Miles

"I think she looked into it," I say. "I'm not really sure. I'm just guessing by other things she has said."

"Oh," Jane says. It's a damp lunch hour, the two of us slipped out for a run. Wet gray, high-hung clouds, still no sun, the air licking across our faces, we run.

"I didn't really want to ask," I say.

"Oh," she says.

"Just didn't seem my place."

"Deception," she says, "it's like the worst thing in the world."

"Yeah," I say, the quiet roll of our tennis shoes over wet blacktop an invisible heartbeat between us.

"It's like using the truth to tell a lie," she says.

"Yes," I say. "It. Is." I turn this over in my mind. The truth. Thinking you have the truth is the greatest barrier to you finding it. Or it can be.

This time, marking out miles together, we map the world, trace that red thread of truth, see it go subterraneous, and watch for it to reemerge.

Miles and minutes marked out, condensed and timeless, we suddenly reemerge at home. The route come full circle, there we are. Time, compressed down to a molecule of air, had floated between us, unseen and unspooling. Then without warning we are suddenly home.

"Time," she says, "it's the most expensive thing. It's like there's never enough to do everything you would like to do."

"Yup," I say. Never enough. And there behind us, whir-whir-whir, time unspooling, unwinding, looping around us. Like stationary pinpoints it cascades over us like a waterfall.

Gratitude:

6326. Thrifting yields a new quilt for our bed. Like a wing of faint blue it settles on our bed.

6327. We continue to treasure hunt books for the library. A visit to the bin store, the last stop for thrifted goods before they are burned, Mom and I treasure hunt. Whoopee!

6328. I continue to make friends at church. I marvel that this liturgy of friend making follows us our entire life.

6329. A friend with 11 children invites me, our 7 children, and another mom and kids over to play. So many children and yet such a peaceful time.

6330. Jack, now out of wrestling, splashes into Saturday with gusto. Cinnamon rolls, eggs, fresh jam, a pan of brownies, another pan of blondies, he's a baking bonanza, and he's still fresh to work in the yard and spend hours outside playing with cousins.

6331. "Basketball, for those that aren't very good, is really just a game of chance," Jane says.

6332. I try my hand at making a baby wrap. "Before we know it," Jane says, "you'll have a loom and some sort of spinning wheel."

6332. Craig continues to plan and build the greenhouse for flats of fast sprouting plants. We sit down together and plan the cornerstones of our spring schedule.

6333. And somewhere in there I squeeze in a few rows of knitting. It's not everyday, though I wish it were, but it's many days and enough.

6334. As we work to organize and care for what God's given us, we quiet ourselves to contentment. Somehow it's always there, just below the surface, if we only look.

Lucy's Ball

"Lucy's ball got broken." Between thumb and forefinger Joe displays a green bouncy ball. A jagged rip now plied together with tape, he rotates his work.

"Oh," I say. "Who taped it?"

"It just got bounced so hard it went splat," he says. He wrinkles his forehead, blink-blink.

"Who taped it?" I say.

"Well," he lulls. "Uh, hm... it got bit." He hangs his chin, nods, droops the corner of his mouth down, down, down toward his chin. He flaps a hand as if conducting orchestra.

"Who taped it?" I say. "Did you?"

"Yeah." He talks in kid-bass, wells disappointment.

"Did you bite it?" I say.

"Um."

"Was it you?"

"Yeah." The truth culled out, he deflates to repentant puppy, his peripheral vision fixed on my eyes. Something like relief, like a long, long exhale, comes lose, unravels, a whole skein piled there between us.

"Ah," I say. He waits. I let him. He squirms. "Go potty," I finally say. "We'll talk about this more when you get back."

"Okay," he bursts all symphony and trumpets. All that tape and he couldn't stop himself. The truth whiled itself out, as if a creature all it's own. It's tenacious that way, big enough to fill the sky, small enough to slip in my pocket. It's the third party in every conversation just waiting to be a skein of relieve between us.





Gratitude:

5749. A Call To Prayer by J.C. Ryle. I'm halfway through it. It's the best book on prayer I've ever read.

5750. Popcorn and ginger ale.

5751. We celebrate Craig's birthday at home with board games and snacks.

5752. Noodles Alfredo, salad, open-faced corned beef sandwiches, family dinner takes a delicious turn. The best part is just being together.

5753. Friends invite us over for salmon. The whole big crew of us, but the night slips away effortless like water. Ten o'clock we head home full of joy.

5754. Dinner on the farm is always good. We enjoy Saturday lunch with Craig's family. The slow pace refreshes.

5755. Joey figures out how to fry eggs all on his own. Mirth unbridled, he cooks four panfuls before I realize and reign him in.

