During the month of May my family succumbed to the Whole30 eating plan, which was equal parts crazy and brilliant. Brilliant, because we were moving, so I was able to either toss or give away everything that was non-compliant with the plan, but crazy, because we were moving, so I was also packing up the kitchen and cooking became more and more difficult as the month wore on.

Still. We did it. And now that we’re traveling for three weeks, we’re kind of in a maintenance mode until we settle again, at which point we will likely do it again. For a stress eater who is under a tremendous amount of stress and not able to eat all the things, I needed another outlet. I began cross stitching again, a craft I haven’t done in easily fifteen years or more. I called it stress stitching and I just completed my second project last night and prepped for a third. It’s been a great project during this interim stage of living, as I can stitch while conversing with people, or while watching a movie, or while traveling if I’m not driving (this is less likely because we’re moving with two vehicles and I’m usually driving one of them). Still, it’s been good and I’m liking the mental release it provides while simultaneously producing a tangible outcome, one I’m happy with, one I will frame once we land somewhere again.

Ah, the blank slate. It’s a metaphor for the summer, really. As we put more and more distance from the physical location of Oklahoma City and the pain that locale still represents, I find myself thinking about the pain of the past few months less and less and thinking more about the people we loved while there, who loved us too, who we will miss (are missing), as well as the hope of what it is to come. There is healing in the distance that I’m not sure would ever be able to come without it.

As we look ahead to what is to come, I’m finding a scary hope spring forth in my heart that our family is entering into a season of jubilee and God will put a spiritual salve over our hearts and heal so much of the hurt. I’m not so naive as to think we will never be hurt again nor never hurt anyone else again, but the blank slate makes me hopeful in a way I haven’t been for a long time.

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
We are headed north

One foot in and one foot back
But it don’t pay to live like that
So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks
For never to return

Ah Bozeman Bozeman take me in
Are you aware the shape I’m in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Bozeman Bozeman take me in