Zip, Clank, Damp, Bite: Love in the Time of Twine and Bears by Cathy Nelson Belk | Esse Diem

“As with many travels, and generally with life and your home, there are all kinds of moments, and it’s in these moments that my sister and I walked away with our life lessons.  There were long, dusty hours in the back seat of the hot Dodge, where patience came as slowly as the car with a license plate we had yet to cross off the list in our games. There was the deep, pleasant sound of my mother reading The Good Earth out loud, either in the car, or at the picnic table over the buzz of the lantern and the symphony of crickets and frogs; with this, I learned the comfort and distraction of a good story.  There were always the routines, such as washing the plates and utensils from the meal, with me gathering, my mom washing, and my sister drying, all in a quiet row.  As if we were in our house, these activities were the basis of our family, the stability that anchored us no matter where we happened to be. I am very lucky; my home was my family, and the activities completed each day met our needs and enabled everything else to happen around them, as smooth as stones. This is why I still appreciate dull routines as much as the flashes of excitement around them.”