Dear Friend,
Frank and I are thinking of you as you venture into the next 6 ½ days that make up the week ahead. Will it be a busy week for you? Is your calendar riddled with scrawlings? (Do you even use a paper calendar)? We do have a paper calendar with us on this trip and we do refer to it especially on weeks like this when we need to see into the future in order to plan ahead. We sit together and stare into the blank squares, knowing that they will be chock-full of doings, yet to be determined. Is it a crystal ball, our calendar? No, Silly, it’s a paper rectangle, but it is just as full of unknowns.
Halloween 2023 is crawling closer and closer. I love to sew costumes and have sewn for several different people, little and big, and also for creatures of various sizes and for a plethora of reasons. I won’t be sewing for Halloween this year but I kind of wish I were. I miss having a place to do things like sew or set up my easel for big-canvas painting, and though I’m not non-productive while on this adventure, I have a myriad of interests that have been shelved while we are traveling due to a shortage of storage; we opt to travel lightly because we are traveling in a pick-up truck. But what if things were different? What if - as we were traveling by pick-up truck we were pulling a trailer behind us? What If !?
Would that allow for more creative space? Yes. Would it mean that we could stay dry and warm? Yes. Would it be a place to call ‘home?’ Would it?
What do you think of when you hear the word, ‘home?’ Does it conjure images of warmth and light, and maybe sensations like the sound of your favorite wind-chimes or the sweet smell of buttered cinnamon toast?
I think that how you define ‘home’ will be dependent on your very own life experience. Home. It’s an abstract thought, so much to it and yet maybe the word just says it all. Home. Do you picture your kitchen or hallway or garage – maybe you think of chores? Are you reminded of your living room and the upcoming holidays and how super excited you are to decorate?
Home means so many things. Things to do. Things to get. Things to store. Things to share.
And your bed is there. That’s where you eat and bathe and sleep. That’s where you live – life happens there. Is that what home means?
This year of Tracks by the Post blog/letters has been an abstract of our journey. So much has happened and you have had a window in to Us-On-the-Road. It’s been great to share this part of our year with you. Sometimes after we post the letter/blog we feel that we’ve invited you into our home. (But, as we are without an address to call home, how does that work)? We’ve even been asked, point blank, “Are you homeless?”
Are we?
It doesn’t seem so.
When we are camped in the quiet, at the side of a cliff, no other person around for miles, and we hear the swooshing sound of a hawk’s wings as she flies, at our eye-level, high over the valley floor - we’re home. When the wind blows so hard that our camp-stove refuses to stay lit or rain slides in sideways rather than falls from sky-to-earth like it’s supposed to, when a sunset is so brilliantly red that we cannot look away, or when sunrise beckons with cantaloupe-pinks, when the sun beats down and we are a mirage, when stars light our way, and on a warm night, tree frog lullabies blend into our dreams - we are home. So no, we are not homeless.
The fact that my letters to you do not always tell you everything doesn’t mean that you don’t understand what’s going on with us. Sometimes, small pieces of a bigger picture can give an observer more room for relating, so there’s more room for you to bring your own experience to our adventure; our truck only has two seats, we’d hate for you to feel crowded.
We are grateful for each day that we are able to be on this journey. We do not take this time for granted and we absolutely do not take YOU for granted!
Thank you for being here to check in, we truly appreciate your care to be here! When you have a moment or twelve, please write and let us know how you’re doing!
Gently Be,
Leslie and Frank
My thanks to Frank for these beautiful nature images and abstracts! To see more of Frank’s work, please visit FBPHOTO.com
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