Spring Break in Rock City

The Castle in Mother Goose Village

I've written about it before, how I'm on a quest to visit as many fairy-tale and Santa parks as possible before my little ones outgrow their wonder at and of them. I learned, not too long ago, of the Fairyland Caverns and Mother Goose Village within Rock City near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

I grew up less than three hours from Chattanooga and asked my mom about Rock City. She insisted I'd been there, but I'd seen some photos of the blacklight-responsive sculptures, and I thought better. I talked Jim into incorporating Rock City into our spring break. Then I talked my BFF Erin (who lives in Chicago) into meeting us there with her family (Dave and Mira).

Ok, let me just say up front: Rock City is a freakin' weird place. Weird, weird, weird. I have neither the words nor the photos to explain adequately what it is, but I've never experienced anything remotely like it.

For one thing, it's totally dangerous, so there's tremendous irony in the fact that it houses fairy-tale sculptures. I don't recommend it to anyone with a child younger than five. Hear me; I'm serious. Huge drop-offs; inadequate railing; short (climbable) walls; wet, rock floors; tight squeezes; pitch-black spaces. It's not stroller, wheelchair, or heavy-set-person friendly.

We had, in our party, four children younger than five. It's a wonder we all made it out alive. At one point, we looked up, and Charleigh was sitting on top of a rock wall with a twenty- or thirty-foot drop-off just behind her. I'm not even kidding. That's the point at which Erin took charge of Charleigh. I was wearing Chip and barely made it through "Needle's Eye" and "Fat Man's Squeeze." Jim had Clementine; Dave had Mira; Cade had loose control over my nephew Boone, who's seven.

Having said that: durn, what a fascinating place! My biggest challenge, yet, with my camera, given that we had six children in our party; many of the paths were narrow; there were often people pressing in from behind; many of the rock structures wouldn't fit inside my 50mm lens (i.e., I couldn't back up enough); and it was difficult to get clear photos in the caves.

I wish I could go back, today, with all my lenses but without any children. Here are some of my better photos:

Dave

Clementine, Mira, and Boone

Charleigh. (She actually fell down the steps in front of her, onto the wet floor.
I'd feel worse about not holding her hand if it weren't for the awesome photo.)

Clementine and Boone

Cade

Lookout Mountain. I had memories of standing here before but didn't remember anywhere else in Rock City.

Not a great photo, but it will give you an idea of the unsafe conditions for free-roaming toddlers.

Dearly love this photo. Charleigh and Erin.

This is just what I could fit inside my lens. There's more to it.

Erin and Charleigh

My Rotten Teen

(L) Erin and Mira; (R) Me with Chip, Clementine, and Boone

Because gnomes are such good examples, with the cigarettes and all...

Me. I mean...the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe.

Old Mother Hubbard

Peter-Peter's Wife

Mira

Good (weird, scary, death-defying) times. I'll tell you, next, about the Chattanooga Choo-Choo. If you're interested in my fairy-tale and Santa park posts, you can read about Story Book Forest of Idlewild (Ligonier, PA), here, and Santa's Land (Cherokee, NC), here.

Spring Break in Knoxville

I promised to write about spring break and need to do so before my exhausted brain starts losing details.

We drove down to East Tennessee for Easter 2012 (Easter last year) only because, at Christmastime, I hadn't wanted to miscarry anywhere other than our very own house. We'd always gone down for the Christmas holidays, and--even though Jim's mom and most of my family drove to us--it took some serious wind out of my sails to sit here in the wrong state, Christmastime, waiting to bleed.

By Easter last year, I was pregnant again (this time, with Baby Chip), and down to East Tennessee we drove, mostly in an effort to connect with Jim's brother Terry and his family, whom we'd missed over the Christmas holidays. Our older niece is one month older than Cade, and our younger niece is less than two months older than Charleigh, so what fun! And I learned that Jim's mom--in having all of us dressed to the nines, spilling out of a pew in her church on Easter--glows ten times brighter than any Christmas tree I've ever seen.

I can't even talk about it without crying, and I'm not exaggerating even a little bit. I felt my tired, old sails puff back out, Easter 2012, and told Jim: provided that Cade's spring break coincides with Easter; he's free to travel with us (because I share custody of him, you know); and Terry and crew can join us, we have to do this every year. We just have to. Really.

