these vagabond shoes

the miracle of skype managed to bring my family together for mother’s day, and it was so beautiful and lovely i wanted to laugh and cry all at once. my niece, the adorable child in george’s arms, was really skeptical it was me until i made a goofy face at her and she finally yelled “aunt jean!” and then showed me how she can eat cupcakes in one bite.

i’ve had four days off, and i head to the woods again in a few short hours, but these days have been fucking wonderful. i sat on my porch for eleven hours straight, and when the sun went down, we had a circus in the yard, breathed fire and played with hula hoops. a sweet guy asked me on a real date. jennica finally got the nerve to play open mic, and the guy running it demanded she play one more, and everyone clapped and cheered. i got to swing dance and drink good coffee and consume way too many beers and glasses of wine, got wildly sunburnt, nursed a chest cold and hurt feet, followed whims and maybe broke hearts.

i am happy and satisfied, tired and dirty and red with sun. i made connections with people here and people at home i love and miss. it feels like real summer, and if this is how it might even go at least once again, i am beyond excited.

this week felt good. we woke up monday morning to inches of snow, so camping was switched for staying in a high school. sawing remained scheduled as usual.

over the course of the week, i felled nearly 40 trees in an old burn area as the temperatures warmed, and the snow melted. property owners rode by on ATVs to tell us their story about last summer’s fire, the floods the year before that, the disasters removing 10% of people in the area from their homes, and now this land is all they have. it’s overwhelming, but i am trying. there is not a single other job in the whole world i should be doing right now.

i didn’t realize my face was covered in soot until we stopped at a gas station, and i love that aspect of this, that i don’t see or think about my own face for days. but the gas station lady said it looked like i had had some fun today, and it is true. i did.

it’s funny to feel yourself going a direction, on a path.

the last few weeks have been hard. this is not last season where i was gifted this beautiful summer of hard work and mountains. instead, i am learning how to give that gift to others. i am developing my own teaching and leadership, which turns out to be a process of etching out who i am instead of the fluid change of last year.

the rewards are tangible already, though, and i find my confidence returning and my peace settling back. last night my roommate and i got silly drunk together, doing make-up in the kitchen, going out and ditching the boys on our crew to swing dance with strangers, and when my shoes were falling off my feet, i just eloquently kicked them onto a chair and kept on spinning around.

i believe in easter. i guess not really the actual religious part, but i believe in spring, and i believe in renewal. i believe in the gatherings, in potlucks, champagne for breakfast, bare feet, backyard football, banjo picking, and the first sunburn of the year.

there has been snow since october, so to have a warm week is good.

spring has always brought so much beauty and change for me. this year i am slowing down, trusting my instincts, letting myself be the smart, in tune creature i’ve found myself to be. leaving my ego behind and cultivating a deep appreciation for the life i have.

sometimes these days my confidence waivers, and i find myself lonely, missing the close friendships i have always known, and i give myself that space. find somewhere quiet. go on a hike. call my mom. find ways to love myself a little more.

last week i felled my first big tree, and then we came home to this rainbow. it’s hard to get hung up on too much.

“Nowadays, people are so jeezled up. If they took some chamomile tea and spent more time rocking on the porch in the evening listening to the liquid song of the hermit thrush, they might enjoy life more.”                                                                              —Tasha Tudor (via thankfulsagefarmschool)

(Source: hipnerd63, via theyardpdx)

we leave tomorrow morning for our first hitch— chainsaw training. sure, it will be cold and snowy, but it’s going to feel goddamn good to carry logs up and down hillsides and cook over a single flame and drink my tea at night as the sun melts down below the ridge line of wherever it is we are. i bought myself a new down sleeping bag to make sure i sleep well, and the rest is what i signed up for, getting the hell out of town and into this simple, hard, rewarding life again.

this photo is the truest thing about me.

today my roommate told me if i hadn’t been born in illinois, i would have been born in texas. it’s not a compliment or insult, but it sure did seem right.

it’s been a year since i actually went to texas for the first time, and i can’t believe the distance a year can travel, how it unwinds and curls. i haven’t talked to the girls i went on that trip with in weeks. then, montana was a nebulous idea i expressed happily and drunkenly, holding my peace sign up and stressing how in two months, i’d be gone, gone, gone, without realizing how gone i could become.

i read an essay about moving your sense of home, and the words death and rebirth were used, and i wanted to shiver with how gross and overwrought it all seemed even though it’s right, totally unfairly right. my life in champaign is dead because i chose bozeman, but i have absolutely been born differently here. 

this life is great even though it doesn’t always feel like mine yet, but being back in champaign felt inversely not mine. it is important that i remember change is a place, too. that i’m in between landing spots, but flying through the air is as legitimate as standing on my feet. that transition can fit, too.