broken – Musings of a Musician's Wife

It’s funny that I title this “Minnesota Road Trip” because Josh and I take this trip all the time. But hey, why not make the trip sound like an adventure?

Despite my protests Josh and I were scheduled leave after he got home from a dragster race with KLOVE on Sunday… at 6pm. I knew this meant driving in mostly darkness and that I am no longer a young whipper-snapper full of excitement when the words “late night” pass through my ear canals. With the assurances that I wouldn’t have to drive a minute if I didn’t feel up to it, I consented.

Three and half hours into the trip, that’s about halfway, Josh couldn’t push on so I dropped my work and took the wheel for the rest of the trip.

Our radio busted within the first couple hours of the trip so I put in some headphones and plugged myself into my iPhone to jam to some sufficient awakening music. After a couple hours my posture became increasingly droopy and my eyelids were having trouble withstanding their own weight. I was pondering pulling over for a late night nap when I saw a sign:

“Hudson 10 miles
St. Paul 31 miles”

With those lovely numbers in sight I had a burst of a second wind and got us through the cities. The next glitch in the trip was a momentary brain lapse that led us a mile off course. I was pretty unfazed though and kept my spirits up until the next set back. We were on 55 and it was 2 am and there were signs for a mandatory detour. To my dismay this detour took us a good 5 – 7 miles off course and I was fuming. All of a sudden I was bursting with a sort of rage at Josh for not holding up his end of the deal (after all, I wanted to leave in the morning) and for possibly being responsible for breaking the radio, at myself for causing the first detour, and at the immediate vicinity for existing in a way that took me off course and later into the night. Of course I take it all out on Josh though. I sometimes wonder if I will ever manage to point my anger in the right direction or, better yet, get rid of any unrighteous anger altogether.

We are here now in Buffalo, Minnesota. We relaxed yesterday away and are doing the same this morning before an evening of friends and family.

In a land where things are broken I cannot help but want a future where things are not. The pull switch for the pantry gets jammed just about every time I try to use it now. So I stand there pulling until it gives or just walk away hoping it will solve itself. The refrigerator makes an epic grinding sound every time it’s relaunching the process of refrigeration and bow out with an almost musical succession of clanks and thunks. The internet, although actually new, phases in and out consciousness as though its trying to keep up with the general mode of dysfunction in this home. There is no airconditioning and only three of our seventeen windows open.

I just finished taking the dogs for a walk. They managed to poop three times each, that is a lot of doggie bags. I like to walk in the mornings between 7 and 10 because I only see a couple people. If I go in the afternoon or evening there are a whole slew of eyes saying lustful things about me. I do not even go at night for fear I will not come home the same, or at all.

Despite this though, I do admire the charming older houses I pass. My favorites are a quaint, yellow box one and a brick cottage on the corner.

This brings me back to wanting unbroken things. I dream of a house of my own where if things are broken I can fix them and reap the benefits of that. I dream of a house where I can have a vegetable garden in the summer and a greenhouse and chickens and fruit trees. I want to live sustainably. I dream of a house that I can have my design on every inch. And I dream of a house with an acre sized plot that is fenced or in a quiet enough place for the dogs to run free without my envisioning them being plastered to the pavement out the front window.

But I have to wonder, are such dream only worldly desires? Are they desires of my heart that are worthy of being granted or am I being selfish. After all, I am a musician’s wife and a photographer. Perhaps our finances will never spell out “house.” But after getting all of this our into the cool, fresh air after the rain I feel I am most thankful that my life has managed to spell out “dogs” and “husband” and “employment.”