A vagabond life

I grew up in Germany…and Kansas.

The army likes to keep people light on their feet –  constantly moving.  My folks also decided that we would live far away from most other Americans – a long drive in a car, a long haul on a moped, and impossible as a kid on a bike with a banana seat. I didn't appreciate it at the time. I felt so alone and isolated.

But there was an upside. In Altbach, our neighbors, the Thuys, were lovely. They were Czech and still bore the numbers of their wartime incarceration on their arms. Herr Thuy  helped me dismantle my brother's 10-speed…though the reassembling never quite worked out.

In Ulm, I met some of the most significant people of my young life – a senior year uprooted and replanted in a tiny community at the top of the Bavarian state. Such good people. Such merry-making.

Whether Simmlingen (where my skateboard was run over by a tractor), Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Vilseck, Munich, Altbach, or Ulm, one thing was certain, we were surrounded by a culture that valued going, doing, living fully, and GETTING OFF OF THE COUCH!

Each summer, we'd begin to see the towns in the area thin out and a convoy of Mercedes pulling little campers. My dad even purchased a few campers along the way and they were so cool.

The idea of getting out and experiencing a new view…that has stuck with me. Lately…it's been hounding me like a pup once fed on the porch who always comes around hungry and sweet.

Curling up with you when you sit on the swing.

Whimpering when you walk into the house.

Grinning at you as you head out for a walk.

Ever-present.

What to do?

For most of my life, I ran.  I ran from sorrow and pain and a profound sense of aloneness – anomie. I ran from a host of insecurities and fears – festering fears. I ran from resolution and the hard finishing work of a life – the stuff that takes time and patience.

I ran from what I could not do – this transforming from fear to freedom.

Then Madi and Kenan were brought into my life and my knees buckled into a position of prayer and stayed there; I had no other resource.

Kenan and Madi announced life and hopeful intent. They – in their innocence and brilliant command of the English language – challenged me to find root.  And we did – especially in the years after our family blew apart. We found the Isotopes (wiffleball, dodgeball, kickball, volleyball, softball, & lawn olympics team), Rhonda & Johanna; Trish & Gil, and the ever-present Katie and Dave.

I finally found family.

And when my sister, Mimi, and her husband, Moe, moved to nearby Milford, Kansas, from Germany, family found us.

Now, a year of wrestling and waiting and wondering and working has me looking over the landscape and wondering what is beyond this lake-rimming town.

What do I have to offer the world beyond?

Will family find me again?

Do I have anything to offer?

I hope so, because I am no longer running from those bitter biting beasts of prey.

I am running to something.

I just don't know what it is.

But I have a sense that it has to do with "going" and moving in another direction. Not today and not tomorrow. Maybe later.

Obvious now: I'm no longer good at that…solo vagabonding.

My heart is pounding and my head feels light just writing this.

Join me, will you, on this vagabond life?

Your company and prayers will make the way true.  I don't want to go on this way alone.