PATHWAY TO THE BETTER COUNTRY

My friend Jess is back from Idaho for a visit. It feels like home to have her here. We watched Safe Haven with her mom a night ago. It was one of the few Nicholas Spark's stories that had me losing it by the end. Jess' mom thought I was hilarious with my face in a pillow, eyes peeking out pretending to be Niagara Falls. 

According to Jess, you cannot out-grow taping glow-in-the-dark stars onto your bedroom ceiling. I agree with her. 

The following morning, I tagged along with Jess, her grandma and great-grandma on their annual shopping expedition through the Maplewood Mall.

Jess' great-grandma meanders around Macy's women's department. 

Great-Grandma (incredulously proud): Clothes always come back in cycles. These styles were in fashion when I was growing up.

Jess faces mirror in the H&M dressing room, showing off a pair of blue shorts.

Grandma: They're a little tight.

Jess: They're comfortable. 

Grandma: ...but can you run in them?

Jess: I wouldn't run in these, Grandma.

Grandma: I suppose you have loose shorts for running. I was just wondering, so you can run away from all the boys. 

Jess' grandma walks about a store, looking at the immodest outfits displayed on the mannequins, shaking her head. 

Grandma: It's a wonderful world for men these days...

Between Highlands and the St. Croix, I dreamed up another movie in my head, sewing together the stories of my grandma's past like a patchwork: her childhood on the farm, her father, the singer of Swedish lullabies, her penny dress for the prom, her admiration of her older sister, who she believed to be the loveliest creature and the night the sister almost burned down the barn with wild-eyes and a lantern, her sister Dorothy's beautiful romance with a POW, the day her older brother was shot in WWII and his spirit came to say goodbye, his hand pressed against the car's window, her courtship to a doctor whose parents scorned her, her miscarriage in the first year of marriage, her nine children, her garden, her stories, her legacy. 

Nearing home, on a familiar gravel road between two fields of rolling farmland, something caught my eye, something I hadn't noticed before. On a telephone pole scorched in half by lightning, there was nailed a wooden cross with the words: "R.I.P. Nick. 1 Peter 1:4-6." I walked closer to lift the crumpling balloon tied to it, barely inflated with the little remaining helium, to reveal the words, "We love you." Alone on that familiar road, I fell hard onto the rough gravel, fighting to keep it together. Nick, I didn't even know him, but I was overwhelmed for him, for his family, I was overwhelmed by death and its' sting, brutal like a bone-chilling winter wind cutting through skin--but then I remembered, and I stood; Jesus has conquered death. Later, I looked up the verse. 1 Peter 1:4-6:

"...to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials."

At 8PM, I climbed to the lookout and caught the sunset falling across my town. Below, the trees and lake were painted in rich shades of scarlet, green and purple, and above, the clouds spilled over into a sea of gold, looking like North Carolina at the crest of the Atlantic. Holly met me there. It was nice to be able to share it with somebody...


With my family distracted in the basement by a movie, Holly and I turned the kitchen into a Shakira party until Pink's song "Try" came on and I sang along, using the sink's extension hose as a microphone. I guess when I get into a song, I really get into it, because I don't know how I managed to turn the water nozzle on with the back of my head, but I did, and was sprayed in the face by my microphone. 

Sleeping under the stars didn't work out so well either. Sometimes, my good ideas are bad. 

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