Sentimental Journey

Hi Everyone!

This past week has been a such sentimental journey for me...I wasn't sure what to say in a blog.

Wisconsin feels like home. We moved to Wisconsin after living in Rock Valley, Iowa for the first two years of our marriage and I was so happy to be back in wooded terrain, I wrapped Wisconsin around me like a comfortor. I am happy and comforted to be back once again. Cal says simply, "I love Wisconsin."

My heart was in my throat I drove through the mist toward Mineral Point and Darlington, Wisconsin. The 18 months we lived there were highly formative. This was Cal's first job out of grad school and our first time alone in the big world that wasn't Dutch. We were both charmed and frightened. Very lonely at times and very happy at others. I remember a very harsh Wisconsin winter in a drafty old house upstairs apartment carrying my electric blanket from outlet to outlet, listening to the wind roar outside. (Yesterday, I was able to take pictures of the old place which has fallen into such disrepair that it is almost beyond rescue.) We had little money, but we had fun - iceskating on Yellowstone Lake, listening to deep sounds of clear ice cracking beneath our skates, the black trees silhouetted against the red winter sunsets. Everything was fun. Everything was new. The details I remember about that time and place are sharp and fine.

Finding a small church family in Gratiot, Wisconsin gave us roots while we lived in that area and beyond, and was an important lesson in how to find community away from home. Cal and I were growing up. It was to Darlington that Cal and I brought Rachel from the Madison Hospital - a new family. She was only 4 months old when we moved away - she doesn't remember, but Darlington is her town. All the waiting and worrying and longing was done there. The intense joy of adoption and the great loneliness of not being able to have children - both are Darlington.


I am glad to see that Darlington is prospering about as much as a small town in Southwest Wisconsin can.

Be sure to look for this courthouse in Johnny Depp's new movie Public Enemies. They filmed scenes at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Darlington less than a block from our apartment. The clock rang the hour.

We are now traveling roads in Illinois and Iowa that I have traveled before...to a funeral, on a retreat, to a family reunion, to visit friends, on bike rides... Ron is biking with Cal and that seems to make reentry into the familiar a little less of a shock.

We stayed in Palisades State Park near Savanna, Il last night...A wonderful camping and hiking park on the bluffs of the Mississippi. Tonight I am tromping in crunchy, colorful oak leaves on the Wapsipinacon River. The trees are tossing down leaves with every stir of breeze. Oh, acorns too. It smells like fall.

Thank God for memories.
Love,
Mary