction, what is interesting to look at out the window, where you'll eat (and what), and what special something awaits them if they can just hang on to that last thread of gooditude. They need to know that they each play a crucial role in the success of this venture, and that without them pulling through, the expedition may well be doomed. Give them a sense of immediacy and urgency, as though it's life or death. Because psychologically, at least, it is.
Ahh, but how to save the cheerleader? What keeps Mommy from becoming the fire-breathing despot of the front seat? For me, it's several things. Good chocolate always, *always* accompanies me on any journey. This is completely non-negotiable. Convenience store chocolate is a craptastic substitute and should only be consumed in dire emergencies. Otherwise, stock up before the trip and make sure that you have control over the food bag. I also pack hoity-toity drinks that I can't purchase easily on the road. My recent fave is sparkling lemon water from Knudson's. The kids know that this is for Mommy only, and they don't even ask for it. I also reserve the right to purchase some new music of my choosing before or during the trip, and to bury my head in headphones for a little (or long) while to clear my head and drown out the noises of humanity coming from the back seats. Aromatherapy is a nice touch, too, and I travel with a few of my favorite essential oils. When the air gets thick in the cockpit, I drip a few drops onto a napkin or Kleenex and stick it in a vent, to disperse the scent all over the van. Or I just sniff it straight from the bottle, if I'm feeling naughty. You'd be amazed at how much sanity can be saved by just observing a few self-care and self-pampering rituals during travel!
So you have a foundation, at least, of how to make a successful trip. I'll be checking back in and posting more specifics about little necessities that help save the day on our voyages.
--Teri.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
chasing the what-if
The grass has grown long under my fingers since I last blogged, and I wish I could say that it has been the exciting life of this forest-dweller-come-lately that has kept me from it; in truth, it's been a lot of treading water and straining my chin upwards to keep that water out of my nose that's kept me sufficiently distracted to ignore my thought-life, or at least to keep it brain-bound.
But tonight I've managed to break curfew, and I have a backload of things banging around in my head and wanting to get out somehow. This probably means that the proceeding words will be heinously rambly.
So the idea that's captured me lately is the painful dichotomy I feel between sensing a need to develop a life of simple contentment in my current circumstances ("bloom where you're planted" and all that) and the deeper, more dangerous need to embrace without reservation the profound sense of discontent that has dogged me my entire life. Siddhartha would probably say that the answer lies somewhere in between, and maybe he'd be right. But that kind of thinking is way too temperate for a heart bursting at the seams with dreaming and plotting and what-iffing about futures imagined and hoped for, and so it feels like I either need to hunker down and discover the magic in a life of quiet contentment, or damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead with it already!
What I can't figure out is this: is it a base, soulish want I have, to be happy inside a deep unhappiness, or is it a higher, more spiritual thing I'm chasing after? Is it glorious or gluttonous to chase that discontent forever and pray I never catch it?
--Teri.
But tonight I've managed to break curfew, and I have a backload of things banging around in my head and wanting to get out somehow. This probably means that the proceeding words will be heinously rambly.
So the idea that's captured me lately is the painful dichotomy I feel between sensing a need to develop a life of simple contentment in my current circumstances ("bloom where you're planted" and all that) and the deeper, more dangerous need to embrace without reservation the profound sense of discontent that has dogged me my entire life. Siddhartha would probably say that the answer lies somewhere in between, and maybe he'd be right. But that kind of thinking is way too temperate for a heart bursting at the seams with dreaming and plotting and what-iffing about futures imagined and hoped for, and so it feels like I either need to hunker down and discover the magic in a life of quiet contentment, or damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead with it already!
What I can't figure out is this: is it a base, soulish want I have, to be happy inside a deep unhappiness, or is it a higher, more spiritual thing I'm chasing after? Is it glorious or gluttonous to chase that discontent forever and pray I never catch it?
--Teri.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
ch-ch-ch-changes
ch-ch-ch-changes…
Posted on May 25, 2011 by Teri
I’m sitting in a Starbucks in the Springs right now, surrounded by…empty chairs. And a dude immersed in a newspaper. And another dude immersed in his laptop. And another dude immersed in…wait. There are no immersed women in here! Except me.
