Author: Erin

I’ll be honest – I am quite proud of my ability to quickly sort and make up a cooler bag like a puzzle that will provide for an efficient on the road food service.

Matter of fact, not only am I proud of it – I *enjoy it thoroughly*. I’ll think about what I’m going to specialize in the next day (Nutella Graham Cracker sandwiches? Pepperoni tortillas? PBJ with Pringle’s?) when falling asleep.

I’ll consider what I may need to serve… like, “let’s do a layered meal with a little candy at the bottom of a red solo cup, a napkin layer, a Pringle’s and Clementine layer, then the sandwich on top…”

Utensils, equipment, baggies, wipes. It’s *so fun*. And here’s what I love most – today, when inventorying the cooler bag that sits at my feet, I found a little gem of decorative tape next to a roll of ziplock bags that have been in it since my cousin, Heidi, first helped me pack up the bag for its inaugural roadtrip from Sacramento to StL (thru Park City and Fort Collins and Manhattan, KS).

It made me smile. The red solo cups a random offering from my mom, probably thinking more of dishes at home then serving in the truck. The knowing of this tape, just in case. The convenience of the ziploc for the pre-filtered coffee we actually enjoyed at the Lodge so it was packed for necessity of bad coffee in a future hotel. The intention of picking up towelettes, wipes, stirring sticks as I come across them make this cooler bag my kit, my offering.

I’m not being soft or silly, I am genuinely feeling this Ninja move maternal mindset. (Maddox says, “you sure do got a lot of tricks in that bag.”)

And – as David rounds day four of doing all the driving, with his observation and focus. I round day four of tending and feeding. our first roadtrip, I struggled a little not driving at all and now I realize our partnership in these roles. David, Truck, Erin, Cooler.

And on a metamorphosis note, the Lewis and Clark explorer nature of picking up experience and tools (rocks that work for sharpening, the perfect stick for walking, this thing that may be useful later) that is part of what I’m proud of is morphing from where it starts: maternal to this now wifely idea.

See, I’m not mothering him when I hand him a wipe for his face or a napkin or wrapping his PBJ in a napkin; I am loving my partner.

“It’s gorgeous right here”… “This river is so perfect, I love how it’s rushing ” … David is to my right, fed and musing, looking around the scenery with a cherry brown ale from Miner Brewery. (A Keystone find.)

We are showered and on the balcony of our Missoula hotel room. We ordered Uber Eats from two different restaurants recommended on a Foodie website I found on our drive. The meal is had and done, our bellies are full, the air is relaxed and perfectly untinged.

I had a dream last night of a Monarch about the size of a volleyball, whose wings – when spread – formed an octagon … wait, let me Google that…

Octagon

To see an octagon in your dream indicates a spiritual reawakening, eternal life or resurrection. 

Anyway, in the dream, the Monarch was metamorphosising *back into* a long silvery white cocoon. I took my camera out to take a time lapse video of it and, by the time I got the setting, I looked up and it was just about complete with the process.

I sketched down all of this in my notebook as soon as I woke up and – somewhere in eastern Montana – I began to look up meanings. Cocoons… safety and security, a place of transformation. Butterflies… romance, joy and creativity…

One of the more personal, harder to explain parts of my getting married and transformation to wife and stepmom is the surrender of women’s ministry and community leadership to the spirit and to the possibility of retreats again someday, group devotions again someday, prayer bead workshops again someday, invitations to offer perspective over coffee again someday; but not now.

In this season – My ministry is my family, my family is my ministry.

Part of what I love about spiritual leadership is the creativity of taking a common experience or a deeply personal experience and finding what’s true within it. Making rational but wildly faithful sense of it. Finding that faith perspective that lends validation to the experience and invites willingness to possibilities.

Writing and song, experience and prayer, color and craft – this is when I feel the most alive. This creative, joy, romance with the divine.

When I met David initially and when I meet him daily through touch and tone, I experience a feeling of being looked out for and guided. It’s a continuation of the adventurous spiritual expression of workshops and intuiting for others in the form of intimate human love and emotion; beyond motherhood and friendship and deep into my womanhood.

It’s, my marriage.

Our marriage. My experience of it.

(Note: we aren’t officially married yet)

I asked David on the drive, after reading the definitions from my dream dictionary website, what he thought it represented.

