And fields in my heart. No ocean can compare to the way waves of corn fields calm me. I suddenly feel whole watching the sun break through clouds over hay bales and white farm houses. I can finally take deep breaths of clean air again. There is no serenity like that of home.

I love being able to look out the window and see something besides a wall of trees covered in kudzu. Here there are trees among gravel roads, lining property lines and lawns. Brown fields even look lovely to me. It is the scenic view of my childhood, of my adolescence, and the openness my adulthood craves.

“Please pray for peace and rain” a sign we drive by says. Peace and rain. That’s all my soul needs. Rain over a field, peace over my heart.

My grandmother has actually told me to marry the first time for money, the second time for love. Although coming from the woman who has been married to the same man for  60+ years… I take that advice with a grin. It became a joke anyway since J told me he was “loaded”, although he didn’t specify that he was actually loaded with bullets and not money.

But I’m pretty sure One Is For Luck. Because as my dad says only J can “step in dog shit and pull out gold.”

Only my husband would break a trailer on the drive to vacation (that part is the dog shit), and end up straight trading with the welder who fixed it for a bigger trailer. Only J could trade a broken tool for 4 truck tires, and have the other guy leave with a smile. He’s a-wheeler-and-a-dealer, and gives the saying “I married the luckiest man in the world” a whole new meaning.

Our vacation vehicle is a dusty truck.

This pick-up has been wiped down, vacuumed out, steam cleaned and power washed; and it still smells like the dust particle to air ratio is not in the favor of my breathing. Although lung cancer by pollen isn’t my favorite thought on this long drive, I find the smell oddly soothing. It’s the smell of trips to the farm alongside my dad. It reminds me of individual pizza boxes from the gas station and Dr. Pepper bottles rolling around the floor. It seems to me there should be an open licorice package on the dashboard. It reminds me of my brother slumped against my arm asleep, our bare arms sticking together because there was no air conditioning. If I got to sit by the window I’d stick my arm out and feel the air current move my hand up and down until it felt numb from the wind stream. But we normally fought about who got to sit in the middle. Who would get to sit beside our father? Who would get his right arm over the back of the seat to be a protective barrier behind their head? And when the sun got too low that the visor couldn’t block it from our eyes, would get to wear the sweaty green Pioneers hat.

It was an honor. One I wasn’t aware of until the fields got so dry there weren’t any crops to check on in the dusty pickup. But it is still such a pure memory. A gravel road, a pickup, and dirty green hat.

Vacation!

I don’t care if we go 6 miles down the road, I’m excited to be going anywhere! But it just so happens we’re going to the best place in the world, that is more like 20 hours down the road. Upcoming events: long stints of driving in a dusty truck, stiff legs (I learned this is called “stove up”), gas station food and more than likely a cheap hotel.

I look forward to the adventure!

July, so I only missed 2013-and-half by a little bit. But I’ve been surprised in this first almost-half how little I’ve actually written. I have enjoyed what little bit of time I’ve got to spend doing this, but it’s been so much harder than I anticipated. I’ll often write something and have it saved as a draft for months and then just trash it. Too short, too personal, too boring, no beginning, no ending, no point!

I think I have writers block-the illness. I wonder how they cure it? Whatever they do I hope it’s not shots in the stomach, like for arthritis or allergies. That has to be the worst.

July resolution? Blog more. Not write more. Just do more here.

There is nothing more universally true than the fact that cantaloupe ruins a fruit salad.

And Rascal Flatts isn’t a good band.

Everyone knows if you’re running late to get home at night you can turn your headlights off at the stoplights down the gravel roads and just keep rolling.

It’s proven Gilbert doesn’t like red.

It’s undeniable sleeping in a room with dolls is creepy, and so is neighbor Russell.

Car trips are to be measured in Wishbones.

If you’re going to have to do work outside you should do it in a swimsuit to get a tan…

And if there’s anywhere better on Earth than the Black Hills, we’ve never been there.

When I first met my husband one of the many interesting items in his bachelor pad was a large carboy half full of change. I was never very good at guessing “how many” were in a jar- but there was definitely over $500 in there. It weighed so much that when we got married if I wanted to move it I’d sit on my butt and push it around with my feet on the cold glass.

We always said it was our vacation fund, to go to Disney world or ride in a hot air balloon. But the idea of dumping out all those coins in exchange for a few numbers in our electronic bank broke my heart. Whatever the amount in the jar, it wasn’t worth enough for me to cash it in. No amount was going to be able to pay for the beauty of those silver, gold and rusty copper coins all thrown together behind murky glass.

Today I noticed that I was standing on a huge cliff. I wasn’t just standing on a mountain looking out over the distance, but I was standing really, really close to the edge of a huge drop off. And I realized, this is how life happens.

You spend what feels like forever climbing up to the top of this cliff, and all you’re thinking about is that this is all you’ve ever wanted. You can’t remember wanting anything more than getting to the top. You’re so driven to just get there you can’t think about anything else. But then you get to the top and you hardly even remember all that climbing. It didn’t really seem to take that long, or be that much work. You didn’t even realize you were getting close to the end until you were about to step off the edge and fall. So you look behind you and there are tons of peaks you’ve climbed.

All I wanted was to graduate and get out of town, so I climbed as fast as I could until there wasn’t even a cap and gown at the end. Then all I wanted was to get married, so I dug in and trekked it out until suddenly I was in Alabama. I wanted a new house, so we held hands and climbed as fast as two people can climb together. And suddenly we’re standing on top of this cliff together and I realize I whined the whole time how it was taking forever and my legs hurt and it wasn’t ever going to end… but now I know I’m about to fall off this cliff whether I like it or not. And once I fall, just like all those other ledges, there won’t be any climbing back up behind you.

It’s exactly like standing on a cliff. Like all your previous motion is going to push you forward and off the edge even though you’re not even trying anymore. I can feel the weightless feeling in my stomach and I’m about to plunge to the bottom.

It’s exactly like a cliff, and this is exactly how life happens to me.

I found a diary once. I knew it was a woman’s diary by the small, delicate and precise writing. I knew it was a diary- because only the first page had been written on.

“Memories- often so sweet, always so fleeting- can be pinned to a single sheet of paper… forever”

It was perfect. And it was the only thing written in the book.

I do not wonder who she was, or what she wanted to write. Because I know the woman is me, and her story is mine.

She had taken a ruler to write the words, the bottom of her letters unnaturally cut off, as the straight edge blocked their descent. So much care had been taken to make the first page beautiful. I believe the quote was her own, and she could have filled the whole book with beautiful words. But she didn’t, she stopped on a single perfection.

Sometimes I feel that way, that I’ve gotten out one singularly perfect thing, and that’s as far as I can get.

The person you left here doesn’t make the coffee right. It’s too strong and something else… something that makes it not yours. Come back so we can sit at the table together and talk about nothing with our cheap cups filled with good coffee.