Glorious.
Ohdang. A lady just sat down next to me, and she looks friendly. No!!
So why am I here? That might not be a question any of you would have to ask yourselves, but I have to have a pretty good justification for doing this. I’m in between appointments today, and am taking some time, at long last, just to be by myself. Christopher’s working at home today and is watching the kids for me.
I pretty much quit 75% of my life this week, and decided to make the remaining 25%, 100% for the time being. I hit a wall a couple of weeks ago and finally, finally, f i n a l l y realized that I could not keep up the frenetic pace of family and professional life that I’ve been trying to juggle, adding a new ball here and there since Asa’s birth, and usually ending up dropping most of them. The fragile ball of my family life is always the first to drop, and it has cracked in several places. It’s time for some reparative work and also to hold that sacred circle close and not let it drop or be juggled any more. The kids couldn’t be happier, though they never would have said so before, thinking I was happier with them on the back burner. Wake-up call!!
So I resigned as both Secretary and member of our local doula association; I put the word out that I will no longer be actively seeking birth photography clients, or doula clients, and I also put in a request for an indefinite hiatus from my work as a trainer through Childbirth International.
Some of those ties were very sad to have to break, though I’m confident that I can pick this up when I am better suited to it, but the effect of all this freedom has been staggering. I suddenly found my love of cooking again. I read several chapters of a book that I actually *wanted* to read. I discovered how much my baby really needs to hold me, and how much my toddler wants to have conversations with me, to debate with me, and to help me with tasks I never would have let him attempt before. I found out that Ben isn’t the only boy of mine who desperately needs a good throw-down about 3 times a day, and that Isaac’s anger management problem is probably in large part due to a lack of discipline on my part. I learned that Gabe is suddenly growing up on me and losing that small boyish face and starting to look an awful lot like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed version of his MawMaw. How handsome!! I discovered that Bonnie is patiently waiting for so much from me, and I re-learned where each of my children are excelling, and where they are struggling. I found out about their hopes and dreams for a happier family, a fun summer, and a larger family vision. This shouldn’t be new to me, but I guess I just haven’t been listening. It’s a shame.
But it’s a shame I’m rectifying now, before it’s too late and these little balls bounce away from me for good, out of the circle of our family influence. So I think it’s worth the sacrifice, and I feel so much lighter and more free, even though I just took most of my life-dreams and put them away for another time. Some of them might die while they’re on the shelf, I don’t know. But I think I’m okay with that, and I think I can finally be awake enough now to stop missing the really great moments which, it turns out, are a lot closer to home than I let myself believe.
–Teri.
Posted on May 25, 2011 by Teri
I’m sitting in a Starbucks in the Springs right now, surrounded by…empty chairs. And a dude immersed in a newspaper. And another dude immersed in his laptop. And another dude immersed in…wait. There are no immersed women in here! Except me.
Glorious.
Ohdang. A lady just sat down next to me, and she looks friendly. No!!
So why am I here? That might not be a question any of you would have to ask yourselves, but I have to have a pretty good justification for doing this. I’m in between appointments today, and am taking some time, at long last, just to be by myself. Christopher’s working at home today and is watching the kids for me.
I pretty much quit 75% of my life this week, and decided to make the remaining 25%, 100% for the time being. I hit a wall a couple of weeks ago and finally, finally, f i n a l l y realized that I could not keep up the frenetic pace of family and professional life that I’ve been trying to juggle, adding a new ball here and there since Asa’s birth, and usually ending up dropping most of them. The fragile ball of my family life is always the first to drop, and it has cracked in several places. It’s time for some reparative work and also to hold that sacred circle close and not let it drop or be juggled any more. The kids couldn’t be happier, though they never would have said so before, thinking I was happier with them on the back burner. Wake-up call!!
So I resigned as both Secretary and member of our local doula association; I put the word out that I will no longer be actively seeking birth photography clients, or doula clients, and I also put in a request for an indefinite hiatus from my work as a trainer through Childbirth International.
