pleasant places

So I had expectations regarding our first family vacation in probably twelve years (if I'm counting right).

So they weren't all met with any phenomenal degree of precision (a few came pretty close).

So I struggled for 2/3 of an afternoon with disappointment and general disgruntlement about the content of the above two sentences - and subsequently got over it.

So what?

It was a splendid time.

One thing I noticed on our last day at the cabin was what a seeming overabundance of cell phones our family posesses (that word has way too many s's in it). We recently discontinued our subscription to the conventional practice of using a land line - investing instead in a new total of five cellular communication devices. (So if you've been trying to call our home phone ... that's why it hasn't been working.)

At home it really is the next thing to a necessity to have so many, with all our various jobs and errands and projects and whatnot.

At the lake, it seemed superfluous. We were all together. Why these piles of phones? They mostly lay useless on the desk all week.

Part of me wishes we didn't need them. I wish life could go back to how it was when we were little, when if one of us went somewhere, all of us went somewhere. Simplicity - that was the word.

But our vacation this year wasn't just good because it was good to be together and relax and rejuvenate next to a beautiful lake. It was fun and lovely while it lasted, but to my surprise, when it was over I was ready to go home. I realized how much I love my life - how incredibly, out-of-this-world-amazingly God has blessed me.

With strange delight, I find that I'm not dragging my feet as I return to the real world. I'm excited to get back into giving piano lessons, taking cello lessons, cleaning elevator offices, working at coffee shops, playing with my favorite kids, trying new recipes, spending time with friends, even cleaning our perpetually messy house - not to even begin to mention all the projects I really should be working on, and haven't even started yet.

And I think that's what a vacation should be for. To step back, breathe easy for a few days while you take a good look at how good you have it - and then dive back in, all rested up and ready to go.

I sat in my car for a few minutes after I got home from work tonight, listening to the last track on Judy Rogers' Psalms CD. The moon was sliced in half in the dark September sky, grey clouds drifting across. So beautiful. So unearthly beautiful.

And then I noticed that the half-moon looked like the head on a body made of clouds, and I laughed because the beauty transcended my trivial, comedic mind, and encompassed it and embraced it, and laughed with me - and I was only an echo - only a happy echo.

O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.
(Psalm 16:5-6)