The Given Good

losses, lists, & letters from Alaska

My inlaws took us to Alaska for solstice, where the sun glanced off the horizon at midnight, but it never got dark. We hardly slept. Daylight blazed unapologetically all week; we staggered about in it like drunken sailors. We’d flown across an endless snowscape to arrive on the surface of another planet. Immensity swallowed us up. Profligate wilderness engulfed us at every turn. Scenic views bombarded us in excessive proportions. We ascended a frontier so remote our wi-fi signals surrendered, leaving us to long forgotten modalities of interaction. We gaped at nouns so vast they obliterated other parts of speech. Mountains, glaciers, forests, skies. Icy rivers, lavish distances, phytoplankton blues. Moose. Mosquitoes. Puffins. Otters. Trumpeting humpback whales. Platefuls of halibut and reindeer sausage. Ginormous gardengrown lettuce leaves. A post office in back of an ice cream shop, if you can believe it.

All this, but a small sliver, a mere taste, filled us to bursting.

Independence Mine

“Alaska was wide and cold and glorious. Elanor made a snowman in June. Brett fished in the sea.”

—from a letter to Heather Cadenhead

“Would go again, but for longer. Do less. Take in more.”

—from a letter to Dana Ryan

“The air smells like pine.”

—postcard to Kristen Kopp

Wild Roses Literally Everywhere

Adventure achieved. ✅

Alaska People

See fb for more photos of wildlife, glaciers, and solstice beauty

Back before our passage north, I sailed south to Nashville again for the company of my favorite penpals. Brett came with this time—I wanted to show him the Manor. His presence was a gift, as were Georgia watercolors, California limes, and a table spread with Tennessee pies. To no one’s surprise, courage confetti and chocolate chip cookie comfort abounded beyond reasonable capacity. For, when storytellers grant one another explicit permission to do what we were made to do, “the heart rears wings bold and bolder.”¹

The week before that, Elanor slipped the surly bonds of earth—and by earth I mean twelfth grade. Wellwishers will ask what’s next. The gist of it is, though, she’s more dreamer than planner. And can any of us fault her when almost every congratulatory card and napkin brandishes Someone Else’s plans in the form of Jeremiah 29:11? On the weekend my last substack posted, I drove down to Des Moines for a “Concerning Hobbits” party, where friends feasted on mushrooms, scones, and ginger beer; exchanged charcuterie boards and floral crowns; and (most importantly) read aloud from Tolkien’s Prologue. I coped with the end of my homeschool career by polishing off a high school transcript, packing my bags for the aforementioned escapades, and popping into post offices unannounced with my fellow pilgrim and postpcript podcaster. During all this, Brett finally received his substitute teaching license mid-May and subbed every single day for the remainder of the school year. For two weeks he got to sample the whole K-12 range of grades, subjects, and schools in Owatonna, living his best extravert life amid the clamor and drama of students and staff, then stepped from the bustling swirl of classrooms and hallways and parking lots—into emptiness. Another summer of the unknown.

In the final days of homeschooling, I reread Perelandra. At times, even there on that planet’s surging surface, one joy is expected and another is given. The Lady Tinidril tells Ransom, “You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other. . . . And this, O Piebald, is the glory and wonder you have made me see; that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it.”

Out of my own heart come anger and doubt. The desert sojourn has taken its toll. Lord, what are you asking of us??? Was I wrong to believe you called me to write, to make home on the prairie, to take the road less traveled by? My anguish casts about for who to blame, usually landing on myself, which is no better than accusing the one who formed me in my mother’s womb. Didn’t I trust you? Didn’t I obey? Wasn’t it enough? I rail, as though existence is a transaction. If only I could be more like Ali Kendall who, when disability is bestowed, doesn’t ask Why, God? She is too excited wondering How? I am full of Whys. I am like the old woman who lived in a shoe. Caught in a loss that seems formless and void, too close to trace the contours of its shape, I am learning, like Tinidril, to name the contours of mine instead.

“I thought,” she said, “that I was carried in the will of Him I love, but now I see that I walk with it.”

The past year’s losses are my given good. The stones are still sharp-edged, but they are sturdy. Good for building alters with. Flimsier sediments crumble away. This place and these people are my chosen poverty, an impoverishment teeming with secret abundance. Limit and need drive me past the breakers of desperation to the further shore of faltering faith. No, existance is not a transaction. Existence is miracle.

When I go to bed, I lay my head on Brett’s chest and list outloud beloved pieces of furniture, appliances, and creatures. Bookshelf. Chair. Desk. Sofas. Picture window. Porch swing. Clothesline. Coffee pot. A stainless steel under-the-counter refrigerator. The stove we got for free. Salvaged bricks, a barndoor. Our one working wheelbarrow. More ladders than seem necessary. Jubilee tractor. Broken mower. Finicky washing machine. Various chipped mugs. Currently bare pantry shelves. Currently blooming flowers. The names of two dogs and five chickens. A newly adult daughter. With my ear against the metronome of my husband’s heartbeat, I gather my gratitude until sleep presses the gate shut. The given good is better than I thought. And the joy expected—that first fresh original joy—is still unfurling its tendrils out across time toward us.

***

In the time spent drafting this post, a tendril has uncurled.

It happened so inconspicuously, without any fanfare whatsoever, it was nearly imperceptable. Brett went to pick up some free barnwood. His old supervisor lived next door. The supervisor knew about a job. The job, it turned out, wanted Brett.

I will hold this outline loosely. I’ve decided not to alter anything above the asterisks. None of it was untrue. All of it needed to be written. There is always more. There are canyons yet to be carved by the river of writing. Questions to live. Postcards to send. Furniture to list. I could go on and on and on, but for now I’ll just go on and on.

You get three whole gift options for my birthday this week:

• listen to me read you a story on The Habit Podcast

• suggest a song for my July playlist

• write me a letter 💌

1. “Hurrahing in Harvest”