Some of those ties were very sad to have to break, though I’m confident that I can pick this up when I am better suited to it, but the effect of all this freedom has been staggering. I suddenly found my love of cooking again. I read several chapters of a book that I actually *wanted* to read. I discovered how much my baby really needs to hold me, and how much my toddler wants to have conversations with me, to debate with me, and to help me with tasks I never would have let him attempt before. I found out that Ben isn’t the only boy of mine who desperately needs a good throw-down about 3 times a day, and that Isaac’s anger management problem is probably in large part due to a lack of discipline on my part. I learned that Gabe is suddenly growing up on me and losing that small boyish face and starting to look an awful lot like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed version of his MawMaw. How handsome!! I discovered that Bonnie is patiently waiting for so much from me, and I re-learned where each of my children are excelling, and where they are struggling. I found out about their hopes and dreams for a happier family, a fun summer, and a larger family vision. This shouldn’t be new to me, but I guess I just haven’t been listening. It’s a shame.
But it’s a shame I’m rectifying now, before it’s too late and these little balls bounce away from me for good, out of the circle of our family influence. So I think it’s worth the sacrifice, and I feel so much lighter and more free, even though I just took most of my life-dreams and put them away for another time. Some of them might die while they’re on the shelf, I don’t know. But I think I’m okay with that, and I think I can finally be awake enough now to stop missing the really great moments which, it turns out, are a lot closer to home than I let myself believe.
–Teri.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
on comfort
Last night I curled in my skin
Around you
And felt the long miles of memory
Stretched out behind us,
The bright ribboned highway of our passionate youth.
Your breath was soft,
Dressed like the universe,
And splendored into a thousand stars,
The galaxies of your dreaming in rhythm with God.
Each fiber of flesh,
Soft in the lull of sleep,
echoed faint with the catching of our vision--
The quiet smooth miracle of belonging.
--Teri.
Around you
And felt the long miles of memory
Stretched out behind us,
The bright ribboned highway of our passionate youth.
Your breath was soft,
Dressed like the universe,
And splendored into a thousand stars,
The galaxies of your dreaming in rhythm with God.
Each fiber of flesh,
Soft in the lull of sleep,
echoed faint with the catching of our vision--
The quiet smooth miracle of belonging.
--Teri.
Monday, March 7, 2011
all i never did
September gave way to a winter far more bitter than I ever imagined it would be, tinged only by a small sweetness in knowing that a tiny autumn seed I planted may have germinated in some way.
I wrote back in September that I needed to find a way around the roadblock of my tongue, a cowardice lingering around my heart, almost impossible to overcome. I needed to tell my uncle, my childhood hero, how I loved him, and admired him, and was inspired by him. I wrote that I needed to do this, before all I couldn't tell him, became all I never did.
In this moment, I'm sitting at the deathbed of that same man, ticking off the hours as he loosens the grip on his body and prepares to cross the threshold into the Infinite. He's dying in front of me, 6 feet away from me, and all I couldn't say to him is becoming all I never did--right now, in this room.
I asked him to read my post about him when it was written, and today I'm praying that he did, that he somehow understood my love for him, and that he carries that knowledge in his heart as he readies for his departure.
Love has no expiration date, though opportunity often does.
--Teri.
I wrote back in September that I needed to find a way around the roadblock of my tongue, a cowardice lingering around my heart, almost impossible to overcome. I needed to tell my uncle, my childhood hero, how I loved him, and admired him, and was inspired by him. I wrote that I needed to do this, before all I couldn't tell him, became all I never did.
In this moment, I'm sitting at the deathbed of that same man, ticking off the hours as he loosens the grip on his body and prepares to cross the threshold into the Infinite. He's dying in front of me, 6 feet away from me, and all I couldn't say to him is becoming all I never did--right now, in this room.
I asked him to read my post about him when it was written, and today I'm praying that he did, that he somehow understood my love for him, and that he carries that knowledge in his heart as he readies for his departure.
