I refer to Alaska as "home." I have spent the last six straight years there plus the two summers before it. It is the place I know best as an adult. It's where I spent most of my twenties. I know where to buy supplies to repair the house, where all of the playgrounds are, the trails. I know where to look for jobs, to take a knitting class, to eat. It's where almost all of my friends live. And it's the place with which I identify best. That said, I think my husband, who was born and raised there, is my glue to the place. Take him away from me, and the "home" would be gone.
It isn't until I arrive at my parents' home in Minnesota, where I spent the first 18 years of my life, and where I have spent almost all of my breaks and vacations since, that I really feel "at home." Granted, it is probably partly because my parents are still there and in the same roles they were all of my life. My dad never sits still. I don't think he will ever realize how much physical labor he's done outside and inside the homestead here in his lifetime. To care for 575 acres is all he knows. My mom does her part too. She cleans and organizes excessively and does almost all of the cooking and other in-house chores too. She of course does work outside too but inevitably a lot of outdoor work (eg. snow moving, haying, gardening, mowing, building) is done with machinery and tools and those go along with the garage and is primarily executed by my dad. My mom is creative too, and smart. They are both full of good ideas, and I can't wait to see their creativity come back to life in full-swing when they retire and have more time. When we visit them, my husband helps my dad, and I find myself more and more tending to indoor chores and children with my mom.
Back to the point. I must have been raised in amazingly comfortable home. When I hear, at my parents' house, the clock ticking in the living room or the forced air heat kick on, I feel at ease. If my husband or my kid asks for scissors or some string, a hat, whatever, 99% of the time I not only know where it may be in my parents' house but also what color it will be when I go to get it. Even the simple items are ingrained in my mind. I don't even know my own home in Alaska as well and we have 99% fewer items accumulated in it. The child's mind is incredibly impressionable.
It is for me (and probably to my parents as well) satisfying to go back in time. My toddler sleeps in the twin bed I slept in almost all of my life . . . in my red room with the two windows, the flannel snowman sheets and the stuffed and framed snowman picture hanging above the bed, the solid wood floors that my dad refinished when I was a toddler, the same night lights, same dressers. I read to him, before bed, the same books that my parents read to me and I memorized as a child. He plays with my old toys. He rides the tricycle that I rode at his age. It fills my heart with joy.
It brings to me hope when I see my husband take an interest and when I help too at my parents' place. He took the lead role in canning their venison this year, something my parents hadn't done for 25+ years even though they have all of the supplies to do it. He will help my dad to process the rest of it tonight. He boiled a turkey. My mom showed me how to make applesauce out of the apples from their trees for my kids. We got 10 inches of snow and my husband plowed and snow-blowed. We are eating tons of hard-boiled eggs from the free-range chickens. I showed my son how to make a snow-man, something we can't do in Alaska because the snow doesn't stick. My husband is learning about the tractors. He mulched the blueberry plants, which produce organic food customers and for a local CSA farmer to distribute. He's out deer hunting with my dad, a past-time I never shared with him, but that provides organic meat for us every year.
It doesn't seem like much, but it is. It's living off of the land. Eating healthy. Working hard. And taking good care of the things you worked hard to get. It's being thankful for simple things. I think I inherited the values. I think my kids will too.
I'd like to see us and our kids continue keeping the farm up after my parents can't any more. Although I can't say for sure that we would be a success, I think we have the right ambitions. My husband likes to work with machinery, to hunt, and to prepare food. He does thorough, quality work with integrity. I like to be outdoors, to do for hours the same task, to eat food that is grown without chemicals, to breathe clean air, to fall asleep to the sounds of the wilderness, and to live as stress-free as possible.
I am so thankful to be able to fly home to this.
Be thankful for what you have.
Happy Thanksgiving.
