Go Fly a Kite

Today, I saw someone in my Facebook news feed ask where the post office was located in a town she was visiting. In hopes, I guess, someone who lives there would see that post. Or Google it. Or something, anything to keep her from walking into any store, gas station, restaurant to ask and receive a 5-second answer: "It's 2 blocks west, left at the light and you'll see it on your right."

It's true. We're busy and disconnected and pitiful. We're driven by guilt and competition and pride. We prefer digital interaction to human interaction, distraction to focus, noise to the quiet of resting our ears and our souls. (Of this latter one I am most guilty.)

We sign up our kids for ballet at 3 years of age, soccer at 6, and violin at 10 - by then, they're doing all 3, if they're lucky. We consult a list of scheduled of events from the church to fill up our already over-scheduled schedule. And when we're in a new town, we consult our friends on the FB to see where the closest post-office is instead of asking someone in-person.

I, too, am skilled as an over-scheduled, hyper-social person. But things are changing. I'm learning to live differently.

To fly kites...

...make and enjoy Jeff's from-scratch pizza at the Perry's, where Benjamin helps make the mint lemonade...

...and build raised beds, expanding the garden, so our kid-neighbors have a place to shovel dirt, make a mess, and learn how to grow some food in the process.

Today, it's sort-of a radical thing to know the people that live near you. And make pizza that takes hours. And untangle the strings a million times on the kites.

We're gonna keep untangling.