5756. We watch the Super Bowl together. Joe betrays our love of politics when he keeps calling the big game The Debate.

5757. Betsy continues to cruise along furniture and finagle her way to just about anywhere. Her use of sigh language explodes.

5758. Craig and I finally see the new Star Wars movie.

5759. The weather gradually changes, a little less bitter cold, less dank, more rain, less snow. We set our sights on a spring garden and our hearts on the future.

Faith

"And without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God," Lu recites.

Saturday night and she's pounding the memory verse for Sunday. I look up from a snarl of knitting. She's squinting her eyes, teasing the words across her memory.

"And with out faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God," she says. "That actually is true," she's stopped, eyes fixed on me. "Even if you try your HARDEST, it is IMPOSSIBLE." She rolls her mouth around the word impossible.

"Yup," I say.

"Yeah, you can never even do it," Jack says. Elbow deep in the kitchen sink, he leans past the door jam, nods.

"Yup," I say, "impossible."

So it is: faith, the evidence of things unseen. Evidence of the invisible, the suit of trump.

Gratitude:

5521. Sophie comes for dinner.

5522. Tuesday girls meet.

5523. Thursday pinochle, a circus of cards, cousins, popcorn, and candy, the memories flow like water.

5524. Jane finishes her checkerboard quilt top.

5525. Mom and I trade quilting chores.

5526. We thrift through a local second hand store.

5527. We have a work day at Great-Grammie's. A camaraderie of work encircles us.

5528. The cousins eat apples in the orchard and swing from the rope swing in the barn.

5529. We get a trunk and freezer and other pass-alongs.

5530. We trade pleasure reading books with the cousins. They give us some of their all time favorites. Bliss!

5531. "Do you need this?" Joe holds his blankie up to me then puts it on my back.

5532. Evidence of things unseen -- one of our children begins a habit of confession. A contrite heart, truth encircles us.

5533. Truth, the greatest gift of all.

All The Rivers Actually Connect

"Why do you think they have pictures in Bibles?" Lucy smooths her fingers over the tissuey paper of her Bible.

Moored at the black table, empty plates and bowls pushed to the center, I pause, memory work strewn in front of me. "Because they are afraid people won't want to read it if there aren't enough pictures," I say.

"Oh," she says. "Sometimes I want another picture, but not that often," she says it in half-voice and then nods, almost to herself, her eyes back on the text.

I trace words, mouth them across the canopy of my mind. She points at sentences, combs her index finger underneath them, whispers the words.

"All the rivers and oceans actually connect," she says aloud.

I nod but loll out cursive curls to the next comma, then look up. "That's true. How'd you know that?"

"I think," she pauses to review a mental list, "Jack told me. And it says it right here." She jabs halfway through a column of text: Genesis one.

"Oh, well that's right," I say. I click the lead out on my pencil and resume the rhythm of copying. Head bent over and propped on her hand, she continues too, pink fingernails laced through her hair.

"It keeps saying: And this is what really happened," she says. "This is a grown up Bible, but it doesn't really sound like it when it says that."

Grown-up Bible, I remember her digging through the stack. That must have been what she was looking for. "It's actually a middle Bible," I say. It's bigger than the kid Bibles, but it's not the same as this one." I pat the leather back of my Bible.

"Oh," she says. A tiny disappointment jangles across her face and drops free like a marble.

She finds her place; I find mine. And we cadence on. The morning weaves in its braided sort of way. Dishes find their way to the kitchen, Bibles into the stack. Children assemble in skirts and flip-flops. Jack dons a checkered button down. We hogtie Joey and coax him into a teal plaid.

We trolley to church and back, a sermon ingested. And still, I'm hanging on to the tail end of her words. It doesn't really sound like it when it says that.

"Doesn't it feel good when you worked for it," I reel back five days earlier, picture Lu there in the garden, "and didn't just wait around for someone else to do it?"

I'm poking nasturtium seeds in the ground, her balanced on the brick wall. "Like what?" I say.

"Like cleaning the house," she says.

I poke two fingers in the soil, drop a swollen seed in each hole. I glance up at her, swimsuit and shorts, big blue sky a cloak around her. "Yep. Yes, it does," I say.

Doesn't it feel good when you worked for it... I hear it, something like a note perfectly tuned. Truth. Even a slight deviation rings dissonant.

Gratitude:

5382. Lucy gets accepted into another twelve week study with the flicker glasses.

5383. Croakies -- a glasses strap for the new glasses -- she pulls them tight across her nose.

5384. Lucy lets her hair run wild and loses my favorite hair sticks. Mom passes down two almost like it.

5385. Beatrice. Beatrice comes to live with us, a tiny bumblebee baby doll. Jane glows, girlhood a perfect circle around her.

5386. Pizza night. I shall never tire of this. Family, pizza, salad, and ice cream -- my life has strung together many happy pearls on this thread.

