This

I wake up, bleary.

Hoping for a few minutes to rouse courage for the day, a few moments of quiet first as the sun streams gentle in. Seldom do I wake early enough

Then I make the oatmeal, change the dirty diaper, lay out the math sheets, check the schedules, answer the questions, questions, questions, always more questions, and my mind goes numb. I try to fight it, but my thoughts slip away, through the window like there is something more out there than this – this all I have ever wanted right here with me. And I see their souls longing to escape all that we must do. We were made for freedom streaming through our hair setting our hearts ablaze. But I am their mother and I am to make sure dinner is cooked and schoolwork is complete, the groceries bought and put away, laundry cleaned – am I not? And that wild boy I married when we were young and full of play, he marches off to work each day before the light is even awake. He has made an uneasy peace with destiny and duty. Each night the children ask if he flew or filed papers, more often than not the answer is paperwork. But those days he gets to fly out over the sea or watches the sunset from the clouds, those days his eyes still light up like when he first set off into the sky.

I remember pounding through the trees, rocking between the sweaty sinews of a horse’s shoulders. I remember walking through grass high as my heart, tickling my chin and laying beneath a canopy of leaves, the trees my friends. And I remember being so lost inside the halls of a school, it felt like hell itself and I might never get out alive, or sane. I’m glad I made it through to here, and yet I long for those days when life layed out like a golden road that would lead to dreams come true. I want, I want – to know how it will all turn out, to savor every moment, to go back in time. The self help mantras about being present don’t do the trick. I need living water, I want eternal life right here and now.

My days hold driving, driving, get the groceries, take the kids to school . . .  so I turn on a soundtrack for my uncertain soul, and I drive and drive

The melodies pulse out a beat and I want to flee, into sun and sand and glorious trees. I want to forget that I have walked this earth three decades more and in another thirty years I may be dead, in another minute I may be gone. I want to scoop up my sons all golden and silly never letting go, and I want a few months to myself alone. Neither is possible so I take their hands, spelling lists and all the should do’s wait again and together we are children. Children floating amidst kelp in the sunshine, we are seaturtles and sand bears, we are free.

I can not speak this. I can not type this. My heart about to burst. The songs say it all. Each day my man and I will do our duties, lives laid down for those we love. Sometimes to make the eggs will be a joy, many times just a chore. Because no inspiring quote, no workshop, nothing will help me redeem every moment here. But we will choose real life, running off barefoot into the wild, our children leading us for they still know the way. And one day that dream I look out the window for will be made real. There is a reason we yearn for something more, He will make the something better come true.

And when I wonder if this good news can really be, always when I am doubting, my Father gives a sign, an image such as this one that cuts through my confusion and shows me truth.

Click here for some songs for an uncertain soul. The ones I couldn’t find on SoundCloud are – Alone/Trampled by Turtles, If the Brakeman Turns My Way/Bright Eyes, Ten Thousand/John Mark McMillian . You can find the whole playlist on my Spotify profile

4-13 . Canon AE1 . Provia