Love has no expiration date, though opportunity often does.
--Teri.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
where have all the athiests gone?
I'm grappling with Death again, and it feels a little bit like he's winning at the moment.
I can look down at my hands and see death at work, the slow ebb of my youth leaving little lines and creases as it retreats. I can look in the mirror and see it in my eyes, a cynicism lingering there where optimism once was.
I worry about that sometimes.
So I'm putting it out to my friends, the ones who don't necessarily share my spirituality: What do you believe? And I'm having a hard time getting a response. I know I have plenty of friends and even some loved ones who are athiest, or at least agnostic, or existentialist, or Pagan, and I don't honestly know what you believe in terms of the human soul, of our permanence or transience, of what lies beyond, of what we're made of, spiritually-speaking. I know what I believe--the eternal nature of the soul, the permanent utopia where great ideas never go awry, the spark of the divine that lies within each of us.
Now what about the rest of you? I'm not asking for a debate, and I'm past the place in my life when I thought I knew it all. I don't want to change your mind or save your soul; I just want to know what you think.
--Teri.
I can look down at my hands and see death at work, the slow ebb of my youth leaving little lines and creases as it retreats. I can look in the mirror and see it in my eyes, a cynicism lingering there where optimism once was.
I worry about that sometimes.
So I'm putting it out to my friends, the ones who don't necessarily share my spirituality: What do you believe? And I'm having a hard time getting a response. I know I have plenty of friends and even some loved ones who are athiest, or at least agnostic, or existentialist, or Pagan, and I don't honestly know what you believe in terms of the human soul, of our permanence or transience, of what lies beyond, of what we're made of, spiritually-speaking. I know what I believe--the eternal nature of the soul, the permanent utopia where great ideas never go awry, the spark of the divine that lies within each of us.
Now what about the rest of you? I'm not asking for a debate, and I'm past the place in my life when I thought I knew it all. I don't want to change your mind or save your soul; I just want to know what you think.
--Teri.
Friday, January 14, 2011
good night
I'm not filled with an abundance of flowery words or lofty ideas tonight; instead, I'm propped up in bed, having just updated my blog identity and given myself a bit of a cyber-facelift here, and I'm feeling rather comfortable. There's just a little chill in the bedroom air tonight, but under the deep brown comforter, my toes are warm against the peacefully resting legs of my husband, whose softish breathing is threatening to lull me into the realm of the sandman right along with him.
It's a good sort of night; the house has fallen silent, and the only movement lies in my fingertips and in the dreamings of my peaceful children down the hallway, tucked in their beds with their dearly loved blankets wrapped around each of them as though they were fine china plates wrapped carefully in their packing boxes.
I think I'll pack myself in for the night, as well, and wait for the movement of dreaming to carry me off, where maybe I'll find some flowery words hiding and waiting to get to my fingertips.
--Teri.
It's a good sort of night; the house has fallen silent, and the only movement lies in my fingertips and in the dreamings of my peaceful children down the hallway, tucked in their beds with their dearly loved blankets wrapped around each of them as though they were fine china plates wrapped carefully in their packing boxes.
I think I'll pack myself in for the night, as well, and wait for the movement of dreaming to carry me off, where maybe I'll find some flowery words hiding and waiting to get to my fingertips.
--Teri.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
a note to our friends and loved ones
Dearest Loved Ones,
We all start out these letters every year with that inevitable glance backwards over shoulders that have carried the burdens of the past 365 days, and we all wonder where that time went, now so much water under the bridge of memory. For us, the year has had a peculiar heft to it, and as we draw to the close of 2010, our shoulders still feel the gravity of some of those amazing memories.
