It's been almost two weeks since my last post! TODAY'S BIG STORY: I am migrating! This past week, I moved into a temporary residence closer to my parents' home and right next to a church. I am now residing near a charming small town called Walnut Grove. The church is charming, the people are charming and my house is charming, and I am so happy to be here for this season of my life.
I have so much to write about that I don't know where to start. My last post was about birds, and I am still thinking about their migrating habits today. Basically, birds migrate for two reasons - survival and mating. I think we humans kind of migrate for the same reasons, in our own expanded version.
I recently watched a program on television about a man who has built a business clearing out foreclosed houses. He said that when residents are removed from these houses, they leave behind expensive china, flat screen televisions, personal possessions and saddest of all, their children's toys. He stated that when he started the business, he employed a couple of people and cleared two to three houses a month. He now employs a large staff of people and barely maintains a schedule of two to three houses per day. The report stated that, at present, there are more than 1.5 million foreclosed homes on the market. I could hardly bear the thought of those families being forced to load up their cars and to leave behind everything that had once been normal.
Even though I could not empathize with the harsh reality of being removed from a home, our family has moved from some really great homes. Plus, I did feel a little like a homeless transient over the Thanksgiving holidays. Because our family is trying to maintain residences in three counties, I did not have furniture or dishes or pictures or any of the comforts of home for the holiday week. We could have traveled to the beach house and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving meal cooked with my own Townecraft pots, or we could have gone to the college apartment and have eaten a Thanksgiving feast on our family dining table. Ultimately, we spent Thanksgiving with my parents in a home that we had given to them. We had a country feast of baked ham, squash dressing, sweet potato casserole, green peas and fresh red potatoes; however, for the first time in years, I did not cook one single recipe. I even bought a pecan pie and cheese cake from a grocery store to take as my desserts.
Because...back at my rental home, I had empty cabinets, no television (which meant no Food Network, no SEC football and no Macy's Parade) and plastic storage tubs for chairs. My husband, kids and I spent the weekend moving what little was left in storage, and we slept on the floor. Although we know where all our "stuff" is, we still felt a bit detached, small and insignificant. And yet, every single one of us felt good about the move.
That's why I am thinking about those migrating birds. According to the book Seabirds of the World by Ronald M. Lockley, "That migration is such a common strategy amongst birds indicates that it must be a successful proposition. The tendency to migrate would quickly be lost from any population of birds if it led to unacceptably high losses....To the birds, as they have evolved through millions of generations, flying comes easy and the option to migrate is one that very many choose. Once more, thinking of the migration option in human terms, the risks seem enormous. Can the bird store the energy to make the flight? Can it navigate correctly to reach its destination? Will there be the proper food supply available when it gets there? Will it be able to make the return trip to the breeding grounds for the following summer? So many hazards still seem to put the migrant species at a disadvantage compared with one which is to scrape an existence at 'home' during the winter."
I just love this writer and this book! I can relate so many of our family moves to the migrations of birds - all the energy required for moving, navigating a new place, finding the best places to eat and always routing the quickest way back to everybody's homes. Even though we are uprooted and detached and unsettled, we anticipate this current move as a 'successful proposition'.
In another book, Bird Migration by Chris Mead, the Greek historian Heroditus calls men and horses "the dwarf race" as they live in caves; however, the "Cranes furthermore do things with prudence, for they seek for their convenience distant places and fly high that they may look out far, and, if they shall have seen clouds or a storm, betake themselves to earth, and take rest on the ground."
During Thanksgiving, I felt a kinship to that dwarf race - missing all the materialistic comforts of my conventional cave. But, I also hope to borrow some lessons from the migrating flight of the cranes: Do things with prudence (calculation, foresight, providence), seek out distant places for my convenience, fly high for the best view, and keep my feet on the ground when the storms are inevitable.
Dianne ; )
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