5387. The kids make strawberry rhubarb jam in our crockpot. They spoon it over oatmeal. "This is amazing," Myra says. "I really hope this isn't a dream," Lucy chimes.

5388. Three spools of fresh white thread, quilting adhesive, I complete the finishing touches on two more quilts. Craig says one is his favorite. (!)

5389. We finally have Thanksgiving dinner down on the farm, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, a perfect match. We bloom in gratitude. Craig's aunt visits from Montana.

5390. The turkey transcendent, the gravy smooth gold,  rhubarb cake ala mode, a small gathering of family, we relish the meal.

5391. Craig's mom sends me home with recipes and his dad's favorite hymn: Oh The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.

5392. My brother sends me an excerpt from C.S. Lewis on praise.

5393. I try to leap over a small gate at church only to find it unlatched and fully mobile under my weight. Craig and I laugh at the disastrous result, one final attempt at being sporty.

5394. I plan another quilt in my mind and thank the Lord for meaningful toil.

5395. Meaningful toil, so much pleasure wells from this spring.

Talking

"Probably in the car we can play a game with our mouth," Myra says. She angles her head to capture my eyes. I stack a Renaissance book on another about Columbus. "Talking, I mean," she says. She emphasizes the T as if it were a lollipop.

Talking. It's a date, Myra and me. We go to the turtle place. We stop at the red tulips and point. Then, we halt at the saffron yellow poms of a wild daisy.

"Let's memorize them," I say, "lock them in our heads." Her willowy fingers in my palm, we stare at the little gold suns.

Then a half-skip at our heel, we trolly on. The gradual scape of rocks, we weave a gentle incline.

"Yeah, "I'm brave," Myra says. She steps over a lump of rock, a tiny staccato spring in her knees. "'Cause that's how people are supposed to be: BRAVE." I smile, her fluttery composure pulled tall.

We trip-trop to the edge, a rounded lip of stone. "Ya wanna sit?" I say.

"Yeah."

"Look, there they are," I point to a hen and two drakes, trolling the water below, mallards. We watch. Feet the color of orange crayons push and pull them across the water, a blue feather pokes out from under each wing. The drakes rile, form a game of modified tag to impress the hen.

"Who do you think is the smartest person in our family?" I ask.

"Daddy and Mommy," she says.

"Yeah?"

"'Cause you're big and strong."

"Uh-huh," I say. The mallards skiff the water. One dives, and buoys a few seconds later.

"But Daddy's stronger," she says. "But you're strong. But not BOY-strong." One of the drakes, now in flight, skids orange feet into the water.

"Yeah," I say.

"Yeah," she says, a gossamer thread of strength there between us.

The date turns and orbits like a planet across the sky, that invisible tether there between us. When we finally circle back to the car, we roll down the windows, let the wind blow in our hair.

"This is my stor-y, this is my song," I hear Myra sing in the seat behind me, "prai-sing my Sav-ior all the day long." Each word arrives on time.

We finally pull in the driveway, slip through the front door. We step into the whirling jump rope of home, the rhythm bound up inside.

And then it's a couple of hours later. There at the piano, her head tilted, shoulders slack, I remember the scene that started the date: the lie.

She lied to me, baldfaced lied. And for all the slivering pain of that lie, for all blood and incision and sutures between us, for the dogged determination to have truth between us, I feel it again, that gossamer thread.

"Myra," I kneel down, "I'm really glad you told me the truth earlier." I encircle her with my arms, but she pulls away, searches my face as if seeing it for the first time.

"I feel like I want to touch this part," she says and strokes her finger across my eyebrow.

"Yeah?" I say, the full light of her face shone across mine.

"It's cute," she says, "and nice and brown." She traces the soft horizon of my brow. I smile into the solar system of her face. Truth, the empty fabric of space, holds us both.

Gratitude:

5381. A neighbor give me a rooted rosemary cutting. I plant it out front.

5382. "My muscles are charging," Myra says and flexes her arms at me elbow first.

5383. I get to have a snagged cami replaced.

5384. Headband elastic.

5385. Quinoa salad with bacon and avocado.

5386. Salted almond chocolate.

5387. Face cream.

5388. Pizza and salad. Butterscotch cookies.

5389. "A few seconds ago I saw by your eyes that you wanted the sunroom clean," Jack says a coat draped over one arm and a book in the other.

5340. FABRIC in grays and blues and yellow -- the next quilt.

5341. A walk with Mom.

5342. The Mother Daughter Tea in Craig's hometown.

5343. Grilled cheese with smoked cheddar and raspberries, a friend wins a grilled cheese contest, and shares with us.

5344. Craig buys me new running shoes.

5345. I overcome another headache and land Sunday night, a sense of rest over my body.