takes a truckload of faith to get by

well, it's official: i'm homeless.

i avoided it for a year. but now it can no longer be. 

not the same of course, as those living on the street - really homeless. my god. i have not only my family's house to crash at but i also have my car. still, though, it's unnerving.

i could be living somewhere else i suppose. i could have watched the ads, saved up some money, moved into a room in someone's house yet again. but i decided not to. i'm worn out from it; not just the moving but the acclimating to the people, their habits and peculiarities. which is putting it nicely on my part.

just tired of it. not bad mood tired, just weary. sitting here in a corner of amy's sweet little kitchen i can hear jake playing guitar and singing downstairs, down the break-a-leg steep stairs to the basement where he's set up his bed and, between the two of us, seven guitars. jake's gotten good those years spent in the army practicing; seems another lifetime when he lived with cat and amy in idaho and once, while visiting i taught him some chords and the minor pentatonic scale. i enjoy taking this initial credit though jake's far surpassed anything i could have taught him. he's natural. he's very good.

so here, our little family. i got here before dinner and brought chicken and potato salad and some chips, a picnic meal though we ate it at the kitchen table since the rain was once again pelting down. j and me, that is, nobody else was ready to eat. i scooted into the corner and j wanted a chair next to me so he moved the dehumidifier out of the way, shoved the table a bit, and pushed his chair up next to mine. we ate and read the books i'd brought from the library. sweet, good-times books. 

in the driveway a fourteen foot u-haul unloaded now, with the very last of all the idaho stuff. this was their last trip, gathering jake's things and some of their own and, apparently, a tote or two of mine from a couple of years ago when i cleaned out my studio and stuff with them in yet another u-haul. lord. moving, moving. too much. maybe we're settled here for awhile. i hope so. it's teeny small but we know how to move around each other.

company in the living room, a young woman i think i've met, who's come for jake. already, in just a couple of weeks, the girls know where to find him. it's good to have him back safe and sound. four years was a long time with worry on my mind.

so here, this family, all connected to cat in some way. what a thing of beauty, all of us loose jointed and agile, able to move fast and hard when we have to which has been a great deal of the time. 

but now it'll chill. so many pasts put to rest; both long hauls iraq and idaho, and me with my own.


summer will finally arrive and the grass will grow in the yard whenever the sun finally warms the seed, and we'll sit outside with the guitars and the river just down the road. j will continue to grow up too fast for my liking but i will, as i've learned, keep all those types of things i know to myself. i've taught them what i know about scanning a horizon. they no longer need me to remind them.


see you next time,
love,
ruthie