Lovely Letter #6: Stop Boxing Me In

...from husband to wife and back again.

Stu,

Hey honey. Sorry it’s taken me so many days to write back to your positively wonderful slug-meat letter. As you well know, we’ve been closing out the summer with extra weekend trips, camping, school-year-planning and so many glorious tomatoes. A bit of time away from the computer has done us all well.

I heard someone reference late August as “sultry” and I think I’d like to adopt that phrasing. You’ve been waking me up - same time as usual - with a cup of steaming coffee in hand but now, the light through our bedroom window is lower… the shadows longer, the light somehow warmer. The nights are a bit more cozy than the open-air-nights of July that seem to linger on as if the light and warmth will never leave. Now, enjoying red wine doesn’t seem absolutely out of the question and we’ve given up on most gardening tasks besides harvesting. This means that there are a few more hours to spare in the early morning hours, which are also tempered with soft darkness now.

I like the sultry time of August.

You know what else I really like? Your points in the last letter about our kids developing a bit of a reputation for “odd” foods at coop. Frankly, I hope that’s not all they develop reputations for. For now it’s reputations surrounding muck-boots, homemade bread sandwiches, and a Mom who’s constantly filling their lunchboxes with more homegrown protein - but in the future, I’d like to think of them developing reputations for being sturdy individuals, willing to pursue their desires with fervor, willing to sink into their values regardless of if it’s weird, and being confident if their life doesn’t fit into a “normal” box.

I know our culture is a bit obsessed with identity, but I keep thinking back to our conversation a few days ago about how boxed-in culture likes to keep people. This came, of course, on the heels of an article critiquing “homesteaders” and what constituted a “real one” versus those just posing. Because you know most all my thoughts, you know exactly how I feel about pseudo-restrictions such as this. But humor me (after all, we know humor is important).

Our human minds naturally try to make sense of people by putting them into clean, organized categories.

Ex: Stuart is from the American South, therefore, he loves _________ music, enjoys __________ food, believes in the ___________ religion, has hopes of ____________, treats his family like _____________, votes for the __________ party, aspires to ____________, and loves to ____________ in his free time.

I used to think like this. Do you remember the night we met in a bar, sitting at the table and talking about our lives - it seems our words couldn't come fast enough. You had just returned from your three-and-a-half month European adventure and I was just trying to figure out a version of a Georgia-born preacher’s son that also was interested in visiting the Uffizi Gallery.

You mean, you can be both? I’ve been boxed in for no reason?

I learned then to actively bust through what was “supposed to be” and instead pursue the good-and-right loves the Lord places on my heart, whatever they are and whatever category they fell into.

It’s okay if our slug-meat marshmallows don’t make sense to other families and it’s also okay if my love for imported-olive-oil somehow make me less of a “homesteader” in the eyes of others.

Those are fake rules and boxes anyway.

Thanks for always breaking them with me,

Shaye

An audio recording of this love letter is read by me, Shaye, below and is available for paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting us in our endeavor to create content that inspires and encourages you. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription, we would appreciate your consideration of supporting us in this way. Thank you!