Big cities, small towns

As I write this I am sitting in the inlaws home here in Broadview Saskatchewan. It's day 12 into our holiday/sabbatical and I think I am just starting to feel like myself again. More human, starting to laugh again and think deep thoughts again.

It's taken longer this time, for a variety of reasons, but things are starting to shift in me in good ways.

We first were in a medium sized city, Saskatoon, to connect with our son, Thomas. We visited with my family too and did a little decompressing.  Then we did a night at a relatives home, in small town Manitoba. A wonderfully quiet place where I basically fell asleep at 7 pm and woke up at 7 am. Nice.

Then we hit a larger city, Winnipeg, to hang out with our daughter Hillary. She has landed in an apartment on the tenth floor in a nice building in the Exchange District, right down town. The parking was a little tricky with having to move the car at 8 am and 6 pm, but it was a great time there with her. We walked through the area lots and just hung out with her. I took a fair amount of pictures and just loved the busy activities of the city.

And now we are in small town Saskatchewan, where we walk and talk and it's quiet again. The air is getting crisp, as are the leaves on the ground, and we are still finding ourselves unwinding the knots we had created in ourselves over the past year.

It takes some determination to leave our regular life behind for a bit and get some distance so that we can look with clear eyes again at where we are at. I didn't want to leave the field first off, mostly because I wanted to sleep for six days. But with the encouragement from Lauralea and the limitations of the calendar we headed off. They were both right.


So Sunday we hit the road again and the next stop is Banff for a few days of pastor and spouse retreat.

The restored Randall is coming, but it's going to take it's time this year. I guess I'm not just as bounce-back-able as I once was.

Must be my new improved age.