Where have you been God? because I've been in the wilderness.
In the old days, the wilderness meant Missoula, MT, walking around Walmart at midnight with our food stamps and our WIC checks and our wedding rings and our boy. I had panic attacks in the check-out line.
I first noticed you in my baby's face on a sunny day at a Quaker meeting.
Me and my husband, all alone in that town, thought we invented parenting. We thought we invented routines and bedtimes. We thought we were the first people to ever clean shit out of baby clothes.
Two years in that town and the only friend I made was that beautiful boy with buttery little cheeks, and you
We settled Missoula - the most beautiful place you'll ever starve to death, where you can't eat the scenery, where no one ever lived or thought of having a baby before we invented the whole thing, where God finally showed up.
But this wilderness, three states and 12 years later, was settled and sprawled out and then frozen hard. I came here once in the middle of the night when I was 19. Out the car window, I saw a colony of bee boxes and a low moon. I felt like I was on another planet.
The bible I read said nothing about other planets, but it talked a lot about hell. It was my friend Jenn though who said hell is just separation from God.
I miss you, God, in my new wilderness. My boy is so forgiving - of me, of the miles I put between him and homes left behind, of the nine city blocks I put between my home and his dad's. But he doesn't believe in you anymore, and I wish I knew when you were coming back.
In the old days, the wilderness meant Missoula, MT, walking around Walmart at midnight with our food stamps and our WIC checks and our wedding rings and our boy. I had panic attacks in the check-out line.
I first noticed you in my baby's face on a sunny day at a Quaker meeting.
Me and my husband, all alone in that town, thought we invented parenting. We thought we invented routines and bedtimes. We thought we were the first people to ever clean shit out of baby clothes.
Two years in that town and the only friend I made was that beautiful boy with buttery little cheeks, and you
We settled Missoula - the most beautiful place you'll ever starve to death, where you can't eat the scenery, where no one ever lived or thought of having a baby before we invented the whole thing, where God finally showed up.
But this wilderness, three states and 12 years later, was settled and sprawled out and then frozen hard. I came here once in the middle of the night when I was 19. Out the car window, I saw a colony of bee boxes and a low moon. I felt like I was on another planet.
The bible I read said nothing about other planets, but it talked a lot about hell. It was my friend Jenn though who said hell is just separation from God.
I miss you, God, in my new wilderness. My boy is so forgiving - of me, of the miles I put between him and homes left behind, of the nine city blocks I put between my home and his dad's. But he doesn't believe in you anymore, and I wish I knew when you were coming back.
