68 miles doesn’t sound like a lot until you think about it all in flipflops. $2 on-sale-old-navy flipflops. in the last 19 days (5 of which were spent driving long-distance road trips) we have walked a total of 68 miles (this is the distance logged when carrying my cellphone….we don’t have fitbits so in-the-house or around the yard steps are not logged.). this doesn’t seem remarkable necessarily (although walking to downtown chicago – 66 miles from here – in flipflops seems a bit daunting); if you take away the road trip days and do the division it averages 4.9 miles a day. we are big walkers and will walk places instead of jumping in the car. but, if you remember (which is beyond the scope of your responsibility or interest) i had broken my little baby toe. this was right before we went out east to visit the boy and his boyfriend in boston.
although i packed numerous pairs of sandal-type shoes i was hoping to wear, the only pair of shoes i could wear was this one pair of flip flops. every day. black flipflops. (there are many women cringing right now, thinking of how flip flops don’t go with every single outfit, but as karen told me, “flipflops are my shoe of choice in the summer” so i felt better. i kept thinking about how much space i would have saved had i only packed that one pair. (ok, make that two pairs – i totally had a matching pair as a back-up in the case of flip-flop blowout disaster.). wearing flipflops every day on our trip (and literally every day since breaking my toe) has made one outfit decision easier. and we all know that the shoe thing for most women is stressful and cumbersome when it comes to packing. jay and i exchange laughing texts when we are packing for respective trips about how many pairs of shoes we are including. what is that they say? #firstworldproblems. that’s for sure.
regardless, these flipflops have seen great days. i suspect when they finally bite the dust i will want to add them to our special box….the place we store things that are mementos from, well, everything.
the 5 miles a day or so that these have walked have included time spent on the ball field watching the boy play softball, that batting stance i watched for years, the fielding and play where i can practically see the strategy wheels turning in his brain. what a joy to see him laughing in the field or loping around the bases. my amazing son.
these flipflops have prepared dinner together with the boys on a rooftop patio, toasting with red wine, talking and sharing and watching the rain come in over the boston harbor.
these flipflops went on a merry 7 mile (brisk, cause that’s how they roll) walk through the commons and the gardens, stopping to make the boys pose for pictures and totally play tourist.
they went on the crowded T train with david standing on my left, hoping to stave off people tromping on my little toe. the one time i didn’t have them on? – when we rented bowling shoes, mine two different sizes, one waay too big so as to fit this toe oddity.
these flipflops strolled on the beach by the cape, sat by the bonfire in rhode island, found their way to lots of coffeehouses everywhere along the way (starbucks and wonderful privately-owned cafes), walked along canalside in buffalo. 
they have since walked with my childhood best friend, the one who knows my mom, my dad, my brother, my grandparents on both sides, my growing up dogs, my old bike, my shag rug in my bedroom, probably still my locker combinations. they have embraced the farmer’s market every saturday, with cherished company and just the two of us. they have been there as we geeked our way cheering, eating, drinking and visiting through the kingfish game. they have walked our crazy aussie-dog. with them on, i have laughed, i have argued, i have tripped on uneven sidewalks snorting my own self-disapproval, i have cried (leaving the boy and the girl always always makes me cry.)
there is a quote on the side of the july 2017 edition of real simple magazine. It reads, “some of the best memories are made in flip flops.” (kellie elmore). I don’t know who kellie is, but i wholeheartedly agree. linda and i were talking on the phone just the other day. she said that she and bill once again agreed that it’s every single moment that counts; we must live every single moment. how many times i have re-learned this. how many more times i suspect i will re-learn this. i expect that i will live them in boots, in slippers, in heels, barefoot. but if every one of them were in flipflops i would be ok with that. these 68 miles have rocked.
“…in the nighttime of your fear…” the lyrics of 
one of the other times becky, david and kirsten (the girl) had already crossed the stream. it wasn’t a huge chasm, but it was enough to make me think about going the “other way”. and yet, it was their faces on the other side that helped the nugget of fear i felt go away. the faces of my life.
in 414 miles our little scion’s odometer will read 195,000 miles. i have driven in it all but 250 miles of that, having bought it used-brand-new. every time we get in it for roadtrips, we pat the dashboard and say, “you go, little scion!” we tell it we believe it will easily travel to 300,000 miles, its little organic self saying, “iknowican, i knowican, i knowican.”
when i was 38 i got a package from my sweet momma. of course, it was from poppo too but he was pretty much a follower on this one. i excitedly opened the big box and there was a note inside. it read something like, “surprise! it’s about time…thought you could have one of these now.” curious, i continued to rapidly unwrap. inside this simply wrapped gift (for my momma had to mail it to me across the country and everyone knows that those sticky bows get squished when you mail them) was —- wait for it —- a barbie doll with chandelier earrings in a huge party dress with pastel flowers glued onto it! now, that – blossom beauty barbie – sounds like an unusual gift at 38, but you have to know the back-story…
it’s holy week and, from the perspective of a minister of music, this is kind of a busy time (understatement lol). throughout lent our church has had a wednesday night service preceded by a simple soup supper (i love that alliteration!), with choir, ukulele band and handbell rehearsals sandwiching around these. although a scheduling challenge, rather than feeling overwhelming, it is a breath of fresh air. full of holy moments.
outside, surrounded by mountains and the setting sun, the sound echoing off huge red rock, everyone linking arms with the person standing next to them, whether or not they knew them, was unforgettable. i can’t sing that song without that vision in my mind’s eye. he didn’t say much. he didn’t have to. he was one of the rare wise ones who knew that the holy was in the moment, not the stuff he might over-say. yes. holy moment.
things charlie brown and snoopy, a wonderful artist and brilliant mathematician, a person who could make or fix all things. he papered his walk-in closet in our basement growing up with ‘peanuts’ cartoons, cut out of the newspaper. what wasn’t covered in cartoons was drawn by hand, and when i inherited this bedroom/closet combo from him at 16, i adored it. the wallboard in our garage had drawings by wayne, making it the only ‘peanuts’ garage-gallery on the block, ok, probably most anywhere.
been cheery and boisterous. i learned about being effusive from her. she is the reason i know it counts to be effusive. each time i walk past the candle i cheer inside and i think of her.
instead, in my quieter day at home, surrounded by laundry baskets, my at-his-drafting-drawing-table-husband, dogdog and babycat, still in sweatshorts and a tank top, no shoes and no makeup, i’m thinking that maybe yesterday’s leftovers would be a better idea for dinner tonight. momma loved leftovers. they will make me think of her.
the forecast said ‘heavy rain’ so we all gathered in the living room. now, remember, this is an old house – so there is no central air conditioning and this is a summer evening with rain expected. people who are really zealous about the dew point could explain why it felt so ridiculously hot and humid, but we didn’t worry about the details of it. we just all sweated together, our ukuleles in hand, the dogdog running from one person to another getting ample dogdog attention in his nervousness about the thunder. this community of people meets weekly. during the ‘school year’ we meet at the church; during the summer we meet on our patio (ok, for you detail-oriented folks, sometimes it is inside our house, weather-dependent.) playing the ukulele in this band unites us…we strum through songs, singing and laughing, rehearsing for performances. today daena has a huge blister on her thumb. (the hazards of ukulele!) but that isn’t all. we catch up on news with each other. there are conversations about chords, strum patterns, aging parents, children living away, recipes, probiotics, new medical procedures, new pets, houses, chip and jojo and hgtv, life below zero and alaska, vacations, romances, reminiscenses, grandchildren. this community is part of who we are. i look at them in wonder. they are all so important to us. the gift of community.
reverse threading 