Displacement

My heritage is Cajun. I learned French as a kid and can still understand most of it now, used to write poetry about missing the great big waters during my teen angst years. That bit is ironic given my anxiety over being on a boat in deep water.

Perhaps it is in my blood though to long for a homeland. The Cajuns were themselves displaced from France and then Acadia.It is an interesting history. The few times I have felt at home have been in Louisiana, now and then I will get a whiff of the air and long for the damp chill of a Louisiana Christmas, or end up cooking chicken stock overnight and long for a pot of slow cooked gumbo.

I have BeauSoleil Avec Michael Doucet on Pandora right now. This music makes me feel at ease and creative and so many other things.

I know that one of the things that made me fall in love with our farm was that to get to it the highway rolls through a marsh and a river greenbelt that is very swamp like. There are crawfish mounds in the pasture and a flat bottom boat put up near the dock. I feel at home here in a way that I did not in the city, but a meme I was tagged for on facebook asked, "if you could live anywhere, move there, where?" Immediately I thought of the swamps with the dark, shadowy pines and cypress near Iowa, Louisiana. Ironic. It is pronounced (I-Oh-Way not I-Oh-Wah.)

So as I am up late again while my employers server is down AGAIN, I got to thinking about displacement. I carry this place in my heart, home is where the heart is, and I make my home where I am, where my family is. Luckily we have facebook and the Internet to stay connected, to strengthen bonds faint from distance. There is much to be grateful for.

Tomorrow: Gumbo.

Ok, so the cat caught a really loud mouse last night and tortured it under the bed. It was so loud I thought it was a bat or a bird or possibly a Nutria. Seriously. It woke the baby up too and all she wanted to do was get down to see and her complaints of my efforts to get her back to sleep woke Lil'Bug up. I then woke Chad up to make it stop (kill kitty's victim mercifully) and his antics allowed the tiny little mouse to escape. Then the cat complained loudly for the next two hours.

Let's just leave it at, I am tired. So very tired.

Last night I harvested 5 cabbage heads, 7 zucchinis, a meal worth of green beans, a meals worth of yellow peppers, and a salsa dish worth of tomatoes. Today I will be making pork egg rolls and Nachidotious Meat Pies for the freezer. Yum. Also on the list are pies for my Dad's 2nd visit this afternoon.

Cow Girl Up

My princess. Her first horse ride and lesson. Oh was she excited. She dressed in a special outfit, donned her horse boots, and was so joyful with anticipation she could barely form sentences-which for those of you who know her, you know that is a rare occasion.

A great love affair has begun. Every penny she finds has been going to the piggy bank for "her horse" and she knows it will be years.

Thank you Green Ranching Mom for a delightful evening!

Inertia

So my very wise husband and I were discussing a friend the who went to college for one thing, got a job in that one thing then quit, wallowed for a bit got another job in that one thing and quit again and is now perpetually unhappy in the job they now have in a totally unrelated field. Why on earth would someone go to school for something that's not a good fit for them? I asked. Inertia. Once someone gets going on a path it can be really hard to get off, he so wisely replied. Sometimes it is easier than changing paths or pursuing something else.

I smugly thought, Oh good. I am so glad I am not like that. Whew.

Right. Inertia is a law for a reason. It does not discriminate.

Sure I pursued higher education in my chosen fields and again for grad school and then chose after a bit to change paths and be a mom and a professor for a bit. I think it was easier for me because who I am was not tied up in my degrees. I'm a mom and a writer/creative, external jobs were just extra. Now, those of you who have been reading this blog know that the path for me from there to here was not as simple as that. I did my fair share of releasing those labels to embrace my identity, but the actual doing just happened. But perhaps it is not as easy for others.

What I am getting to though is not about career paths though, that's just a ramble to delay my confession. Inertia kept me on a path away from my family and their conflict. It started with a petty argument and then an epiphany. As a newly pregnant mom about 5 years ago I asked for some boundaries and some breathing room so as to deal with a higher risk pregnancy than normal and those boundaries were stomped on almost immediately. So the lines were redrawn and reinforced. It was hard at first but soon the line was a wall and ultimatums were made on both sides. Honestly the longer we were apart the healthier I became physically and emotionally. I missed my Dad the whole time but I understood the bigger picture and the importance of my well being to becoming a good mom. It was more about me than anything else, but the longer I examined the why's and what's I became angrier and angrier and more set in my decision to stay away from her. Infrequent bouts of hurtful things she'd do reinforced my resolve.

5 years later.....my sister's wedding shifted our perspective. My husband decided in the middle of the reception to leave and go get our girls. It meant the world to Aunt Bee on her wedding day, to my grandmother who'd never met them, to Aunts and Uncles who'd never met them, to my Dad who never met them. There were so many tears.

Perhaps it is time to look at the map again and replan our route out of this brokenhearted place. I am still not ready to have a relationship with the person who creates such hurt and anxiety in my life, but perhaps the healing can begin with other parts of my family first. Inertia is a hard thing to break from so of course this will all move very slowly, like one of those old sci fi robot machines that creaks and rumbles back to life. A little care, a careful path and the old machine works again. Let's hope it's not a Killdozer.

So that brings me to last night. My Dad and I had our first visit in about 5 years. We had dinner at the farm and chatted about school, work, and food. It was so very good in so many ways. Tonight we are eating Boudain, extra spicy with a side of Community Coffee.

Honestly, I am probably not going to write much more about this topic or healing because it is intensely private. But still, that's what is happening down at our little farm.

Here's to healing! (And to wise husbands!)