When you begin to feel swamped by your fanny bottom, stuck and sitting, time to break out the emergency stockpile of road Zen. Travel is the destination. This isn't an interminable drag of road pain. We are having fun! We are driving, eating road food, and sleeping in hotels. What's not to love?

I packed ceramic coffee mugs and a box of peppermint tea. God bless me! Shitty coffee in a proper mug is 100% better than the same in Styrofoam. Because of the season, we have an unlimited supply of clementine tangerines (clems.) And fresh green and red chili awaits us in New Mexico. I contacted a farmer before we left home, packed my own glass jars, and we get to pick up fresh milk when we arrive. I'm excited about fresh cow milk--a treat we haven't had this year we've been milking goats. And I'm thrilled to visit a farm in N.M.  I'll meet a real out west cowgirl!

Last night we ate dinner at a steak house, "Big Jakes," in Van Buren Arkansas. After we ordered, I noticed an old man loitering at the penny pressing machine by the front door with his eye on my daughter. He wandered over, gave her a penny, and told us he was the owner. It seemed doubtful as something was clearly wrong with the guy. I put my arm around my girl. After he'd been at our table about 3 minutes longer than appropriate, a waitress arrived and hugged him saying, "We love James, he's so sweet." And so he is. And he also IS the owner, though strokes have robbed him of the ability to form linear sentences. He probably understands most language the same as all of us. But his ability to speak is compromised. Even so, he gave us a tour of the place, which he built, taking us up the elevator, showing off his signed Remington artwork, answering questions (from a cheat sheet he keeps in his wallet) about the Elk over the door, and was a super nice if rather sad figure. He also runs two hundred head of cattle, owns the abattoir, and supplies his own restaurant. I don't know of any such place on the east coast, hip locavores included. Out here in the middle of nowhere it isn't a culinary movement so much as good common sense.

There is a deeply troubling new phenomenon in skanky-upper crust-hotels. Its not a treatment for bedbugs, though it may be a cover of the treatment. They all spray Febreeze Linen & Sky, a special extra strong hotel version of the stuff some people (?!) spray in their homes. Which is done to give patrons that special "fresh clean feeling." It also took the lining out of my sinuses and I hate to think what else, possible brain damage from consistent exposure seems likely. We've circumvented this deeply troubling problem by down grading to the truly skanky hotels, which don't spray. As an added bonus, they cost about $20 less a night and the only noticeable difference are the tubs--plastic rather than porcelain. Hell, I'd shower in the parking lot with a cold hose in front of God and everyone else to avoid ever sleeping the in fresh clean toxic fog of febreezzle-funk. On the other hand, we can also thank bedbugs because very hotel in the United States now has brand new mattresses and pillows--upgraded and softer than my own.

Yesterday we drove past Mousetail Landing and through Bucksnort Tennessee. Today: Oklahoma! My daughter says I cuss more when I'm whispering to her dad. Can that be true?

Okay wow, this is a MUCH LONGER trip than I remembered. Last time we drove through in two days. Of course we were in our 20s then, high on love, and sipping Mountain Dew the whole way. I guess we were driving 12 and 14 hour days? Not possible now. The kids get worn out with boredom. And we get plain old worn out.

So tonight, December 31 2012, we are in a hotel just outside the Oklahoma border in Arkansas. It was a cold rainy nasty driving day. We had planned to detour to the Mississippi river but nixed that--too cold. Instead, I snapped this on the bridge half way over.

 We had lunch in Black Mountain at My Grandfather's Pizza, which brought back fond happy memories of dating and getting married. There was snow on the mountain tops and half of us were under dressed.

 Eating seaweed snacks headed due west. We clocked 9 fairly easy hours today, about 600 miles! 

Tomorrow we are driving to New Mexico. I am thrilled to be going. I hate to leave. Currently, I'm procrastinating the packing, cleaning, and writing of instructions for while I'm gone. I am the person who likes to stay. That's why I'm a cowgirl.

But, as I've been trying to say here for a few days: it ain't all about me anyway. And we'll have fun. And I'm pushing for a hot air balloon ride for the husband and the kids. Of course they should!

Ah Ha! What if you are surrounded by people who aren't exactly shining their little candles in the dark? So what? In fact, you will be surrounded by those people. And you will be hurt beyond all reason. And your feelings will ache. And it will be hard hard hard. To put it in the context of homeschool, how many times have I written that its impossible to shelter children from pain, even at home? A bunch of times, is how many.

And STILL I have to keep relearning this lesson. Your feelings aren't really what's important. Its your actions that matter. What you do, how you behave, what you have to give, how you treat people. How you make other people feel is what matters.

In other words: Do unto your neighbor, the Golden Rule, A Christmas Carol. Happiness all comes down to valuing other people's feelings more than your own by rising above selfish concerns to act well. A part of reality that could, if you weren't well taught in the first place, be difficult to understand. But its absolutely the way through this weird twisted strange world. Of course it is!

Our own feelings matter, they are guideposts meant to keep us from spending our lives surrounded by abusive people and other hungry predators. Our feelings are a conduit for intuition. And no one ever questions the good feelings. (Though, perhaps we should.) But not only is giving divine, its basically all we have over the yawning maw of pain in this world. That's how the light is spread, actually. Love is a verb and the only thing that really matters is how to give it away.

What if you only know two things about George Fox? That he's the father of The Religious Society of Friends. And sitting in a jail cell in the 1600s he wrote that we are all radically free.

What does radical freedom mean, especially from the context of jail? It has to mean we are free to love in all ways at all times and most generally despite our inclinations. Or, as Val said, "Kindness matters most." Or as Haven said, "Love is the hardest lesson."

And if this is a religious lesson, based on faith in Higher Love, how does one catch the faith, get suffusethed with light, and proceed on a radically loving path? That would be me with my fanny clenched against fear and hurt feelings trying to walk at the same time. I'm just supposed to renounce all that negativity, drop Jacob Marley's chains of emotional baggage, and proceed in the light?

It seems so easy, so self evident. But look how often that actually happens... And in the meantime, what if you're surrounded by folks who aren't exactly holding up candles against the dark.

"To what are you held captive? Fear, anger, avarice, greed, lust, gluttony, despair? Do you drag your past or your belongings behind you like Jacob Marley's chains?"

My husband and I sat on the couch in the early dark dawn of Christmas Eve discussing our failings. I read an article that said, to paraphrase: If you are reading a parenting book that says anything other than Fix Yourself, you are likely reading the wrong book. Its an idea I've run across many times and I've seen its worth in action. If a child has a problem its a safe bet there is a parent who needs fixing. Fixing the parent often fixes the child. Parents: sometimes it IS your fault. Get yourself together and your kids will probably be fine.

I am friends with the head of pediatric dermatology at Duke University. When he sees teenagers with profound acne, he often sends the parents for psychotherapy. And that ALONE will usually clear up their children's skin. How's that for alternative? I asked why that works, he answered: stress causes acne. Head of Pediatric Dermatology at Duke, you heard me right.

My husband and I actually have very few worries, beyond the old standards of bad luck and missed opportunities, about our children. But we both have plenty of failings and we both come from rather broken families. And so, periodically, we review it all. What are we missing? Where do we need to improve? He was stoic, genuine, and fearless in his self assessment. I wept into my coffee. I recalled the redemption of Scrooge and the uncanny timely words of a Christmas letter from a dear friend.

Do I drag my past behind me like Jacob Marley's chains? Yes, I think I do. Does this affect my children? I don't know how, exactly, but it must. Dear children, I'm so sorry. I'm working on it.