Reflection on a Year of AND's
Written at 4:58am, June 30th, 2015. Please excuse the grammar and realize the nuances. <3
One year ago...
I was laying in intense pain with this beautiful moment all around and within me. Corey and I held each other's gaze and faces with something mixed of laughing and weeping. The room was ablaze with awe that the 46 hours of anticipation had finally arrived at its destination.
Danforth was born, cone-headed and beautifully perfect beyond what we could even think to ask. Moms became grandmas, dads grandpas, and two madly in love 20-somethings turned and faced the biggest journey of all, square in the face.
And parenthood began.
It began in a place of overwhelming exhaustion where our sons life was placed in others arms while we melted into our own recoveries of the marathon that brought us to him. We each had a pause of emptiness, a quiet breath of our own. Corey on his cot, and myself holding a rubber gloved kind hand while my swollen eyes finally rested and stitches were looped through my tender skin.
Time warped and eventually we were brought back to a manageable level of consciousness and we looked upon our son and held him with our unexperienced arms, and looked at one another with wonder and mystery and "that-look" we share whenever we throw ourselves into a new experience.
The weeks that followed brought back the teamwork we refined during our months aboard Zephyrus. Working under pressure and unexpectedness was not new for us, and the sleepless nights we'd spent awake and alert during storms on anchor or talking through the storms in me, built a beautiful foundation to bring our son into.
As I battled ongoing intense physical pain that was far more limiting than I had ever imagined it would be, we packed up our world and prepared for a vague and tentative departure South where only God knew what was in store for us.
Danforth's norm became un-normal and he went with it like thats how life should be. He never acted like things ought to be more predictable or consistent, and his only protests seemed to arise when his freedom to determine his own space was constrained by straps of a carseat or a few other odds and ends typical to an infant.
During the nights we all lay without a breeze, covered skin in thick sweat, we clutched our wet washcloths, wiped the sweat off our sleeping babe in the basket at our feet, and marveled in the ridiculousness of our circumstances. The days brought a loud puttering of our home on wheels as we inched our way deeper and deeper into the South.
Job interviews on the phone in Walmart lots, or hardware stores or loitering in a hotel lobby. Nights on the pavement. A few engine threats in the final leg of our journey, and we arrived into the daunting spectrum of buildings that reached the sky. our home became a broken-glass filled dumpy corner lot among a 99% Hispanic populated trailer park full of kind families.
Pushing through hot days and hot nights without the majority of comforts I so often have taken for granted. Every small task amplified in its demands on me.
I came to the end of myself on many days and joined Danforth in helpless cries. I sought the Lord for stability and He came through every time, as I sat before Him in the stillness of the stuffy nights between night wakings to feed and change our precious son.
We explored the city. Waiting on employment to come through. Car-less, friendless, jobless, homeless.
A month or two passed and each of these things came in their way. Not without a trial or extreme amounts of effort, but they came.
The months gathered momentum, and we refined our flow as we grasped for experiences and rhythm as we built a new life, with God as the master planner. The days became less and less life-altering and more and more they moved towards typical. Not without difficulty and frustration and tears on my end.
We filled a tiny home, we filled our days, we spent long evenings with this little guy, growing to know him, seeing his boyness emerge.
As daily life became less demanding in the small, we could pause for longer breaths to take in this child of ours, much in the same way we do one another. Plenty of quiet moments of pause with a healthy combination of hair-pulling frustrations.
As I sweep many small particles of moments into one over arching pile in statement and sentence; we have found life down here.
Internally finding an always relevant Christ. Externally experiencing the joys and struggles of our first ever shared circle of community and friendship. Finding rhythm of the desk job and the home parenting, still constantly on the search for new and raw experiences like we do wherever we're doing life.
Never have we let the memory of the birth become any less dramatic or the motorhome any less ridiculous and crazy. Nor do we cease from recalling old traveling memories as we relive them through storytelling with new friends, or in the quiet of our bed when the day has been not so far from typical. Never have we stopped dreaming of what the future may or may not hold.
We are Corey and Meg.
We are parents, AND we are wayfarers.
We are stable AND we are spontaneous.
And as I reflect on this past year's environment we've formed for this man who we are blessed to protect, nurture, and direct over the next two decades, I am beyond thankful we have been fortunate enough to introduce him to us as we truly are. That he can know his parents at the core one day by looking back through our memories in form of writing and photos, and he can know that he was loved enough that his parents did not stop their worlds for him, but rather continued their lives and brought him into it.
As I've battled settling into more of the mundane parts of the days, I am now finding rhythm and new momentum here to propel me forward into new experiences and hopefully a healthy dose of not-so-typical ones too.
Either way, as I grow more and more to know what love and relationship is with this little guy, I have to say, this year has been profound, beautiful, and oh so challenging...and I'm glad we're not limited to that, things are just getting good!
Happy Birthday little man. May you look back on these times one day with appreciation and delight. Thank you for re-introducing us to the simplest moments of life with those wide blue wonder eyes of yours and for being so unbelievably flexible with the craziness of movement and emotion this home will undoubtedly have through your life with us.