So we made it happen again, this year, and it was even better than last because we had an extra person to love in Baby Chip, also because Jim--who weighs almost 200 pounds less than he did last year!--and I are both feeling so much better. Everyone was such a great sport about my taking mad photos. I posted my very favorite here, but here are a few more I love from our time in Knoxville:

My SIL Jill (order a tutu from her in the right margin of my blog) & Niece Adalynn

Cupcakes from Scrupdiddlyumptious

Jim's Mom's Homemade Bunny Cake

My Niece Jasmine

Clementine's Little Hands in Church, Easter Morning

Jim's Mom and Chip

I'm already looking forward to next year! The Monday after Easter, Jim, our four children, our nephew Boone, and I headed to Rock City near Chattanooga; I'll tell you about that, next. In the meantime, I've loved comparing the photos from Easter 2012 to those from this year. Children grow so fast; don't they?

We sang this, Easter morning. And "Victory in Jesus." (Be still my heart.)

Perspective

I struggled, today. It was my second in a row without a vehicle, and maybe I wouldn't have gone anywhere, anyway, but I detest feeling stuck. I know that about myself and should've encouraged Jim to have his truck towed two days ago, but $200! for a new key! There are so very many other ways I'd rather spend $200!

(Jim's keys have been lost since Friday. They've probably been lost for a week longer, actually, but we noticed and started looking for them on Friday.)

So I felt stuck, today, because Jim had my vehicle. Also, Charleigh's been plucking my last nerve: just typical two-year-old stuff, but Grrrr! Not an hour after I gave her a bath, this morning, she drew all over her legs with a purple marker. Later, she rubbed sand in her hair and banged on the glass panes of the back door with a plastic baseball bat. She's sassy and defiant and, you know, two.

Doctor JoAnn and I talked, once, about how easy it can be to lose perspective as a stay-at-home mom. I felt it happening at different points, today. At the (literal) point of the purple marker, sure, but also when I took note of how much (let's just call it what it was) trash was on the living room carpet, which I'd just vacuumed, yesterday.

I practiced repeating the words JoAnn gave me: It's not real. They sort of helped. I forced myself to remember: my prayers have been answered. Baby Chip and Baby Aubrie are here; my brother's doing better; Faye's nodules disappeared. I considered how blessed I am to have a vehicle for my husband to use, a two-year-old to try her best to drive me to drinking, and a house for my children to trash. In my mind, I tried to relive our (dreamy) spring break.

I still yelled a little.

And, when Jim got home, I told him I needed a minute. Chip and I dropped Cade at Scouts and fled to Target, where I tried on four too-small items. It was still good medicine, and I missed Charleigh in about an hour. I think I'll recommend Target to Doctor JoAnn. Love her.

THIS ONE.

The Most Important Thing I've Ever Blogged

I told Anjie, a photographer, that I'd learned how to set my camera to take black and white photos. She nodded and said: "I love black and white. You'll learn a lot, shooting in black and white." But she didn't elaborate. I don't know why I didn't ask her what she meant, but I haven't stopped thinking about her words. I guess you might say I've received them as a challenge.

 

I always feel a little devil-may-care when I set my camera to take black and white photos. After all, I can take any color photo and turn all (or parts) of it black and white through editing. But I'm not clever enough to do the opposite. If I take a photo in black and white, there's no going back; the photo will remain black and white. And color is so much of a thing; it really is.

 

Still, over and over, I've taken my camera and set it to black and white. I've studied my colorless photos and held whispery conversations with an imaginary Anjie. What did you mean, Anjie? I ask. What should I be seeing? 

And I could call her up in a heartbeat. I could text her, message her on facebook, or e-mail her. Anjie loves me with her whole, huge heart, and I know: Anjie would answer any question I could think to ask her, and right away.

But, at this point, I don't think I want her to tell me what I'm supposed to be learning. I want to figure it out for myself.

 

I'm not there, yet, but I have a few thoughts, the first of which is that color distracts. Without color, the other elements of a photograph become more important. My second thought is that very little in a black and white photograph is black or white. Most everything is grey.

 

And, you know, I think life is like black and white photography. Most everything is grey. Very little is black or white. I don't mean to oversimplify, but--do you know?--black is essentially the result of an absence of light, while white is the result of too much light.

To me, grey represents the freedom from extremes. It represents my God-given free will and all the God-given space I have in which to exercise it. It represents the vast area in which I get to wrestle with the Lord and figure Him--and His plan for my life--out for myself.

