Category: Words in Sentences

I hear my future husband tuning his guitar. When I started this post, I was about to get in the shower after a breezy drive through Idaho (never been, beautiful and other worldly, my God), into and up Washington, landing in 63 degree sunshine. I felt my honey’s battery change to having a little lightning bolt on it. And I proceeded with unloading the truck and opening up the house.

I emptied my beloved cooler, cleaned out the fridge to its bones, wiped down the shelves – paid attention to the plants – goal: reset the kitchen for the month ahead.

David, my teammate, cleaned toilets, was in the yard, and switching switching and again switching the laundry.

It feels good to be here. It feels good to be somewhere different while the country flirts with re-opening. It feels good to get a little anxiety and then let the pine trees and sun heal it.

It feels good to see the blues and grays of the bay and it seem a little normal: less like a treasure and more like a rocking chair.

I plan on doing some physical healing and gut recovery in May. I plan on writing and listening while I work and plan our new family.

Plan our vows.

But most of all? I’m just planning on learning myself in this new season of further entering the cocoon in the PNW backdrop of adventure, engagement and the smell of the facial cleanser I bought in Denver en route here in the fall… with the lavender body wash David bought me in the summer after I played in the dirt in the backyard.

This is my real life. I’m in my real life. It’s beyond me.

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