Next week my son will be practicing his shot like his mother did, his uncle did, his aunt did, and his grandmother still does. Despite the drought in the Ozarks, the walnut trees have a fair production. I can hear the walnuts now, hitting the inside of the five gallon, clunking, thumping as the level rises. I can smell that tart, earthy, bark-spun aroma of hands that have picked, tossed, shot a truck bed-full of walnuts. I can remember the thrill of the earnings -- $60 split three ways for Christmas gifts or for a new jacket.
Yes, Cody leaves for a week to be a walnut farmer, and my husband is going to his new job in Little Rock. My daughter and I will have amazing quiet and time together to hopefully knit a better former pre-teen relationship.
And, when she’s away at school, I’ve been dreaming of what to do without a constant boy’s presence. My first thought was to go out with friends, get caught up, meet at the trail for walks and runs. But I woke up with a certainty of what needs to happen instead. The lump in my throat is becoming larger as I think about what needs to happen. My mind is forming concrete plans of what needs to happen. It scares me because what if I come away from it still without answers, with ambiguity like I’m living in a movie that ends still in an existential vacuum, without a clear affirmation from anything besides nothingness? A fear, not truly grounded in experience, yet, always a possibility.
So, I throw out a line of trust to God, that next week when I withdraw from other-dependence that I can retreat and focus and understand what has been clogging my soul for the last year or so. I want to be true to Him and true to myself.
Please help me prepare for a thorough cleansing; help me to seek my identity through Yours, even if that doesn’t look like everyone else’s which it probably won't. Amen.