We have gained and lost so much this year--March saw us birthing our sixth beautiful baby into the world, completing the circle of our family in a dramatic way, while June and September stole from us a beloved great-great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Autumn gave us the gift of a cherished new closeness to a brother and sister-in-law, while October marked the beginning of the grandest and riskiest adventure of our family's small history, when we moved out of our rented home in a search for the ultimate irony: the open road and a permanent home, all at the same time. Two months, two national borders, scores of national parks and landmarks, and seven states later, we're inching ever closer to that elusive dream of home, thoroughly worn by the excitement of all the fantastic places we've visited since we last left our door jamb in the last week of October. The next few days, crammed in just before the last day of this momentous year, should see us crossing a whole new door jamb, our 5 acres in the forest where we will, Lord willing, hang our hearts and our hats, and the hats of our children and our children's children and beyond.
This new place represents so much for our family; it is an old house where we can get our elbows greasy with remodeling and renovating; we will bring home our very first family dog, and we will have room for the boys to grow into the spectacular young men they are already becoming. It's a place for Bonnie's artistic skills to blossom, for us all to get our fingernails dirty and grow something, to maybe bring to fruition (literally and figuratively) our dream of having a sustainable mini-agriculture of our own, a not-so-urban homestead community to share with friends and family. It's a place to re-learn the precious skill of spreading our wings after so long being confined to small spaces not our own, a place to begin to repay all the oceans of hospitality that have been visited upon us by those dearest to us during our time of wandering. It's a place of roots. It's a place to finally come home to.
There has been a song running like a soundtrack in my mind for the past couple of months, since this journey started, really. It sums up so tidily all that we've experienced and what it means for our family, and I have played it many, many times during the dark parts of our journey when we've been reminded that adventures by necessity require peril, and disappointment, and sometimes failure thrown in with the excitement and awe and amazement. It's a song by Rob Thomas called Little Wonders, and the chorus still raises a lump in my throat: "Our lives are made in these small hours; these little wonders--these twists and turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours, these small hours still remain." There's another Rob Thomas song that always facetiously comes back to memory at those moments, too..."I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, I know, right now you can't tell..." But maybe the most potent song of all running through the soundtrack of our family's conscious this past year is that ever-blowing spirit-wind that always brings change in ways we can never fully foresee and rarely understand. And while our shoulders have creaked under the weight of transformation from time to time, our feet have also gotten caught up in that irresistible dance, and we have felt lighter than ever in the middle of our great heaviness. I guess we've found our ultimate irony in more ways than one.
We want to thank each of you who have extended yourselves to care for our family in the middle of the crazy--you have fed us, or sheltered us, or given us encouragement, or been a friend to us, and we deeply love you and are so, so grateful. There is no way, really, that we can repay the love and grace we've been extended, so we try to content ourselves on the wise words of the apostle Paul, who penned, "Pay your debts as they come due. However, one debt you can never finish paying is the debt of love that you owe each other."
And we owe you big-time. Merry Christmas!
--The Bozeman Family
Christopher, Teri, Bonnie, Ben, Isaac, Gabriel, Elisha, & Asa.
We all start out these letters every year with that inevitable glance backwards over shoulders that have carried the burdens of the past 365 days, and we all wonder where that time went, now so much water under the bridge of memory. For us, the year has had a peculiar heft to it, and as we draw to the close of 2010, our shoulders still feel the gravity of some of those amazing memories.
We have gained and lost so much this year--March saw us birthing our sixth beautiful baby into the world, completing the circle of our family in a dramatic way, while June and September stole from us a beloved great-great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Autumn gave us the gift of a cherished new closeness to a brother and sister-in-law, while October marked the beginning of the grandest and riskiest adventure of our family's small history, when we moved out of our rented home in a search for the ultimate irony: the open road and a permanent home, all at the same time. Two months, two national borders, scores of national parks and landmarks, and seven states later, we're inching ever closer to that elusive dream of home, thoroughly worn by the excitement of all the fantastic places we've visited since we last left our door jamb in the last week of October. The next few days, crammed in just before the last day of this momentous year, should see us crossing a whole new door jamb, our 5 acres in the forest where we will, Lord willing, hang our hearts and our hats, and the hats of our children and our children's children and beyond.
