Tag Archives: seasons of life

Chicago was spring, Philadelphia Autumn

Posted on by under Guest, Season & Place

I am sitting in a guest room that was once my room at my parents’ home. I’m typing away with my feet propped up on a box and my computer on top of an antique vanity that belonged to my great-grandmother. The years have cycled back, the way they do, to the first season. The room is mine again.

The red Georgia clay and the bare winter limbs on the oaks outside are part of the season that birthed me 32 years ago. I joke with my parents that I am the poster-child for the boomerang generation. Three cross-continent moves, a graduate degree, and a couple “adult” jobs under my belt, but here I am typing away at a vanity where I can see my name that I etched into the wood as a kid.

On my first cross-country move I landed just north of Chicago, a ten-minute walk from the shore of Lake Michigan. It was a land of straight and flat roads, crossing at hard-right angles until you got to the shore where sand and rocks met vast water. I had a spot near the lake—a tree arched over the edge of the water and every season I marveled at the changes there. I once waded waist-high in snow drifts to get close to the icy lake. I watched in awe as the weather changed from week to week. For the first time in my life I knew what it was like to ache for the coming of spring, to see the green shoots of grass start growing as the slushy, dirty snow finally melted.

In Chicago, the beauty of the Lake and the beauty of the architecture fed my soul in tandem. Chicago introduced me to myself in a way that’s only possible when you flourish somewhere brand new. As a suburban girl, I barely knew my neighbors, but here I passed them on the sidewalk regularly as we all walked to the train or the coffee shop or church.

When spring came, we all went outside. The two elementary school children across the street played football with their dad in the front yard, Henry the beagle and his caretaker made frequent trips around the block; I chatted with the next door neighbor about plants as I edged my lawn right next to her driveway. There was an annual block party and an Easter-egg hunt. My introverted self means I can’t tell you the names of many of these people, but I was drawn to the community and togetherness–these seeds of community burrowed into my heart.

And when the season in Chicago was done, I landed in the hills and valleys of Eastern Pennsylvania to attend seminary. Here, I would check the weather for rain and plan my life accordingly. When it rained the basement flooded and blocked my path to the washing machine for a day. The roads flooded in such a way that my old car protested and sputtered over every puddle.

But on pretty days I’d sometimes find myself on a hill in the beautiful Valley Forge National Park, textbook and pen in hand as I did my reading for my seminary coursework. During those years the theology I studied and learned began to stitch together the pieces of my life. I was desperate to know if I was changing, or just growing. Had my years as an educator and a non-profit worker,  my experiences as a single woman and a fat woman, my understanding of God learned in a suburban Southern church and an urban Midwestern church  finally all come together to produce who I was?

That last year in Pennsylvania was a bountiful harvest. I had seen the beauty of community while watching my Chicago neighborhood, I got to live it in Pennsylvania where every Sunday night neighbors gathered together for dinner. Relationships were deep and meaningful. Ideas and hopes and dreams were always close at hand. After a lifetime of not knowing what I was passionate about, I finally had answers (to some things!). There were places where I could voice a firm “yes” or “no.”

Those passions and ideas unexpectedly led me back to Georgia, a move not for work or grad school, but a choice to be near family. There is a lot that is uncertain for me about life back in Georgia. While I found a worthwhile reason to move, one that was born out of the community I experienced with people who had been strangers,  my current situation lacks the structure to define my day’s activities. There is a freedom to find what will shape my life here. It is planting season: time to sow the seeds I reaped from a Pennsylvania harvest, first nourished in a Chicago spring.

The dark wood of this old vanity and the even-older red clay outside remind me that there are roots already here. This very specific plot has nurtured my beginnings before. A harvest will come again.  Now, counting on the hope of spring and the bounty of autumn, I sow.

* * * * *

fall“Chicago was Spring, Philadelphia Autumn” was written by Nicole Morgan. Nicole has lived near Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; and in a handful of lesser known Georgian towns. She loves discovering, and falling in love with, the parts of these communities that make them unique. She currently lives in her childhood home near Atlanta, GA, writes about bodies, theology, and community at jnicolemorgan.com  and tweets away @jnicolemorgan

 

One Winter Morning

Posted on by under Home & Place

I’m sure that my home is here somewhere under all of this stuff, and so I sit in my attic bedroom and try to imagine it.

There. There is a chair under that mound of coats, smuggled upstairs for a Christmas Eve party (oh, the appearance of first-floor cleanliness!) and never returned. Next to the chair is “my” desk, which is a bit of a joke around here. I can barely see its edges under the wrapping paper, tape, and  children’s art supplies that show up as soon as I create a clean surface.

How many markers-without-caps can one family collect? I’ll let you know once our experiment is complete.

The bins of kid clothes are stacked in the corner, over-flowing with the next season and the next size. Our oldest daughter has grown an inch in two months and I vaguely remember setting aside extra-long pants in September. But which bin? I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m not up for the search right now. And then I remember. “It doesn’t matter,” I exclaim, “because it’s boot season!” The blessed boots will cover her ankles until I find those pants.

Our brand-new kitten bounds up the stairs, and I sigh-and grin- as she pounces into the room. Who gets a seven-year old a kitten for her birthday? Crazy people, that’s who. Our two older cats awake and glare from the bed. They are not amused. I can hear her tiny collar bell jingling as she weaves her way through the piles, enjoying the tunnels and hiding places that all our stuff creates.

On the second floor there are hurried footsteps and I hear our housemates’ bedroom door open and -slam!- as the kids head for the bathroom, trying unsuccessfully not to wake their parents. Their loud whispers are a familiar morning sound. Our two families have been living together for almost three years now, with four kids (now ages 7, 6, 5 and 5) between us. Currently their family of four is living in one bedroom, as they prepare to move into a newly renovated house down the street and we make room for my newly arrived brother-in-law.

Never a dull moment round here.

The kitten hears the kids-now all four are awake-and she leaves her grumpy sentinels behind, tumbling down the stairs toward the sound of laughter. The kids are beside themselves because there is a two-hour snow delay. “Two more hours to pla-ay!” one of them sings, and I hear the kitten’s bell as she joins the party.

The elder cats have re-positioned themselves on the bed and are sound asleep. “Must be nice,” I say. I look around again, readying myself to join the fray downstairs. “I guess this is why grown-up cats don’t need coffee but grown-up humans do.”

I head for the kitchen, passing the piles of clean, unfolded clothes and trying to calculate when I’ll have time today to “finish” this endless task.

Then I stop.

Suddenly, I remember that the piles will not always be there. Suddenly, I remember that home is a seasonal place.

IMG_0897I think of the kitten tunnels, the ever-growing kids, and our parade of housemates, transitioning in and out, but always leaving their mark. “And it’s good,” I declare over the laundry, “very good.” And in this moment I believe it. In this moment, just for a brief moment, I settle into my life as it is today. Here. Now. And not forever.

“Pancakes!” my husband calls, and the kids are a herd of elephants coming down the stairs. I pass the kitten on my way to the first floor, and she is purring loudly.  “Well here you are, little one,” I say as I stroke her fur, “Welcome home.”