Friends, I want you to know: I'm in hot pursuit of Him. I'm conversating with Him and chasing Him down in the pages of His very own Book. Still, I have so much to learn. I know I'm seeing through a glass darkly. I know I've touched but the hem of His garment. It's been enough, as it turns out, to make me whole. But there's so much more of Him to grasp! 

I'm reaching.

 

I love it when, like my friend Anjie, like my Pastor David!, you spark my interest, point me in a direction. I love it when you tell me what you're thinking, what you're learning, how you're living, where you're standing. I'm honored to share the same sorts of things with you.

I love it when you say to me: "This has really worked for me," or, "Check out this book (or these scriptures) when you have a chance." 

But please hear me: I will never allow you to bully me. I will never allow you to tell me how I must live my life, how I must vote, or how I must interpret the Word of God. I will never allow you to suggest that I don't know Him or that I'm not going to make it to heaven, same as you. I will never allow you to cram my very own Jesus down my very own throat.

Even if your political and theological viewpoints match mine perfectly, the minute you get up in my face, it's over between us. I'll neither hate you nor stop loving you, but I'll shut you down and out. I won't allow you to speak into my life. Unfriend. Unfollow.

And if what you're seeking is someone to tell you how to live your life, you're in the wrong space. Send me an e-mail (normalgirl at hotmail dot com); I'll be glad to provide you with a whole list of bloggers who would love to get up in your face. They're much more popular than I.

The best I have for you is this: if you choose to seek Him, He won't hide from you.

Oh, and--if you're still here--regarding black and white photography?, I've learned a third thing. It's just and simply this: it's possible to sparkle in the grey, which is not true of the absence or excess of light. Just the grey. See me do it. Just sit back and watch.

My Very Own, Fred Flintstone Toes

Eyes to See

Jim, the children, and I spent two days of our spring break in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I have lots of things to share regarding Chattanooga and our spring break, in general, but first, I want to write about my nephew Boone.

Boone is not-quite eight and the younger of my brother's two sons. His spring break didn't coincide with Cade's, but his parents were happy for him to miss a couple days of school so he could experience Chattanooga with us.

The timing couldn't have been better because the rest of Boone's immediate family (including his brother CJ) were in Baltimore, where my brother had just undergone a second surgery. Boone had remained home in the excellent care of his four grandparents, but the trip to Chattanooga gave him a special something to do and a special reason to miss school. We had only one extra seat in our minivan; Boone seemed destined to fill it.

Now, Boone's brother CJ will be fifteen this summer and--given the mere eighteen months' age difference--has always been thicker than thieves with Cade. As such, CJ's been under my care on several occasions, but never Boone. I didn't really feel like I even knew him.

I tell you things and have no way of knowing if you believe me (you should), but I'm a deeply impatient person who's often in over her head. I'm a deeply impatient person, often in over her head, who's not really a kid person, which is to say: I love the ones who've been plunked in my life but am not inclined toward kids, in general.

So, before we left for Chattanooga, I had a little talk with Jesus. I asked for His protection and peace, of course, and then I asked Him to give me eyes to see and appreciate Boone.

I carried my little prayer with me. I knew I'd prayed it, and I trusted the Lord to answer it. Boone is typical, I think, for not-quite eight. He had busy moments. Also chatty, forgetful, needy, and whiny ones. I gave him the what-for a couple times: stern, you know, but in the kindest of my mom ways. And I kept my eyes open. I waited.

 

 

And then: POW! there he was. Just like that, I saw him.

I saw him, first, with a goat at Sugar's Ribs.

And once I saw him, I couldn't stop seeing him. His bright little spirit just filled my eyes. I saw it in the pool and on the trolley and in the Tennessee Aquarium.

I saw Boone's spirit outside the aquarium, where Clementine (who'd soaked her sweater by plunging her arms a little too deeply into a tank) complained of being cold. Quick as a wink, and before the rest of us could even respond, that not-quite-eight-year-old was unzipping his bright, orange jacket and wrapping it around his much younger cousin.

And, the next day, I saw Boone's spirit at my parents' house, when I came upon him reading "Snow White" to Clementine.

Then, and I love this, I looked back through my photos and realized: even before I recognized Boone's spirit with the eyes of my heart, I captured it with my camera. It was always right there.

 

Here's what this deeply impatient, often in over my head, non-kid person wants you to know: this week, I fell in love with my younger nephew.

And I wonder, what would happen if I were to ask the Lord to give me eyes to see and appreciate people more often?