After Kayla and I arrived safe and sound from our feverish road trip from NYC, we both slept for a day and then headed out to Carl Sandburg. It's such a place of healing for me. I don't think it's possible to be unhappy there. I have such a rich and beautiful story there. When I walked down that little path from the barns to the watering hole, I just felt like everything was going to be okay...that I'd be okay.
I used to get Carl Sandburg and Charles Lindberg confused all the time. I used to look at the family portrait in the visitor's center and wonder which one of those kids was the baby that got stolen.
This is Ialli in the backseat of the car as we drove up. She was so excited. She's not wearing her seatbelt (Shosha) because she somehow managed to wriggle out of it, though neither Kayla nor I can figure out how. Little Houdini!
Kayla suggested that we take turns romantically strolling down the lane. Unfortunately the lighting sucked.
My heart always lifts when I see the house peaking through that clearing.
I have strange dreams about the underside of this staircase. In my dreams, the long split-log benches are still there (though I don't think they've been there since I was a kid) and I am sitting on them...no, I'm waiting on them. I'm usually a child with skinned up knees and dirty finger nails. I'm always a little nervous, like I've just done something wrong and that I might need to sprint down the hill to escape the wrath of whoever walks through that screen door.
I think it is my dream in life to have an old bathtub full of rain. Maybe it's the trashy side of my coming out. I mean, I don't necessarily want to fill up old toilets with pansies and peperomia on my front porch, but a bathtub full of rain, I could do.
This one is me having a go at shoveling sawdust. But right after we took this picture, this horse-fly decides to try on my hair for size and I scream like a girl. I'm really not squeamish about bugs or bees, but slugs and horse-flies bring me down. I can handle a bee sting: scrape out the stinger and slap on some tobacco. But when I get bit by a horse-fly, I get this big red, puffy welt the size of my hand.
This is me pretending to scream at my imaginary kids from the back door, except the camera only caught the moment right before the scream. I have a back-door-scream baby naming policy. The name has to sound good screamed out a back door in a menacing manner. I learned the trick from our old neighbors: "Matthew David!!!!!!!!!!! Get your ass in here right this second!" Generally the more redneck it sounds, the better. By the way, my redneck name is Gloryetta Mary-Alice. I think Mark Boozer give it to me ;c)
This is Kayla pretending to get milked in the milking shed. Hath ye no dignity....
Ialli, of course, would not leave until we had gone swimming.
M'Kaylalala Reenay and Gloryetta Mary-Alice
