Riana’s list for her first day after our trip:
Water colors
Library
Cut papers
See Leo
Eat popcorn
Glue things together
Do writing
Run
Tomorrow can be for making bread, unpacking, reading mail, etc. Hey, maybe Riana can cut junk mail. But let’s just focus on tonight and a gentle reentry.
My List:
Slippers
Gaze at big full moon
Adult beverage in hand
Happy Sunday, friends.
Homemade* cardamom bread with real butter and thinly sliced tillamook.
This was preceeded by vanilla yogurt (with granola of course) and will be followed by coffee with frango mint chocolates. Ah, a quiet day of mini-meals, books, and maybe a crossword.
*thanks Aunt.
Ammended: I returned to find all the butter licked off my bread by a certain three-year old. Hrmmmmm
It seems that we mostly stop for food since it’s been a bit colder than what would make us really want to be outdoors for long periods of times. We are winter wusses, what can I say?
So we have Lafayette Indiana, where we stopped for a quick lunch near Purdue’s campus. XXX-Root beer, a Family establishment. Sounds so elicit, but it was just a basic root beer dive.
We had been planning to just get coffee to compliment our picnic lunch, but Riana talked us into this place. Obviously it didn’t take much convincing for us to sample a new root beer. It turned out to be pretty basic, but oh well.
Continuing southward, we also stopped for pizza. We found this place in Louisville KY. The online reviews were funny: most agreed that the pizza was good but the service was sub par. They complained that this Philly-style pizza shop was full of rude waitstaff who were short with customers, didn’t smile, were unhelpful, etc. So we wanted to check it out. I can see how the Philly way doesn’t quite measure up to Southern hospitality, but all we had to do was correctly pronounce “water ice” and we were treated quite well. The seating was actually in an old convertible. So we were from one car to another but the girls thought it was fun.
And finally, us non country music connoisseurs made it to Nashville. So far we spent a bunch of time at the park, walked around the Grand Ole Oprey complex, saw all the music studios and Vanderbilt, and managed to catch a little live music too. It would seem wrong to go to Nashville and not see live music.
And we managed to pick up a cow-girl hat for the girl who has been asking for awhile.
Yes there is an attached plastic whistle. What can I say? I hope that part breaks soon!
In these parts, the grocery stores are reportedly bare of bread, milk, eggs, and other essentials. Schools in multiple counties have preemptively closed for the threat of ice/sleet/snow messiness. It’s not supposed to be here until mid-day, but I think we’ll cut our Nashville time short. There is an area called Land Between the Lakes that we hope to check out tomorrow, if weather permits.
Signing out from the trail…
Canada is off the list of possible road trip destinations. My passport expires in just a couple of days.
I’m really bad at anticipating things that are to come. The whole advent leading up to Christmas? I’m still wrapping presents the night before and thinking about what I should have gifted on the 26th. New Years Resolutions? It’s half-way to February before I have anything concrete and that’s IF I’m lucky. Birthday cards and wishes? They’re meant to be sent after the actual day, right? If you ever see me on my own Birthday, you’ll probably see a deer and headlights. At least now you know why.
So when I went to renew my passport, it might make sense that I didn’t think about it until I was in line at the post office. Ten YEARS had gone by since I stood in the very same post office with my first application.
I was a freshman in college, home on winter break, planning a trip to Ireland for St.Patrick’s Day. Was that really ten years ago?
The post office clerk heckled me a bit…gave me the under-18 application and told me I needed a parent. (Under 18? Really. come.on.now.) And as I walked over to the table to fill out the renewal, I unexpectedly got teary. I used this passport to study in Spain…To fall in love…to learn how to dance…. There is sand from the Sahara stuck in its pages and it was about the only item not stolen from me in Portugal…I met my husband while traveling with it…I worked in Argentina…sampled Kiwi wines on a honeymoon…became a flight attendant…learned to make authentic Pad Thai…took my babe to Germany to play with her cousin…and what? Now I just start over? With a new book? Part of me fears that the next passport will seem lonely in comparison…I know that I won’t have the same adventures. While I am not the same person I was when the picture was taken at nineteen, she is still many layers of who I am today and I don’t want to lose her.
With that, twenty-some days late, I finally have my New Year’s resolution. It is the resolution for the next passport book; the next ten years. It is to continue traveling forward, to continue to look in the mirror and remember my roots, my dreams, and my desires. It is to honor who I am, where I am at the same time as I celebrate what has helped me reach this place. It is to find joy, notice beauty, and fare forward. It is to dance with my husband and teach the songs to my girls.
It is traveling mercies.
It is Kyrie Eleison (where I’m going will you follow?)
Just over a year ago, this is where we were:
There was an excitement, a buzz, and energy in the air like I had never experienced. Oh it was an exciting time to be in Washington; to be an American. And though neither Riana nor Amelia will remember, I will always be proud to tell them where they were on that day. I will also remind them of how they were still awake, late into the night, on November 4, 2008. We all stayed awake for an extremely important and moving speech to come from Chicago. And oh was there dancing in the street as we returned home that night. And from that night, Riana learned a phrase that she still repeats: Yes we can.
And I know that we are in a low time right now with many people loosing hope, wondering what is happening, worrying about what is to come… But I still have hope. So for today’s Quotable Sunday, I share some clips from President Obama’s acceptance speech.
—–
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer…The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there…It can’t happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice…So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other…America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves — if our children should live to see the next century…what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.”
I am again reminded of the call to action…a call for all of us to get busy doing.
I am so, so very glad that Obama is the president that my children will think of as the president of their childhood.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -President Obama
