A Paradoxical Summer

Sometimes life moves at a snail's pace, sometimes at breakneck speed. And rarely, paradoxically, it does both at the same time. This last month was just such a paradox for us.

But first, allow me to digress.

In the short-term retrospect of American historians, 1969 was a pivotal, earth-shaking year--a year that everything changed for our nation politically, culturally, economically and socially. (Even Bryan Adams wrote a rock anthem to the effect.) To be sure, that year did not suddenly exist de novo as a social fulcrum, but rather it was the culmination and climax of a number of swelling, surging cultural movements; it was the year the crescendoing wave crested, broke and scattered foam far up onto the distant beaches of society, its debris still being collected, categorized and understood to this day.

To be quite overly melodramatic, I believe that Elizabeth and I will view the Summer of 2006 in a similar way in our personal lives. Up until June 23rd, we had been cruising along in somewhat of a holding pattern--quiescent if not entirely content. Life was good, could have been better, but there was no particularly dramatic frameshifts in motion. However, a whole new weather pattern was hovering just over the horizon, tantalizing close but still remote enough to be neither disturbing or distracting.

Then the storm broke in its enthralling and terrifying glory. A raucous graduation, a paradisiacal romantic getaway to Costa Rica, a furious flurry of high intensity entanglements in red tape as we struggled to get licensed in Wyoming and secure our loan repayment, a miraculous sale of our home in a stagnant realty market, a frantic purchase of our Worland home, a joyous reunion at the Ranch, a torrid move to Wyoming, a new city, home, job, church, lifestyle . . .

At times the last month was as gentle as a sea breeze blowing on a shimmering Pacific beach, at times as tempestuous as a summer lightning storm in the Rockies. Certainly it's too soon to make sense of all that's happened. I guess this is a feeble effort to process it all to some degree. All I know for sure is that life looks entirely different than it did one month ago.

And yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. I still have Elizabeth and Joy and Grant. I have my family and my faith. I have my career, my interests, my weaknesses . . . my blog? (They can't ever take that away from me!:) To quote Bono and the Boys: "The only baggage you can bring is all that you can't leave behind."

Now that the dust is settling into a semblance of routine, I hope to renew my weekly postings here.

Yes, yes. I know. The burden of my absence has been too much for you to bear. There, there. It's going to be alright. Markie's back.