Blue Skies and Barns

So something very sad happened to me today.

At my day job, I have many important tasks. Perhaps the most esteemed of my daily duties is to get the mail from the 6th floor. And while getting the mail may seem like a post-modernistic chore for a female in the new millennium, not unlike transcribing in a tight sweater for a chauvinistic boss, I enjoy gathering the letters.

I have always been a fan of the written word, and even recall as a young girl writing letters to my next-door neighbor (yes, next door) with a calligraphy pen by candlelight. I would even seal the envelope with a wax seal...I was convinced for quite a while I was born in the wrong era, hence the obsession with riding horses bareback and dressing up in hoop skirts while watching Anne of Green Gables. Aside from that embarrassing reveal, I have always loved correspondence.

I love the romanticism that a letter carries. The way a thought flows from the bleeding point of a pen to the awaiting canvas of a blank page. It's spontaneous and provides proof of human existence. In a robotic age, less and less handwriting is to be found, making it more and more priceless. There is no back space or spell check with a note. It's genuine, unpolished, just what this culture needs- a little less perfection and a little more intention.

And how can we forget the importance of mail delivery and retrieval in United States history? The unofficial slogan goes, "Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds."

And on this sleet soaked, rain pelted, snow flurried Thursday- it is a testament to the wherewithal of the United States Postal workers. The mail was there for me to fetch. So what was so sad about that?

Well, I also have the task of sorting the mail, and throwing out the garbage, because we always get advertising mailers. We got one in particular from Whitehall Printing Company today, that had a picture of the mountains and a barn on it. And I felt a tensing in my throat. A prick of tears in the corner of my eyes.

Over some barn and a little blue sky...on a mailer!

I realized in that moment how desperately my soul is seeking wide open spaces. A little room to breathe. A mountain to make me feel small. Clean, rain-scented air tickling my nose. How badly my heart misses home.

I went on a hike the weekend before last at Radnor Lake and it was the first time in a long time I was surrounded by nature. I couldn't stop commenting on how beautiful it was. I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't want to leave (granted the hike was two hours long, so I got my fill), but the point is that my artistic drive gets so easily stuck in the gridlock of common day drab. Traffic noise, ringing phones, beeping texts, news alerts, stop lights, green lights, it's such a matrix of distraction. It's tiring.

I just need one weekend in the Cascade's wearing some frayed jeans driving down Highway 2, smoking a vanilla cigarette listening to the best of Patty Griffin, Kathleen Edwards, and Dido. But my open-space adventure will have to wait, because there is a reason I am here in Nashville. Everyday, I can see little stitches being sewn across the quilt of my life's common theme. God is recreating me. This era is a patch of necessity. I know that Nashville will also be a place I miss at some point. So I am going to truly enjoy everyday that I have here.

In the meantime, I will just stare at this mailer and hope that someday I get the chance to get back to the basics- blue sky and barns.

Someday.