Land Legs

Way back in the olden days of 2000, Don and I took a cruise to celebrate his 50th birthday. We lived in San Diego at the time, and we found the perfect voyage for us - a repositioning cruise (meaning the ship was changing from its winter Mexican Riviera cruises to its summer Alaska cruises) that would depart from San Diego, then bounce up the coast until we reached Alaska, then scoot around a few ports there. In all, it was about two weeks, and what a trip it promised to be. While not normally prone to seasickness, I had a terrible bout of it on our one and only family cruise a few years previous (a four-day, three-night trip to the Bahamas through a tropical depression. Who navigates these things!?!?), and I was determined to not repeat it. Ever. My doctor prescribed a magical little dot - or, more precisely, a few magical little dots - to place behind my ear, so as to prevent my repeat the scenario of me lying on a bed, praying for death, watching the little weather nav thing they had on the ship's t.v., and cursing all on the crew who refused to GO AROUND THE BLESSED THING!!! I still shudder a little at the memory....but I digress.

So, now armed with a little dot behind my ear, and a few more dots in my luggage, Don and I made our way on to this adventure on the high seas. Lo and behold, the magical dots worked!! Even when things got a little gnarly between Seattle and Victoria, I was good. I was smoooooooth. After thirteen plus days, we landed in Vancouver and were met by friends who would be entertaining us for a couple of days until we flew back to San Diego. I had felt nary an ounce of queasy - until we hit land. It seems that my entire system, from my toes to my nose - and particularly my inner ears - had gotten so used to the motion of the ocean that it was now traumatized by the...stand of the land. Okay. It sounded better in my head. Point being, I was now ground-sick. I not only was completely nauseous, I wobbled like a party girl on a Friday night. It's amazing how many walls and columns kept leaping in front of me. My mother said that I needed to find my land legs again. It took me a few days, but by the time we landed back in San Diego, I was all better and could actually pass a field sobriety test.

I have found myself in just such a metaphorical predicament the last few months. If you are a regular reader, then you know all the craziness and ups and downs of our life the past 16 months. If you are not....well, ya gotta read the stuff to catch up with the rest of the class!! Anyway, God took us on that difficult voyage - and while we never, ever stopped longing for home, we got our sea legs and learned how to get by and be grateful for His provision. When God did bring us back, and put us in this home, we got knocked sideways again by the death of my mom. The land legs I was just gaining were all skewiffy (one of my mom's favorite made-up words) again. I was still unpacking, then packing to go back to the mainland, returning home to the considerable chaos that exists with a new move, and rolling headlong into the holidays. Egad. Writing didn't just take a backseat, it was left somewhere on the curb.

While all this sounds like a fancy, wordy way to make excuses....it is just that. I told Don recently that if I am going to identify myself as a writer, then I'd best get to writin'! Don't know if sounding folksy makes me more creative sounding, but it just seemed to fit at the time. All this is to serve fair warning: the next chapter - however long God has designed it to be - will be flooding your inboxes in the next few days, with more to follow. I pray that God will use these words to serve some kind of purpose, and for His glory - not mine. It blesses me when I hear from many of you, but I will try to keep my ego in check. I can't promise that they will all be succinct. In fact, it's a good bet that NONE of them will be so. But remember....

You have been warned...