Saturday morning we set out from our sleeping spot on a church porch in Nottingham, PA (perversely disappointed that the sheriff hadn't stopped by to question us--it would have been such a good story) and set out with only five miles to go to Rising Sun, Maryland. Five miles in cool early-morning weather is a breeze. We stopped to eat breakfast in a gazebo that was up for sale among a whole field of other lawn fixtures, right on the state line--which was also the Mason-Dixon line, as a sign pointed out. Then we went on our way into the South, and before we had a chance to get tired we were at the library in Rising Sun.
I left Paul waiting for the library to open and walked down to the nearby shopping center, hoping to get a payphone call through to my parents; I'd been itching to talk to my mom about our novel, which is in the revision stage. I was stuck. I'd made a change in chapter 6 that I thought was right, but I wasn't sure, and it was going to make all kinds of changes necessary in chapter 7... and we'd been walking, and walking, and sleeping outside and feeling frustrated and stinky and having people look at us funny and feeling like we had no place to lay our heads, and it's just not conducive to writing. I figured that if God didn't send us some new friends soon I'd just have to take a break from the book.
I got through to my parents but they couldn't call me back, the payphone wouldn't let them; I was so desperate for a chat about the book to get me going I went ahead and talked to my mom on my dime... yes, we decided, the change was worth it, I should go for it. I went back knowing what I needed to do; the library gave me two hours on the computer; everything fell into place! The change I made fit so well I just had to change a sentence here and there... it actually just provided more motivation for my character's actions as I'd already written them... amazing! (And then the computer kicked me off and I read Barbara Kingsolver for an hour and relaxed.)
It's hard to explain how a writer feels about this stuff, but as we walked on I kept chattering to Paul about how well it had gone, how it had fit; the problematic first six chapters of the book were practically solved... We walked, and the weather was cool and pleasant with just enough sun and just enough shade... We came upon Octoraro Creek, which we'd met a few days ago; it was bigger now on its way the the Susqehanna River and Chesapeake Bay, and lovely and clean; we scrambled down under the bridge and washed our hair, and ate our supper sitting on a rock. I got out my pennywhistle and played, "O Worship the King", and sang it for Paul who didn't know all the words. I think I was especially feeling the next-to-last verse:
His bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
It flows from the hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
God can work through people to give us His blessings... but He doesn't have to.
And then a fast red car pulled over and these two crazy enthusiastic young guys drove us across the Susqehanna where we wouldn't have been allowed to cross on foot, and insisted on giving us a historical tour of the area and taking us home to their mom's place, where we watched eels in the creek and had to skip through the flower-jungly garden quickly to escape their watch-duck and they showed us Indian artifacts they'd found... and then took us straight to the Quaker meeting-house where we planned to spend the night. And there, in the graveyard, a grove of boxwood trees formed a sort of hollow globe around a flat and leafy spot where we slept in privacy and peace.
Yeah.
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