“The cocoon is the marriage”, he stated.

I offered up “so our marriage is a safe space for my creativity? My joy? My romance?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking”…

That’s when the stunning revelation of the dream comes in. I considered dreaming I had this need for a time lapse video and the fact I had missed the process by the time I got it together and looked up symbolized “don’t worry about capturing, be present”.

But.. I *am* present.

Aha.. see… what I really think that meant is more about hinting at the speed of our blend, the realizing our covenant to each other.

Think of it: why do you take a time lapse video?

Because you want to re-watch the beauty of a miraculously intricate or awe inspiring satisfying long process unfold quickly. It’s like why I want a hidden camera set up when my irises are about to bloom.

But the process of the joy and romance and creativity nestling into the safety of the marriage in my dream? It was fast.

Faster than I expected.

My marriage is happening now. It’s alive.

We are committed.

It makes the vows and the rings a marker of what’s been in the making, more than a gateway; they will be a seal.

Ok – here are pics from today!

Lots of love… me

Out of the truck after 9 hours, finally among trees in Black Hills National Forest. Reminds me of Tahoe in some ways, or the winding roads down to Sedona. There were lots of hours with no trees… so here we are now: love the green, love the horizon… love the camp vibe as we veered off course a little to stay closer to the National Parks and change up the “off highway hotel for a night” vibe.

On an insightful note, I’m thinking about why people have to have reasons for things. More on that later…

Here’s a fun story. So, when I was packing I grabbed odds and ends from my nightstand: stamps, notecards, some pens, a moleskin whatever anyway there was this notecard I remembered buying either because it was cool or for somebody in particular and I threw it in my backpack. I just kind of figured I may use it when catching up on correspondence on the road…

Flash forward to last night. I take a shower at our hotel in St. Joseph’s and did complete self care: eyebrows, rosehip oil, Vaseline, eye cream, face cream, lotion, lavender, stretching, hot tea. I was intentional about packing a little road bag of all my favorite essentials for le bod and towards the end of our albeit short drive, I remembered my bag of goodies and started getting psyched for me time.

When David asked for toothpaste, I pointed him to my mobile spa and realized I was sending him to a travel bottle of sugary crest toothpaste; a far cry from his favorite Sensodyne. Then I realized I didn’t have Listerine though I had meant to find a travel bottle to pour some into when packing up the house. He didn’t seem disappointed, but I just really wanted these things for him – as they are staples.

At some point today, I went into a gas station and thought “hey – find Listerine”. Grabbed that and low and behold a tube of Sensodyne and tucked it into my suitcase in the back of the truck. I decided it would be a sweet thing to leave on the sink when he went in for his shower. #almostnewlyweds

Long story, medium: tonight we went to Mt Rushmore after checking into the Lodge. It was perfectly grey and vacant thanks to Covid and it being off season. We had a short “cross those guys off our bucket list” trip and the weather and the day caught up with me and I started getting super tired. Wanted to get fresh and comfortable and lay my head on him. He went and grabbed our food and some local beer while I got Maddox settled and showered.

So, get this! I went to my backpack to grab a blank notecard (I packed a stack of blue cards I got in Santa Monica in 2018) to write a love note to put with the toothpaste and mouthwash and saw that notecard aforementioned… what was that from?

I picked it up and took it out of its wrapper. “Ohhhh yeahhhhhhh” – I bought it in San Fran last June. I wrote on it, started a diary of thoughts for David.

My goal was to write to him the whole time I was in Tahoe with my cousin. Little snippets in Sacramento by the pool. But I didn’t. There the card was – so cool and stylish with gold embossed “I’m all sorts of in love with you” and my handwriting on the back, one line:

6/21/2019: “laying my head on you feels like both an anchor and a compass”, I wrote to him.

So, tonight, I wrote another couple lines, filling the back of the card. Completely tickled how this card was meant to fill up and give him on our first road trip and here I am, blindly ending up with it and able to give it on our second: in a town similar in vibe, in a moment where all I want is to bury into him in the exact sentiment of 6/21/2019.

I’m looking forward to looking up the number of days in this full circle and seeing if there is any meaning. I would take a picture of the note (the stationary really is pretty) but he is the kind of guy who stashes personal notes and I have no idea where it is :) #hesawesome