Fitting in with the Family

Now that some sleep has been acquired (by basically everyone BUT myself) everyone is significantly more cheerful and calmer. Except me, who continues to be calm and extremely groggy. But, I spent the morning working for my dad over at the WAY program. Look at all the organizing I did!!

I even put the things on the top shelf on the top shelf. WITHOUT a stool or ladder, thank you!

I would like to note- this is the room I spent 12 years learning how to tap dance in.  Nostalgia for the win!

There's himself, unimpressed and wielding a power tool.

So after a morning of shoving dusty books around for Dad, there was an afternoon spent lazing about with the cat and running a quick errand. Now, how do I know I'm in America? Because our grocery store is better stocked than the Mill Bay liquor store. 

Captain Crunch and Captain Morgan's. One Stop Shopping.

Then a quick shopping trip with this crazy. 

My sister. No relation.

And together we enjoyed some spatial irony, though we did not in fact find a swimsuit that fits me. 

Burger joint, plus sized clothing store, weight watchers. A story in three stores.

After we got home, my impatient boor of a pater familius decided that we were going to go to Appleknockers for ice cream without my mother. I rolled my eyes, but to no avail. Away we went. I need to mention that this ice cream is out of this world- carrot cake flavour for my sister (it tasted like glory and had bits of cake IN THE ICE CREAM) and a banana pudding ice cream sundae for me. If I didn't have such important things like blogging to do, I would have died from the sheer joy of that sundae. Instead, I charmed a stranger into taking photos. 

Silly creatures. 

Some quiet time at home to reflect leaves me feeling a little melancholy. I find myself reaching for my phone to take a picture or send a text to island friends and have to remind myself that I can't, they are far away, we will have to laugh about it later. And when I'm on the island, I feel this way about the people here. I am truly torn between two ways of life, and there are no simple answers. In fact, at the moment, I feel as though there are simply no answers for anything right now except to keep going and enjoy what I have when I have it. Its an anxious way to live sometimes, but its what I've got. 

People ask me what I miss about Michigan. I miss this. 

I miss the long open country roads, tunnels of old elms and oaks, blue skies and grain fields edged with potatoes or green beans or soy. I miss the smell of the summer in the country, the way the land rolls gently, heritage homes as old as the county, the dappled sunlight and the amber dusk.  I miss the way that my breath knows I am home. I miss the way that my heartbeat slows, driving the back roads in the evening, in a way that I wish I could drive them forever. That would be my heaven.