Kids after too long in the car!

The trees stand like skeletal black sentries against the morning’s grey sky; finishing their loving midnight watch over our cabin in the woods. With me they yawn a slow greeting to the sun who winks her reply over the ridge as she begins another race across the heavens. The only sound is the fish tank gurgling, punctuated by the occasional giggle coming from the other room, where children are trying, in vain, to sleep in.

It’s almost over, our tour of 15 families in 30 days. This is the last stop, so planned because it is always the place we come to rest. Tuesday we’ll turn the bow of the big green van toward the east and row hard for the coast. But that’s Tuesday; we still have three days left. Three days of big fun for little people in the rolling hills of southern Indiana. Three days packed with surprises to make memories for a lifetime. Three days to squeeze the heads off of one another “until next time.”

I woke up this morning thinking over the past three weeks: Beginning with a joyful arrival on the farm of the Tracy family, late nights over their dining room table laughing almost as hard as we did in college, riding obstinate horses across their rolling fields and marveling at the size of one another’s children after a year a half between visits. Then there was the visit to the Crammonds in the house my great great grandfather built; children passing through doorways where their great great grandmother was born, candy corn with the Beards telling stories of far off places, and lunch with my great aunt, who I’m happy to report still smells like shortbread and makes the best biscuits I’ve ever tasted. Central Indiana has been a whirlwind of grandparents, aunts, cousins, and a reunion with one of Tony’s high school friends and her family, who turned out to be kindred spirits. So much so that we couldn’t pull ourselves away from their dining room table until almost midnight, and even then only with promises to come again. Wisconsin found me furiously knitting socks for my great grandmother as we visited two other great grandmas, aunts, uncles and even a great aunt I hadn’t met yet, after more than 15 years in the family. It was the children’s great delight to sit for hours in the community room and assemble enormous puzzles with all of the grandmas in the building and play music for them over breakfast our first day there. Chicago was an oasis in the midst of our couch surfing holiday, dinner and music with the young Head-Jaeger family and a long morning’s sleep-in at the Holiday Inn. No trip to the midwest would be complete without a couple of days with the Gardner family. Theirs is the house we visit when we need to laugh. Mike teases Deb and I because we talk an unending streak every minute of every waking hour… but truthfully, he does too, and he knows it. By the time we got back to Indiana, my grandmother was too sick for a second lunch date, but we stopped by to drop off the socks on our way to visit the Kelly family, proprietors of The Good Life Farms. They make their living growing lettuce; truly, the best lettuce you’ve ever tasted. Deb played the violin at our wedding and it is such a joy to sit in her kitchen and watch her bake bread while her own little herd grows up around her.

Finally, we are here, with the Allisons, in Bloomington, on the futon we’ve worn the deepest groove in over the years. Our first visits here were as newly weds, then with one pink bundle whose hair stuck out in every direction, just like her Poppy’s. This visit finds the children screaming down the steep back hill in the top half of a car-top carrier, sledding on the damp, fallen leaves: “It’s like bobsledding Mom! We run and push it and then jump in and yell!” reports Ezra. We’ve been apple picking, and taken a million pictures wearing big fat wax lips that Poppy decided we needed ten pairs of. Today we visit a farm, and in a few days our van will be carrying a full load when an unsuspecting Rachael snaps the one remaining seatbelt and accompanies us back to the east coast until the beginning of December, her 12th birthday present from all of us.

I just recounted and it seems the family count is at 17, not 15, and that isn’t including a couple of new friends we’ve met along the way. The “take home message” (to quote my friend Buddy) of these whirlwind tours is always how blessed we are, to love and be loved by so many. I can think of ten more families we’d like to have stayed a night with who we didn’t even get to see this trip. No matter how much time we have, it’s never enough. Even so, today is all we really have. The tips of the tree tops are turning pink now as the sun warms their fingertips, cold after the long night’s watch. Ezra just appeared to inform me that “Poppy said we could play fusball this morning… we’ll play quietly, no loud clacking!” I mentioned that he might like to wait about an hour and read instead. Mimi has appeared and is washing the remaining dishes from last night’s salmon feed. The men are still wrapped in their blankets, trying to muster the courage to lead the charge for one more day. Today we celebrate Sam’s birthday: a trip to a farm for a picnic, dinner out followed by late night laser tag; a ten year old boy’s dream. There are lots of things I could do with today, but nothing else I’d want to.