Today was my final full day with Joy and her family. Because she and her husband, Chuck, work in college ministry, and the semester just finished, this week has been chill for them. Their oldest daughter Sarah just got back from a year of missions in Slovenia on Tuesday (a country whose name I still haven't learned to say). Their second-oldest, Josh, is balancing jobs and internships and an inordinate love of ultimate frisbee, so he's been bouncing in and out, and has been remarkably courteous considering that they've put me up in his room. Though it's not remarkable, I guess: courtesy, gentleness, and kindness are the first language of the Goertzen fam, so it's no surprise the only time voices have been raised is during intense rounds of ultimate solitaire. And not really even then (I'm converting them from Nertz, see evidence below).

This is currently my third stop, but I feel like I've been on the road for (I'm trying not to be dramatic and say "ever") . . . a super long time. It's interesting to be completely on other people's schedules. In one sense, it's freeing because I don't have to make any decisions. It's also good practice for the J part of my personality (a whopping 95 on Meyers-Briggs) to practice flexibility and presence.

Sarah asked today if it was hard to bounce around over and over meeting new people. It's a great question; my answer was no. I think it will stay that way, and I think I'll be able to articulate the reasons for that with more accuracy as my trip continues. As an introvert, I prefer one-on-one conversations to huge gatherings, and this summer plan caters to that tendency. I'm getting to spend time with people in their homes. And I love home. Also, the intent of The Summer Shadow is to see how every part of a person's life works together and overlaps, so there's also no pressure of performance, for me or for them. I created this whole plan to get to live the small moments with people, and small moments usually aren't difficult.

Colorado, as everyone knows, is beautiful. We've eaten many of our meals outside on the patio, which has been so fun. The opening picture of this post was the sunset Sunday night—if sunsets get their own chapter in the book??, I wouldn't complain! Below is a poster we saw when walking around downtown Boulder today (@anna @megan ur roommate back in boulder hi). I took a picture with my phone; I hope you can read it because it's funnier and funnier the longer you look at it. 

Spending time with Joy and her family has been absolutely refreshing. I'm wondering if that's an unfair commentary—isn't what I write supposed to focus on them?—but I think that assessment in itself say much about their character and mission. Yes, I did happen to come in a bit of a hiatus, so that's one reason it's been chill. Yes, Sarah did sprain her ankle on the way to the airport in Slovenia, so Joy and Chuck have been taking care of that.

But I think the calmness also indicates something about their family—they're good at making homes. I have felt at home these past 48 hours, and I could write dozens of stories about that; much of that strong sense of home also comes from the life they've lived in different countries. When you move to Slovenia as a family with four children, your experience of making a home is drastically different. Then when you move back to America, you have to re-make "home," negotiating code-switching and a new culture, and that builds up the home-building muscles too. Their current campus ministry works with international students, and I think this job uses Joy and Chuck's experience with foreign lands and homes. They work with students who are experiencing a new environment; they work to give them a home.

That's one theme I've been thinking about—home. I think I could write a whole book on it. (Stay tuned?) I get to see similarities between different homes—those water dispensers in the doors of fridges, use of red onions (I definitely would have called them purple), some type of salt that's pink and apparently healthier. I see all sorts of differences, wonderful and revelatory (ever since Shannon I've been holding my knife correctly, thank ya). But there's something wonderful about all of them, and about being included in all of them. It's absurd and terrific that I get to live in 14 different real-live homes this summer. I head to another one in Colorado tomorrow—stay tuned!

This morning, I left the metropolis of Freedom, Oklahoma to go to Denver, Colorado, a tiny town you've probably never heard of. Or something like that. 

Because I went home each night when I shadowed Shannon, this visit with Jan was my first full-time stop. I hadn't ever been to western Oklahoma, and this, friends, is the way to do it. When I showed up Wednesday night, Jan and her husband Arly were sitting on the porch watching the sun go down. No phones, no music—no invasions of modern technology save the impressive line of pickups parked in the drive. My arrival was greeted by introductions and hugs, then we all sat back down on the porch and watched night come. I was in bed by ten. This, I thought, is gonna be good.

And it was. My awareness of time disappeared like the "ing"s off the ends of my participles, and for the next two days I lived on ranch time. Thursday morning, Arly and Jan took me to feed the cows. We rode the pickup around their pastures, feeding the cows with a contraption on the truck bed that dropped the cows' food onto the ground. A few cows had been raised by their kids for cow shows, so I got to feed those by hand.

We went to town for lunch and ate with Jan's sweet friend Sharon. After lunch, we toured Freedom, which has two restaurants, a bank, a museum, and a school. They showed me where the rodeo is later in the summer, when the town swells from 250 people to 10,000. The rest of the day consisted of recipe-making, cow-feeding, a long, lovely walk, and watching the sun set. Idyllic.

On Friday, Jan took me around Alva and the surrounding area to visit her home health patients. She is a physical therapist who visits Medicare patients who are homebound. This was fascinating and interesting and I think I could write a whole book just on that day, from 8am to 4pm. I got to watch not only how the patients responded to physical therapy, but how the family members interacted in different ways with these patients. Jan was present and patient and completely impressive—by the end of our last appointment I was exhausted. 

Dinner was breakfast food—plain pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. Pancakes are one of my absolute favorite foods, and I about ran Jan and Arly out of chocolate chips by the end of the meal. 

Jan and I followed dinner with another beautiful walk. I took my camera, which made me feel like the Pioneer Woman. We took this pic because Jan said Ree had done it before; I was a fan even though my angle is a little wonky.

I continued channeling the Pioneer Woman by photographing some cows, though with tawdry results. Actually, the pictures are decent, but they're not PW's, and I wanted to use the word tawdry. 

Then Jan began to take pictures of me, taking pictures of the cows.

Then I began to take pictures with myself with the cows, but the camera lens wasn't cooperating, so Jan donated her phone, so I got that picture, then Jan hopped in and we got one together, with the cows of course. And those pictures are so good (read: bad) that I'm hiding them away. Catch them in the book? You'll have to read it to find out. 

Anyway, we got back to the house after the sun had gone down. We joined Arly on the porch, and I took this crummy picture even though the exposure was off because I wanted a snap of the memory. 

And I left this morning. The time spent there was amazing, and it stretched so wonderfully slowly, I learned tons, but you'll have to wait to hear all that. For now, to finish, this adorable picture of Arly, who doesn't like being in pictures (I empathize), so I took this when he didn't know. Stellar second stop! Tune in tomorrow to hear about adventures in Denver!