Water and Sisters

 

Always, I am drawn back to the water. And rocks and sticks and broken bits of glass. I live by a lake, spent last winter in Sarasota Bay in Florida, I recently traveled to the north shore of Lake Superior, and currently I am staying at a hotel in Pateros, Washington spending the week with my husband who is a night shift nurse. The view from our balcony looks out over the Columbia River.

Today I sneaked out to the balcony while my husband slept. Stealthily, book and blanket in hand, I slipped behind the room darkening floor length curtain hoping I was quiet enough to not wake him while I opened the door and tip toed out. The sound of the waves lapping against the rocks was superb. That and the sunshine on my face. Words cannot express. And I read. Which always inspires me to write. 

So. Lake Superior was a fulfillment of a dream. I have been longing since I entered my forties to spend a day with my big sister. She was the one who guided me through puberty and boys and relationships till I found a brain of my own. She was the one who was there when my family fell apart. I guess you could say she helped put me back together. Only she didn't know it then. Maybe I didn't either.

I needed to see her life and how she's survived her storms. I think I needed confirmation that I would get through mine. And I got it. She has survived swimmingly. Only maybe she doesn't know that yet either. Anyway. I said, "I'm going" to my other sisters and invited them to come along with me. Four of us reunited, one couldn't leave home because of life happening in her corner, but we kept her up to date with pictures and prayers and chats.

I found out that you can grow up in the same home and not know the same things. That life has a way of doing an unpredictable finishing job is an understatement. Also that there is no right or wrong perspective when you are sisters. There's acceptance and it's okay if you turned out quirky or deep or not. That there is common ground in the wood stove, coffee, and hot flashes.

Walking the shore, we all fell into our independent single mode of searching for broken bits of glass and pretty rocks. It seemed there our souls were quiet. Like we were all wanting to be away and alone from the noise and sputters of life. 

And then, in the end, praying together about the thing that mattered most to each of us, was the kind of encouragement I could taste. It wasn't a bunch of special or unusual problems that we brought to Jesus together. Rather, it was the ordinary, mundane and tedious parts of living we brought. And somehow we all knew that praise and thanksgiving to God is the way through all of it. Amen.