Quarantined and its a first

Work has been shut down for a couple of moons now and the world has gone into this panic. The new way of living involves masks over ones mouth and a 6-foot difference in breathing space. The cause of this spatial distancing and cleanliness awareness is the 2020 pandemic known as COVID-19. I never would have thunk I would be a part of a massive society killer; a situation that attacks your respiratory system and the economy of the world. This is something you dream of on a Monday night whilst the moon lives high in the sky. The land around you shattering like glass hitting the ground and everyone running around, headless, selfless and in control of what they think they can control. It is absolutely nightmarish. Still, some of us are good at adapting and some of us are great at accepting the situation at hand, remembering it is not about our will being done, rather the choices we make in the story that is unfinished. I could go on so I will get to the point if there is one and if there is one it is this! We are home. I am home. I worked so many nights, sleeping the day away to prepare for the next shift and the next shift after that. The circumstance is terrible but I cannot help but find the good in this ripple. I am able to see my family more than I ever could, practice the art of family and communication and take advantage of the small economic world around us. It has been nice. It has been really nice. The streets are [mostly] empty and it does not feel bad filling them with our pitter-patterery of footsteps.

6 feet plus 2

It has been a chilled set of months and now we are stretching through the soil, yearning for spring - true spring. The kind of spring that warms your face and smells of rain. Little Louise has grown in ways my mind cannot keep up with. He twists and turns, smiles and cries, reaches and slobs on everything and I can not love it all enough! We also added one more under our roof. My mother-in-law Peggy, who is a superhero all on her own, watches this growing little bean when the wife and I work, work, work for meals that fatten the cats and fill our bones. It is a blessed time. More than blessed.

Louise's 1st Christmas, my 24th

There are pages in the baby book Ashley and I bought, you see, pages that need to be filled out. Pages that ask and crave ink as if to create a tale, a story about the journey down river. These persons, these pages, need an identity like, “first bath,” and “first birthday,” but we make persons where none is found! We had our first Christmas and instead of writing it down we pictured it. With the evolution of storytelling, my family did the telling through photos and poses, through food and laughter. It was a mildly cold holiday with a new holiday feel to be felt, as Louise dressed up as the present giver himself, Saint Nick.

From our walls at home to the carpets of my grandmothers we set Christmas cheer! We “ho, ho, ho’d” and “ha, ha, ha’d!'“ There was a family, generations of us gathered together under a sound roof, with sleigh bells ringing from up above and the stomachs of our eyes full from authentic Mexican cookin’ and smiles! Louise found himself in another outfit, fitted with a bow tie and suspenders that made my eyes water with joy! Ohh wee what a night. Presents unwrapped and awes unraveled, love was oh so present in the Christmas air.

I did not wait for a present under the tree this year, in fact, the wife and I put one under it ourselves. A gift from the warmest of chimneys, the deepest depths of our hearts to the world…and when I had thought I felt everything there is to feel, I was here. I was at this moment. I felt anew and fell in love all over again, again. There is God in everything we do, we see and what we don’t see. This, I can assure you, reveals it so.

The Occasional Donut

After a bit of a hiccup during my headstrong college walk, Ashley and I ventured across the Great American Plains, floating East to the start of our nations civilization. The dirt turned from brown to red and became clay. The flatlands ate and grew like sweet children into men and women, influential and sky-bound, regarding conditions we would not have before. 20 hours later we were at the start of our new journey, you see we still had the issue of the cat. I say cat because that was it was and the issue revolved around the feline and given our new but temporary home, the four-legged fur member could not stay with us at that particular time - solution? We drive the family down to Florida where my father-in-law resigned and drop off the cat, with love, until we could find a suitable home for us all. Adding another day to our journey. So, we drove. The Florida air was steamy, heavy and has no bounds with personal space. The cars just drive, people just go and we found this to become more and more true the further south we found ourselves. The ocean was cold and dad was groovy. He did what fathers do, giving us a room, food, and council, asking about our lives and where it might be heading, all the while laughing and sharing stories. It was painful to leave but our lives needed to start in South Carolina.

A bit of time went by, a couple of seasons and money gathering lead us to find our first home together. A 2 bedroom apartment with nothing to go in it was the warmest thing I have ever unearthed. More seasons go by and slowly the home became loud, lively and full of color. Something one might see as trivial but to me, to us I think, it was more than such. It was home. It was a step toward God and finding out the meaning of life. It was little but it was big.

Our new home