This year has been an incredible start to building the bonds of teamwork and self-denying sacrifice that we as a family must be well acquainted with for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a world that so unknowingly hungers for those very Truths.
Happy First Birthday Danforth, our little wayfarer AND anchor. You are one amazing, adaptable, delightful child.
Momma Meg
One year ago...
I was laying in intense pain with this beautiful moment all around and within me. Corey and I held each other's gaze and faces with something mixed of laughing and weeping. The room was ablaze with awe that the 46 hours of anticipation had finally arrived at its destination.
Danforth was born, cone-headed and beautifully perfect beyond what we could even think to ask. Moms became grandmas, dads grandpas, and two madly in love 20-somethings turned and faced the biggest journey of all, square in the face.
And parenthood began.
It began in a place of overwhelming exhaustion where our sons life was placed in others arms while we melted into our own recoveries of the marathon that brought us to him. We each had a pause of emptiness, a quiet breath of our own. Corey on his cot, and myself holding a rubber gloved kind hand while my swollen eyes finally rested and stitches were looped through my tender skin.
Time warped and eventually we were brought back to a manageable level of consciousness and we looked upon our son and held him with our unexperienced arms, and looked at one another with wonder and mystery and "that-look" we share whenever we throw ourselves into a new experience.
The weeks that followed brought back the teamwork we refined during our months aboard Zephyrus. Working under pressure and unexpectedness was not new for us, and the sleepless nights we'd spent awake and alert during storms on anchor or talking through the storms in me, built a beautiful foundation to bring our son into.
As I battled ongoing intense physical pain that was far more limiting than I had ever imagined it would be, we packed up our world and prepared for a vague and tentative departure South where only God knew what was in store for us.
Danforth's norm became un-normal and he went with it like thats how life should be. He never acted like things ought to be more predictable or consistent, and his only protests seemed to arise when his freedom to determine his own space was constrained by straps of a carseat or a few other odds and ends typical to an infant.
During the nights we all lay without a breeze, covered skin in thick sweat, we clutched our wet washcloths, wiped the sweat off our sleeping babe in the basket at our feet, and marveled in the ridiculousness of our circumstances. The days brought a loud puttering of our home on wheels as we inched our way deeper and deeper into the South.
Job interviews on the phone in Walmart lots, or hardware stores or loitering in a hotel lobby. Nights on the pavement. A few engine threats in the final leg of our journey, and we arrived into the daunting spectrum of buildings that reached the sky. our home became a broken-glass filled dumpy corner lot among a 99% Hispanic populated trailer park full of kind families.
Pushing through hot days and hot nights without the majority of comforts I so often have taken for granted. Every small task amplified in its demands on me.
I came to the end of myself on many days and joined Danforth in helpless cries. I sought the Lord for stability and He came through every time, as I sat before Him in the stillness of the stuffy nights between night wakings to feed and change our precious son.
We explored the city. Waiting on employment to come through. Car-less, friendless, jobless, homeless.
A month or two passed and each of these things came in their way. Not without a trial or extreme amounts of effort, but they came.
The months gathered momentum, and we refined our flow as we grasped for experiences and rhythm as we built a new life, with God as the master planner. The days became less and less life-altering and more and more they moved towards typical. Not without difficulty and frustration and tears on my end.
We filled a tiny home, we filled our days, we spent long evenings with this little guy, growing to know him, seeing his boyness emerge.
As daily life became less demanding in the small, we could pause for longer breaths to take in this child of ours, much in the same way we do one another. Plenty of quiet moments of pause with a healthy combination of hair-pulling frustrations.
As I sweep many small particles of moments into one over arching pile in statement and sentence; we have found life down here.
Internally finding an always relevant Christ. Externally experiencing the joys and struggles of our first ever shared circle of community and friendship. Finding rhythm of the desk job and the home parenting, still constantly on the search for new and raw experiences like we do wherever we're doing life.
Never have we let the memory of the birth become any less dramatic or the motorhome any less ridiculous and crazy. Nor do we cease from recalling old traveling memories as we relive them through storytelling with new friends, or in the quiet of our bed when the day has been not so far from typical. Never have we stopped dreaming of what the future may or may not hold.
We are Corey and Meg.
We are parents, AND we are wayfarers.
We are stable AND we are spontaneous.
As I've battled settling into more of the mundane parts of the days, I am now finding rhythm and new momentum here to propel me forward into new experiences and hopefully a healthy dose of not-so-typical ones too.
Either way, as I grow more and more to know what love and relationship is with this little guy, I have to say, this year has been profound, beautiful, and oh so challenging...and I'm glad we're not limited to that, things are just getting good!
Happy Birthday little man. May you look back on these times one day with appreciation and delight. Thank you for re-introducing us to the simplest moments of life with those wide blue wonder eyes of yours and for being so unbelievably flexible with the craziness of movement and emotion this home will undoubtedly have through your life with us.
This year has been an incredible start to building the bonds of teamwork and self-denying sacrifice that we as a family must be well acquainted with for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a world that so unknowingly hungers for those very Truths.
Happy First Birthday Danforth, our little wayfarer AND anchor. You are one amazing, adaptable, delightful child.
Momma Meg
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