Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part V. LETTING GO

Chapter 43. Wherever You Go

Bubba is a wise man. I believe the same things about life that he does, with one important exception: Bubba taught us to never quit. Growing up, it was important to think twice before taking up gymnastics or the viola, because you knew you would be turning cartwheels while fiddling at your own funeral. I have a different opinion about quitting. I think that sometimes quitting is exactly the right thing to do. Quitting something that’s not working requires self-awareness and courage. So Craig and I decided to go for it. We quit.

We responded to a feeling down deep in our souls, in that place that won’t be ignored, that our family needed a big change. We needed cheaper, simpler, and slower. I was drowning in the details of suburban family life: the PTA meetings, birthday parties, fundraisers, thank-you notes, athletics, playdates, girls’ nights out, and storytimes. I felt like a girl on a roller coaster who preferred to be pulled along gently in a red wagon. Lyme has taught me to pay attention to what I need and to honor each of the deep desires of my soul, in case God put them there as the stepping-stones toward my best life. My soul’s desire is to live in a place that matches my insides. My insides are slow. I wanted to live in a place where it’s okay to be slow.

I wanted time to enjoy my kids and read and write and pray and heal, not just from Lyme, but from everything. I wanted fewer options, less noise, fewer cars and stores and outings that require dressing nicely. I wanted more space—not walk-in-closet space, but I-can’t-see-another-soul space. I wanted more empty time. I wanted to know fewer people more intimately. I wanted to go to a small-town church every Sunday morning. I wanted there to be fewer things I had to buy. Fewer meetings to miss. Less, less, less. I wanted my family back. So after we sold the house, we moved. We pulled our kids out of school, packed our bags, and rented a little house on the Chesapeake Bay in a Norman Rockwell town in which the only store is the ice cream/gossip shop. It’s everything we dreamed it would be.

It’s Family. We’re a WE here. Instead of five I’s, we’re a WE. What little there is to do, we do together. We watch Chase stroll down to our dock with his net thrown over his shoulder like an Asian Tom Sawyer. We watch him catch NINE SHRIMP, MOM! and we clap and hoot and holler. We drive our golf cart over to Bubba’s and Tisha’s to sell Bubba the shrimp. We let Amma do the driving. She’s little, but she can maneuver our golf cart like nobody’s business. We giggle with Tisha while Chase and Bubba haggle over shrimp prices, finally settling on ten cents a shrimp. Bubba hands over the ninety cents, grumbling about inflation. We all know that the second we leave, he’ll pour those shrimp right back into the bay.

We have roadside time-outs in cornfields. Nothing fixes a whiny road trip faster than pulling over and placing a shocked Melton bottom firmly between two stalks of corn. I smile and wave to the concerned passersby, while Tish screams, “MOMMY! YOU CAN’T JUST DO THIS! I’M IN THE CORN!!” Still, I’ve found more space in my day and heart to let Tish be Tish. If the girl wants to spend thirty minutes deciding which pair of wool tights to wear to the beach on a ninety-degree day, so be it. We’ve got time. Time to notice how beautiful she is with a tan, how brave she is when she jumps off the dock into the bay, how gentle she is, so often, with her baby sister. I’m learning, slowly, that Tish is not just a challenging part of my day; she’s a whole person, with her own days. Some of her days are harder than others, like mine. I’m noticing her more.

And Sweet Amma. Amma is growing up, out, and away. She gets angry fifty times a day, and she points at me in the midst of her fury and screams, “I HAS A SAD AT YOU, MOMMY!” And right there, in that accusation, I see that our separation has begun. Amma has learned that not only am I not the solution to all of her problems, but perhaps I’m the cause of them. So she flails and kicks on her time-out chair screaming, “I SO FWUSTWATING!!!!” To which I reply, “Oh, sweet girl. I couldn’t agree more.”

On Wednesday afternoons we sit on our front porch steps, licking popsicles and waiting for a glimpse of Craig’s red truck coming down Main Street. Then I watch my babies jump up and down as Craig climbs out of the truck and prepares for their attack. I watch Craig struggle to untangle himself from their sticky little hands, so he can get to me first. I take in his suit and tie, his shiny black shoes, his cologne, and I know that over the next several days, he’ll transform from business man to outdoors man. His clean-shaven face will get a little scruffier each day. The smell of cologne will be replaced by sweat and salt and sunscreen. His button-down will be replaced by nothing but dark, smooth skin and tattoos. Tattoos that mean family.

It’s me. Something’s changing inside and outside. I haven’t bought a thing for months and can’t think of anything I need. I haven’t waxed my eyebrows or painted my nails or used a hair dryer for sixty-three days. I like figuring out what I actually look like. A little shabby—but not TOO shabby. No complaints from Craig. I read a while ago that it’s not how a woman looks for a man that matters to him, but how she looks at a man. I’ve been testing that theory. So far, so good.

It’s church. Our tiny church is a few steps from our house, so we walk every Sunday. Tish walks to church carrying her hot pink purse and tripping over her silvery glitter slippers. Fancy shoes and purses are Tish’s favorite part of God.

