nomad this

Sept-Oct 2022

There is poetry in these days but I don’t write it. In the wake sleep wake pattern of long nights with our crying son. In the sniffles of a sick baby and the raspy breathing and my mama heart clenching. There is poetry in this move, in the uhaul passing through hill country and purple flowers and 20-second rain showers, taking us to the beginning of the rest of our lives but far away from family and home. 

There is color in the newness. In this town’s railroad tracks and our mouths numb from eating too-spicy food again and the green humidity and the red mosquito bites and our cream floor tiles and Williams shrieks and laughs when kaleb tickles and kisses him on the couch. 

We are waiting in the in between, we are new to this town, we are asking for help unloading our truck, we are learning the right temperature for our thermostat in humidity, we are buying tennis rackets and eating more lasagna than we want.

We 

Are

Time is passing in a funny way and it’s been two years of marriage 

And five years since home from the mission and 

seven years 

since done with high school and I will be 26 and I forget to write in my journal now.

I grew up.

Got too big for the playground now I play with my baby boy on the ground and stroll on long walks around the neighborhood.

I listen to the school kids on their recess break and I puzzle that was not just yesterday anymore and my soccer team is all married and some are already the parent on the sidelines with the orange slices. 

I look around this Texas air and the light falling in through the window onto tall green plants and I am looking for the poetry in my life, I'm cultivating it and the Texas growing season is funky so I don't know when it'll come, but I will harvest. I will harvest powerful words and feelings and lessons learned through moves and separations and growing up and I will be richer than I ever thought 

with my baskets and arms full of 

(mosquito bites & burp cloths & moving boxes & my husband &)

this.