This new place represents so much for our family; it is an old house where we can get our elbows greasy with remodeling and renovating; we will bring home our very first family dog, and we will have room for the boys to grow into the spectacular young men they are already becoming. It's a place for Bonnie's artistic skills to blossom, for us all to get our fingernails dirty and grow something, to maybe bring to fruition (literally and figuratively) our dream of having a sustainable mini-agriculture of our own, a not-so-urban homestead community to share with friends and family. It's a place to re-learn the precious skill of spreading our wings after so long being confined to small spaces not our own, a place to begin to repay all the oceans of hospitality that have been visited upon us by those dearest to us during our time of wandering. It's a place of roots. It's a place to finally come home to.
There has been a song running like a soundtrack in my mind for the past couple of months, since this journey started, really. It sums up so tidily all that we've experienced and what it means for our family, and I have played it many, many times during the dark parts of our journey when we've been reminded that adventures by necessity require peril, and disappointment, and sometimes failure thrown in with the excitement and awe and amazement. It's a song by Rob Thomas called Little Wonders, and the chorus still raises a lump in my throat: "Our lives are made in these small hours; these little wonders--these twists and turns of fate. Time falls away, but these small hours, these small hours still remain." There's another Rob Thomas song that always facetiously comes back to memory at those moments, too..."I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, I know, right now you can't tell..." But maybe the most potent song of all running through the soundtrack of our family's conscious this past year is that ever-blowing spirit-wind that always brings change in ways we can never fully foresee and rarely understand. And while our shoulders have creaked under the weight of transformation from time to time, our feet have also gotten caught up in that irresistible dance, and we have felt lighter than ever in the middle of our great heaviness. I guess we've found our ultimate irony in more ways than one.
We want to thank each of you who have extended yourselves to care for our family in the middle of the crazy--you have fed us, or sheltered us, or given us encouragement, or been a friend to us, and we deeply love you and are so, so grateful. There is no way, really, that we can repay the love and grace we've been extended, so we try to content ourselves on the wise words of the apostle Paul, who penned, "Pay your debts as they come due. However, one debt you can never finish paying is the debt of love that you owe each other."
And we owe you big-time. Merry Christmas!
--The Bozeman Family
Christopher, Teri, Bonnie, Ben, Isaac, Gabriel, Elisha, & Asa.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
empty underneath
I'm tired.
I'm tired of bing puked on by the Spirit-Of-Christmas-Eternal.
Tired of having exactly 7.5 minutes to revel in the contrived fuzzy feelings of Thanksgiving before it's time to rush headlong into the next holiday.
Tired of the pressure to find-the-perfect-gift because that's somehow a measure of my love for the people in my life.
Tired of MeMeMeMeMeMe.
Tired of stocking stuffers and Black Friday and 3-story yard ornaments and the talking box in the living room telling me that everyone is happy and joyful and all robed in crimson ya-yas.
My family checked out of the Christmas crazies years ago, and every year, as the beehive of humanity lights up ever brighter with the frenzy of the season, I am more and more glad we did it. But I've been relatively quiet about it until now, and while I know that a lot of you will not be interested to hear what I have to say, somebody out there needs to be speaking out about what I saw when I began to take a peek behind the glittered veil of Christmastide.
Okay, so here's the challenge. Every scrap of advertising we all see from 2 months before Thanksgiving until the day after New Year's tells us all about the joy of the Christmas season, about how happy we all are while buying stuff and coveting stuff and making our Christmas lists and hosting parties and shopping shopping shopping. Are we really that happy? Is this really what it's all about this season? So think about these things the next time you're out:
*At the grocery store, all those people shopping for holiday foods for parties and gatherings...count how many people you see that look happy. How many smile? How many are in good moods? Are you?
*In the parking lot, how many people are giving up their front-row parking spots for little old ladies? How many people are smiling? How many people aren't in a mad rush? How many are enjoying the weather?
*At the department store, how polite is everyone? How polite are you? Are you feeling the love here?
*At the post office, how many people are happy and chatty while standing in line? How many look at you and smile?
Okay, so for some perspective.
*At the grocery store, how many people are scowling? In a mad rush? Frustrated with and yelling at the kids on whom they'll be lavishing hundreds of dollars of gifts in just a few days?