On Easter Sunday we sat beside a teeny elderly lady who looked as if she’d been getting ready for the service since Good Friday. I admired her sculpted white curls, her tailored suit, her pale pink fingernails, and her delicate hands, which were wrapped around a snazzy pink plaid clutch. She wore a pearl necklace with matching earrings and perfectly applied cotton candy lipstick. During the service, I looked down at her ankles and noticed a blue crab peeking through her nude hose. She saw me looking and winked at me. My heart skipped a beat. I missed the entire sermon thinking about her. I’ve decided that dainty tattooed elderly ladies in church pews are my favorite kind of people ever. I can’t wait to be one.

And it’s the church bells. The first bells chime at nine, and then every three hours for the rest of the day. We can hear them from the front yard, from the dock, from the living room. I love them because they’re beautiful, and because they remind me every three hours to wake up and say thank-you. Hearing those bells makes me feel like God’s got his eye on our little town. Or at least our town’s got its little eye on God. It feels cozy. It feels like all of us who hear the bells are in this life together.

It’s the small town attention to detail. It’s harder to pretend that people or moments are dispensable here. You have to be careful in a small town. If someone has a barking dog, or is driving too slow, you should not give the dog dirty looks or cut the slow person off. Because then you will forever be The Lady Who Gives Dogs Dirty Looks and Cuts People Off. There is no anonymity here. People are responsible for their actions. And if you don’t like your neighbor, well you best find something you like, because nobody’s going anywhere. There’re just not enough folks to keep trying people out until you find one who matches you perfectly. I’m learning to practice what I preach to the kids: you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.

Once, in the car, the radio station paused midsong to announce that a little boy named John had lost his dog. The dog was black with white spots and answered to the name of Rudy. Apparently John was extremely distraught. So could everyone keep an eye out and call the station if anybody saw Rudy? Then the all-call was over and the song resumed. I started crying a little. Chase heard me and said from the back seat, “It’s okay, Mommy. They’ll find Rudy.” I told Chase that I knew they would. I was crying happy tears because I didn’t know there were still places where lost puppies and heartsick little boys were worthy of interruptions.

Another time, our minister, Valerie, asked our tiny congregation for announcements. An elderly lady in the choir stood up in her shiny blue robe and held a spoon in the air. Not a special serving spoon, just a plain, metal cereal spoon. The dainty elderly choir lady said very slowly, “I think someone left this spoon at my house. If it’s yours, I’d like to get it back it to you.” My eyes widened and searched the sanctuary, expecting to see the knowing smiles of people tolerating this woman who was boldly spending their precious time on a single spoon. In fact, everyone was smiling earnestly at the choir lady and the spoon, including Pastor Valerie, because they were both theirs. The choir lady and the spoon. And they, the choir lady and the spoon, deserved to be treated with respect. And I thought, Oh, my. I have much to learn from these people. They know that God is in the details. They know that old ladies and lost spoons are infinitely more important than time.

It’s the land. Here, there are not six degrees of separation between God’s creation and our survival. Bubba introduced us to the local watermen, and we watch them take their boats out each morning to catch the fish that we eat for dinner, the fish they sell to feed their families. Chase has gone fishing with these watermen twice, and each time he’s caught a week’s worth of dinner. Our freezer is full of rockfish, and when Craig grills and serves it, Chase watches us chew each bite, pride puffing up his teeny chest. He’s also met the local farmers and visited their farms, and as we pass by the crops, he examines them and says things like, “The corn is looking a little short, Mom. It should be knee high by the Fourth of July. We need some rain, Mom. Rain is what we need.” Then at night he prays for rain for his farmer friends. He is starting to know the people who work the land and the water to feed America. He’s learning how it works. That real people and real miracles put his dinner on the table.

In the absence of buildings and highways, it’s easier for me to remember God’s providence. Living here is a constant reminder that God made it all, and what God made is enough. Enough to feed us, to entertain us, to satisfy us. Back home all the concrete and highways and business and hyperorganization tricked me into believing that we must provide for ourselves. That we must stay very, very busy in order to keep things running. But we don’t, really. We can just do our work for the day and then watch things grow.

It’s the water. There’s a glass door at the back of our house that frames the bay inside of it, and I’ve watched each member of our family stop in his tracks at that door, look out at the water, and sigh. Even Amma sighs at that door. It’s as if our bodies are designed to stop, relax, and appreciate the water. There’s a lot of sighing going on here. Tish lies on the dock, the sun lightening her golden brown hair, the blue water and sky swallowing her up. She says, “AH. THIS IS MY YIFE.” She means “this is the life,” but I don’t correct her.

Sometimes, early in the morning, I sneak out to the back porch with my coffee and C. S. Lewis and listen to the bay wake up. I never get much reading done, because I find myself silently repeating, “thank you, thank you, thank you.” Something about water helps me feel grateful. Whether it’s a glass of ice water, a warm tub, or the bay.

In the evening I stand in the kitchen, cutting local veggies while Craig chases the kids around the house. They laugh until they can’t stand anymore, so they flop down and roll on the kitchen floor, holding their bellies. I look out the back window to the water and sing along to my country music. I realize that my life matches my music now. This is all I needed—just a safe, pretty place to let my faith, family, and bangs grow.