A different turn...

Usually I blog only about tugboat stuff and how our life revolves around this crazy life as a tugboat family. This post, however, is taking another turn.

 

River life is weird...and tug life is even weirder. It's a constant ebb and flow... up and down...back and forth...in and out. We are constantly trying to plan events and get-togethers around this schedule of coming home and leaving again. Even holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving get moved around...and celebrated when we can be together.

This past weekend was no exception. For the last few years, Butch/DeckBoss's family has been organizing an informal reunion/family get together. Last year in January, we all went to a gigantic house in Blue Ridge GA. It was cold but a lot of fun! The house was in the Blue Ridge mountains and we had a lot of fun playing board games, talking, eating, and catching up on each other's lives. This year we went to Lake Wedowee in Alabama. We had 2 lake houses side by side. The lake and views were gorgeous and the weather was perfect!

We arrived late Friday night. Let me just say that calling the week before this "difficult and emotionally draining" would qualify as the understatement of the year.  Friday night on the way to the lake house, I had an asthma attack while I was driving on these mountain roads. Scariest. Thing. Ever. Luckily, it was minor and I was able to pull over into one of the 18,000,000 church parking lots around here and Butch took over driving. A few rescue inhaler puffs and I was ok. Terrified.....but ok. When we got to the beautiful lakefront home, it was about midnight. We went to our room, took a hot shower and crawled into bed.

Oh my.

Hello heaven.

What is this wonderfulness???

The bed had a memory foam topper over the mattress. The memory foam topper had a pillow top mattress topper. There was a fluffy down alternative duvet to cover with.

I swear....I slept on a cloud that night. A giant, soft, puffy, fluffy cloud from Heaven. For the first night in a really long time, I slept through the night in incredible peace and comfort. When Butch woke me for breakfast....I REALLY didn't want to move. I was cradled in comfort and peaceful warmth. But......bacon called me 😃.

After breakfast all the guys and some of the girls went to some private property owned by one of the cousins to shoot guns and blow stuff up. The rest of the girls went to Dollar General. (Hey, it's the South. It's what we do.) I stayed behind to cook chili and cornbread for dinner.

As the chili simmered, I went out on the deck. I sat in the sun and breathed. I breathed in the beauty of the blue sky and the glistening lake. I breathed in fresh mountain air. I breathed in the sound of the acorns dropping on the wood deck and the leaves blowing in the cool October breeze. And I breathed in.....the quiet.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day a quote that said "The quieter you are, the more you hear" At the time, I took that to mean that if you are spending time with a person, you hear them more if you listen and don't dominate the conversation (a skill I need to practice). However, as I reflect, I think it means something else. 

Life is too loud. There are  ringtones and Facebook "dings"and TVs blaring with 1356 channels. Car doors slamming, horns  blowing, incessant chatter...Pandora and Itunes in our ear buds. Microwaves humming, smoothie makers whirring and timers beeping in the kitchen. Washers swishing and dryers tumbling...dishes clanking. It overloads and overwhelms me.

But on the deck....I HEARD for the first time in a long while. I heard water lapping, a child laughing from the other side of the lake, birds chirping, squirrels chattering, acorns falling, and the sound of my own breathing. I leaned back in the chair to absorb it all and then I heard the still, gentle voice of God within me saying "Peace....be still." I sat for the longest time in ages. I let the warm October sun shine on my face. I let my constant ADD-driven inner feeling of "I need to be doing something productive" go. I let my muscles relax and propped my feet up. I let myself "be still" and I felt His peace. 

The quieter you are, the more you can hear. I hear you God, and I'm really listening. 

"Peace......be still."