*In the parking lot, how happy does the Sally Army bell-ringer look as 3/4 of the people pass by without giving a donation? How many people are cutting each other off and cutting in for the best parking spot? How many people leave their baskets for someone else to deal with?
*In the department store, how many people are dragging their precious children along, exhausted and stressed to the hilt, to buy the *perfect gift* for someone else? How many cashiers look bored stiff and utterly apathetic?
*At the post office, how many people are standing, impatient and bored at the same time, overladen with gaudy packages to send off to people who will hate what they recieve and look for the first chance to take them back to the store?
*Finally, at home. How much time have you spent looking for that perfect gift? How much money did you spend, and did you even have it to spend, and if you did, was it really worth it? Will your family love you more because you bought them some pretty thing? Is that the best measure of your love?
We spend a lot of energy on this holiday. We spend a lot of time rationalizing that it's the season of joy and of giving and of spending time together.
How much of that joy would be left if the Christmas tree was empty underneath?
--Teri.
I'm tired of bing puked on by the Spirit-Of-Christmas-Eternal.
Tired of having exactly 7.5 minutes to revel in the contrived fuzzy feelings of Thanksgiving before it's time to rush headlong into the next holiday.
Tired of the pressure to find-the-perfect-gift because that's somehow a measure of my love for the people in my life.
Tired of MeMeMeMeMeMe.
Tired of stocking stuffers and Black Friday and 3-story yard ornaments and the talking box in the living room telling me that everyone is happy and joyful and all robed in crimson ya-yas.
My family checked out of the Christmas crazies years ago, and every year, as the beehive of humanity lights up ever brighter with the frenzy of the season, I am more and more glad we did it. But I've been relatively quiet about it until now, and while I know that a lot of you will not be interested to hear what I have to say, somebody out there needs to be speaking out about what I saw when I began to take a peek behind the glittered veil of Christmastide.
Okay, so here's the challenge. Every scrap of advertising we all see from 2 months before Thanksgiving until the day after New Year's tells us all about the joy of the Christmas season, about how happy we all are while buying stuff and coveting stuff and making our Christmas lists and hosting parties and shopping shopping shopping. Are we really that happy? Is this really what it's all about this season? So think about these things the next time you're out:
*At the grocery store, all those people shopping for holiday foods for parties and gatherings...count how many people you see that look happy. How many smile? How many are in good moods? Are you?
*In the parking lot, how many people are giving up their front-row parking spots for little old ladies? How many people are smiling? How many people aren't in a mad rush? How many are enjoying the weather?
*At the department store, how polite is everyone? How polite are you? Are you feeling the love here?
*At the post office, how many people are happy and chatty while standing in line? How many look at you and smile?
Okay, so for some perspective.
*At the grocery store, how many people are scowling? In a mad rush? Frustrated with and yelling at the kids on whom they'll be lavishing hundreds of dollars of gifts in just a few days?
*In the parking lot, how happy does the Sally Army bell-ringer look as 3/4 of the people pass by without giving a donation? How many people are cutting each other off and cutting in for the best parking spot? How many people leave their baskets for someone else to deal with?
*In the department store, how many people are dragging their precious children along, exhausted and stressed to the hilt, to buy the *perfect gift* for someone else? How many cashiers look bored stiff and utterly apathetic?
*At the post office, how many people are standing, impatient and bored at the same time, overladen with gaudy packages to send off to people who will hate what they recieve and look for the first chance to take them back to the store?
*Finally, at home. How much time have you spent looking for that perfect gift? How much money did you spend, and did you even have it to spend, and if you did, was it really worth it? Will your family love you more because you bought them some pretty thing? Is that the best measure of your love?
We spend a lot of energy on this holiday. We spend a lot of time rationalizing that it's the season of joy and of giving and of spending time together.
How much of that joy would be left if the Christmas tree was empty underneath?
--Teri.
