And away we go...

(Originally written January 26, 2011.)

Here is the story. Well, a few scraps of it anyway. Enough to piece together a little picture. Some pieces are too sacred to share, and some are saved to unfold over a cup of tea. And some pieces I simply won’t find until they are ready to be found. It is a story of both sorrow and joy.

Feb 1st I am moving to Kansas City, Missouri, two days before my 31st birthday. And thus a new journey begins. For those of you who know me, I am never one to turn down an adventure, and yet, this one was a harder sell. Living back in Milwaukee after so many years away was one of the more unexpected turns of my life. Why I was so determined not to return here, I don’t really know, but God has His ways of herding our stubborn, independent hearts exactly where they need to be.

I arrived in Milwaukee three years ago browbeaten and broke. I moved into my parents attic, which at the time was a depressing dungeon of fake wood paneling. I, who greatly pride myself in my vision for transforming ugly spaces, deemed it once and for all a lost cause and sulked in the corner for a couple months while scheming my way out. Then I got over it and started to paint. Then I found a delightful couch on craigslist. Then my parents graciously installed a sky light. Then I hung a little glass ball from it that was made from the ashes of Mount St. Helens, a volcano I watched huffing and puffing for years from my favorite little bridge in Portland. I hung an oval picture of my great grandmother on the wall. And then one day it felt like a little cottage in the woods. And say what you will, but I am convinced that something happened up there beyond a can of paint and a glass ball. It was my secret retreat. I dwelt there. And I had been so longing to dwell. I could see the moon from my sky light some nights, and green branches in the summer. The city around me seemed to evaporate from my tower in the sky. It felt safe, hearing my dad whistle his way up and down the stairs, hearing my mom make her 4 am cup of coffee, knowing that her early morning prayers were helping chart the course of my own life, coming downstairs to a blazing wood stove and my parents playing scrabble at the dining room table. And like a stray cat, my wild and distrusting heart began to curl up contentedly in the sun. My little attic space has held so many sacred moments of healing, bore witness so many agonizing conversations with God, has been a place of joy, confusion, comfort, and of purest worship.

As humbling it is to admit, I never saw myself leaving Milwaukee again. I’ve lived in six states, one Provence, and three countries. I kinda thought I was done with all that nonsense. Makes me think of Rachel Lynde from Anne of Green Gables saying, “The way girls roam the earth now is something terrible. It reminds me of Satan in the book of Job: going to and fro, and walking up and down. I don't think the Lord ever intended it.” Remove gender stereotypes from the equation and I was pretty much on board. I was ready to grow some roots. I had so many dreams, hopes and expectations for a life here. However, the space around me began to move and shift. Things near felt distant. Things distant felt near. I felt like Alice, too big one moment, craning my neck on the ceiling, and too small the next, disoriented by my surroundings. New prayers were conceived in my heart and began to stretch it and move in it and kick their feet at its walls like the sweet little baby in my friend Shelley’s gloriously pregnant belly (to be birthed around the same time as my move!). And little did I know their fulfillment would not be in Milwaukee, but rather in a little community in Kansas City called The Boiler Room.

I will be joining a colorful and faithful little family of prayers, artists, visionaries, bread bakers, fruit canners, gardeners, worshippers, sewers, and friends. When first visiting over a year ago, and then again a few months ago, it was as if I was speaking my native tongue for the very first time. The intensity of my own heart echoed and reverberated back at me even louder. I sat wide eyed and hungry and thought to myself, “these are my people”. The purity and abandon with which they seek with God is blindingly beautiful. After making such a dramatic statement, the decision would seem obvious, but comfort is a funny thing. It took some unbearably painful hours of wrestling with God before the decision was made, and joy came tumbling after. While tearily confessing to Wendy, my soon-to-be new housemate, that I will do this for God if He wants me to, she reminded me that if He wants me to, then really its for me, right? Deep breath, sniffle. Hm. Well that's kind of an intriguing idea.

I will miss Milwaukee. I will miss the safety and comfort of my parents home. I will miss the wood stove’s friendly chatter on cold days and the laughter around it. I will miss the most wonderful, magical job in the world. I will miss my precious new friends. I will miss my nephews. I will miss Remy’s brutal head-butts of impassioned affection, and those cheeks, AH! the cheeks! I will miss Sam’s bright, smiling eyes and long contented cuddles, curled up like a tender little fern in my lap.

But the next leg of this journey begins.

I am reminded of a line from a Rich Mullins song, that even after years of various moves, seems as significant now as it was when I graduated high school and left for Bible school on Thetis Island, BC. “I dont know where this road will take me, but they say theres a place there for a man, and when they hoist that sail, I know my heart will break, as bright and as fine as the morning...” It brought me to large, gulping, lonely tears once while sitting on a piece of drift wood overlooking the ocean straight between two islands, alone in a strange new world. And I imagine it will again. And as much as I hate that vulnerable, aching moment, I love the feeling of the Potters hands on my inner being. And I am reminded of all the priceless treasures and beauty the year on that island held. I am reminded of how that cavernous ache overflowed with wonders beyond my wildest imagination; watching the stars from a tiny island surrounded by fathoms of black water, the spontaneousfullyclothedrunningleapsoffthedock into the icy ocean water, phosphorescence, purple starfish, standing at “high point” and watching the sun set over the endless miles of ocean, the deep, fruitful, and enduring friendships.

So off I go once again into the unknown, a sojourner and stranger in this land. After all, I am a pioneer at heart. Its in my blood. My namesake and great great great grandmother Catherine journaled her way west and I have the pages to this day. I was reading in Psalm 65 recently. It says “You crown the year with bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.” I’ve read this verse before, but never this particular translation. It made me smile to myself. An image so vivid in my mind, so close to my heart. Dear Father, what new and breath-taking vistas to behold?