Sleepy little face with the glow of dreams still clinging, strong round limbs so quick to explore, wide eyes that see and love: I love you.

Downy head, golden copper hair floating in the breeze: I love you.

Questing finger, never taking no as an answer: I love you.

Restless night-time body, flopping here and rolling there, disturbing my sleep and my dreams: I love you.

Little lover of music--arms waving, compact body bouncing, sweet voice uplifted in joyful participation: I love you.

Small daughter, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: I love you.

Belonging

We all feel the almost unbearable urge to fit in somehow, to pull together the fringes of the world into place around us in the shape of family, friends, job, entertainment, clothing. We also have a sense that this is a symptom of the herd mentality and to be scorned, a shame which causes us to apply and reject the labels so frequently used: hipster, ghetto, nerd. But it is a universal necessity to belong. We seek esteem of whatever qualities in us we deem estimable--a hair cut, our ability with computers, holiness like a patched and shredded garment. Who we are often cannot stand alone. And I'm not sure it should. Fellowship is the basic emotional/spiritual need, the cry that goes deeper than Maslow's hierarchy.

See how we shift the upholstery of our souls? How this one assumes the skinny jean/shipster look and that one the pencil skirt/intelligentsia look--changing the upholstery, and sometimes the attitudes, that cover the still-beating heart and blood.

So in this sense we are shallow creatures, changeable, malleable. Ready to give up one skin for another, assuming actions, mannerisms, thought patterns like chameleons. But in another way we are sublime for this trait, for we recognize the trappings which seem to us admirable and pursue them, and our souls achieve a momentary apotheosis. It will not last, but the transformation has made us divine for a moment. It has also brought us one step closer to other souls--we have reached out of the forsaken splendor of our own souls and into the territory of another spirit.

Fellowship. The urge to belong. Part of the human condition, the splendor and the squalor.

Abstraction

What does it mean to dream?

What is a dream? Lying within and sparking to life at a single thought--this is a dream. Latent, slumbering, essential, the vision that, though unformed, seems to bring with it the path of life--this is a dream. From youth an inner hunger that cannot die, though denied and starved through a lifetime of duty--this is a dream.

It can be ambiguous or specific. It can be many-faceted or single-faced, obsessive. It can surface differently at different times of life--a painful yearning for somewhere else now and a desperate need to travel to Ireland later--but it is always within the diamond casket of your soul, burning and burning to escape and breathe, to grow and lick away at the false structure of life with its ravenous beautiful flames.

It is fire in the blood. It is night with a single star. It is the innocent breeze on your cheek. It is all this, and it is nothing. It is inescapable and easy to ignore.

What does it mean to dream?

Without a dream you are nothing. With a dream sometimes you are nothing, too, because a dream carries with it the dull knowledge that no matter how hard you strive you can never fully live it out, you will never find the perfect representation of that vision that seeks expression within your heart.

But with a dream you are everything, because you are living on all cylinders. You are striving toward something beyond, and you are choosing every moment to seek until you find. Whether your dream is travel, or education, or business, or photography, or wine, or cathedrals, or color, once you step into the cascade you join the River of Life and become truly alive for those moments. You swim in the sea of mystery. You breathe deep the air of freedom.

What does it mean to dream?

It means you never stop facing yourself with brutal honesty. You admit laziness, pain, bitterness, incompetency, and you go on. You make yourself room to fail, and you succeed. You strike out into the unknown without the assurance of salvation. You fail at explaining yourself to others but you still keep trying.

This is what it means to dream, a little.

What does it mean to you?

Endless

Endless. Horizon stretching unbearable, blues shading into greens, teals, purples--white snow sharp against misty prospect.

How did we get here, to the eagle-sight of Oregon, to the clean air that fills us like wine and sweeps through us like water? Do invisible ties bind us to the sultry heat of Missouri, where crops wither and folks take shelter? As we stand on the snow and our feet sink into the icy crystals, as we clutch each other for balance and laugh in startled delight, do our souls ascend to the heavens, since we're so much closer now?

The faces we've basked in--those behind us engaging in post-wedding revelry, those of family familiar to us in their sorrow and their joy, those of new companions of the road--fill our hearts now, papering the walls of our internal rooms with mystery. We are the product of all that has come before--we are ancient, we are infants. We dance in the freedom of life and we bend under the weight of experience.

At the summit of Mt. Hood, we pause for a family picture. Sublimity and prosaic reality intersect. Life eddies and swirls around us. We breath. We exist.

We are endless.

Companionship of the Road

We drove today for endless hours across South Dakota's wide-spread hills and plateaus, the throaty sound of motorcycles roaring by, the sky soft with dappling clouds. We hit the border during the Sturgis festival so surrounding us at all times (hemming us in, shooting amused and hostile glances at us, and alternately passing then holding us back) were tanned, tough-looking bikers. We thought of our friends who'd give a tailpipe to be here, and fretted against the traffic.

Eire has done well on this trip, riding for over 7,300 miles with aplomb. Sometimes we can just hear her saying "Boring, boring" and sometimes we hear nothing because her toys--gangly Mr. Giraffe, spiny purple Fishy-Ball, or Millie the Worm--absorb her interest. Or we hear her plopping her pacifier in and out of her perfect mouth, gnawing on her thumb, or sucking on her arm.

We fill our time with gawking at the lovely scenery--the craggy majesty of the Mission mountains, the bleak plateaus of Wyoming, the lush Columbia River Gorge, and take turns pointing out bumper stickers (like my favorite today, "Where the HELL is Wall Drug?"), dilapidated buildings, interesting people, and unique vehicles. We read out loud--or rather, I do, since Michael's driven all but fifteen minutes of the six weeks--from short stories, or poetry, or "The Picture of Dorian Grey." We listen to music ranging from Tool to Dylan to Oscar Carcamo. We share visions and dreams. We argue, and make up.

This is the companionship of the road in the McIntyre family. Living in our truck, sleeping in campgrounds and parking lots and loved ones's homes, we have made our way across the country from Missouri to the west coast and back again. Tonight, in Sioux Falls, just six hours away from home and all we hold sacred, I am filled with the crazy conflict that comes with saying goodbye to a chapter in my life and hello to the next. I will miss the quiet morning miles, the coffee kedged from shops ranging from awful to astounding, and the knowledge that anything can happen and probably will.

Tomorrow we pull into Kansas City and plunge back into life. In one way it will be as if it hever changed--the waters of life will part and close over our heads and we will be back in our accustomed places, among familiar faces. But in another way it will be different, because we are different. We have been changed subtly, in increments, by the people and the places we have met along the way, by the challenges and the comforts, by the wisdom of learning more about ourselves and each other.

I am eager and reluctant, joyful and grieved. In this paradox of life I willingly step forward. Greetings Kansas City. Goodbye everywhere else--we'll return someday, not so long from now.