Friday, September 24, 2010
on the razor's edge
I wrote yesterday: "I cut my toes walking the razor's edge between faith and wisdom." That thought has come back to me over and over in the past twenty-four hours, and I think maybe it's because that's what really defines my faith journey: a walk along the razor's edge.
Or maybe it's a walk along the river's edge.
In trying to make tangible this idea, a lyric from one of Dan Fogelberg's lesser-known songs keeps playing in my mind: "Lo que es de Dios? Lo que es de mio? Lo que es del rio?", which translates as, "What is God's? What is mine? What is the river's?"
When we are faced with walking into the Jordan, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Either we stand there on the bank and watch our dreams and callings eddying and swirling and finally dissipating away, or we jump feet-first into the current, never looking back or considering all the shades of what-if that might have been suspended there in the air, displaced forever by the motion of our jumping.
But that finite moment, hanging in mid-air, is where I seem to be so often stuck. The words of another folk singer, Cheryl Wheeler, begin faintly to wend their way into my conscious: "And is it wise or lazy, holding tight to what you know? And is it brave or crazy, searching...?" I'm always searching that space, sniffing the air, calling out the subtle shades and examining them one by one, over and over, until I barely see the river at all. All that possibility, all that glorious, frightening, pregnant what-if, is always pushing me forward, holding me back, mesmerizing me with its always changing form reflected in the brilliant swirling dreamings of the river.
I've always said, "If you're going to dream, dream big." I recently revised that to say, "Dreaming is scary and dangerous, so if you're going to dream, dream big." I think I'm a part of a Bigger Dream, and I think I'm supposed to jump. But my toes are bleeding again because the river's edge just became the razor's edge, and I don't know how my big, scary, beautiful dream, alive with all the jubilant power of faith, squares with wisdom. But then rivers never were very square, were they? Only razors offer that kind of hard-edged certainty, and we bleed our frustration when we try too hard to walk that line.
It's almost a dream in itself, feeling my feet lifting lightly off of that painful edge and arching with sudden certainty, straining towards the current for everything they're worth. I suppose there's no going back now. All the what-ifs are disappearing behind me and I am discovering that I am de Dios, and de mio, and del rio, all at once.
--Teri.
Or maybe it's a walk along the river's edge.
In trying to make tangible this idea, a lyric from one of Dan Fogelberg's lesser-known songs keeps playing in my mind: "Lo que es de Dios? Lo que es de mio? Lo que es del rio?", which translates as, "What is God's? What is mine? What is the river's?"
When we are faced with walking into the Jordan, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. Either we stand there on the bank and watch our dreams and callings eddying and swirling and finally dissipating away, or we jump feet-first into the current, never looking back or considering all the shades of what-if that might have been suspended there in the air, displaced forever by the motion of our jumping.
But that finite moment, hanging in mid-air, is where I seem to be so often stuck. The words of another folk singer, Cheryl Wheeler, begin faintly to wend their way into my conscious: "And is it wise or lazy, holding tight to what you know? And is it brave or crazy, searching...?" I'm always searching that space, sniffing the air, calling out the subtle shades and examining them one by one, over and over, until I barely see the river at all. All that possibility, all that glorious, frightening, pregnant what-if, is always pushing me forward, holding me back, mesmerizing me with its always changing form reflected in the brilliant swirling dreamings of the river.
I've always said, "If you're going to dream, dream big." I recently revised that to say, "Dreaming is scary and dangerous, so if you're going to dream, dream big." I think I'm a part of a Bigger Dream, and I think I'm supposed to jump. But my toes are bleeding again because the river's edge just became the razor's edge, and I don't know how my big, scary, beautiful dream, alive with all the jubilant power of faith, squares with wisdom. But then rivers never were very square, were they? Only razors offer that kind of hard-edged certainty, and we bleed our frustration when we try too hard to walk that line.
It's almost a dream in itself, feeling my feet lifting lightly off of that painful edge and arching with sudden certainty, straining towards the current for everything they're worth. I suppose there's no going back now. All the what-ifs are disappearing behind me and I am discovering that I am de Dios, and de mio, and del rio, all at once.
--Teri.
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