Note: This is post 3 of 3 from a Redbudsuds fan and friend Caylie Mindling Grubbs. Caylie approached us this spring, asking if she could share her story. We said yes! You can follow Caylie and her hubby Joshua on their cross-country road trip on Instagram using #redbudroadtrip. Be sure to catch the intro and mid-trip guest blog posts too!
At this moment, we're headed home. We're on the final highway, one that we drive every day when we’re home. We're almost to the border of Ohio and you know, it’s weird; the feeling of coming home has been so anticipated, so dreaded, so far away until suddenly it was upon us. I've come home from countless road trips in my life. None have felt this way.
I think it's because, as cheesy as it sounds, my sense of home has changed. I've lived in northeast Ohio for 14 years and as much as I fought it initially, the bowl of Lake Erie has carried the feel of home.
But now I've stood on mountains in several states. I've swam in the Pacific and the Atlantic. I've stood in three of the four corners of the United States.
I've driven the pacific coast. I've followed paths off the Oregon coast that have emerged onto hidden beaches. I've camped in the forest, in the desert, on the beach.
I’ve laid on the side of cliffs and peered over to the world a mile below. I've descended 86 floors into the earth and stared into an abyss at the bottom. I've shared woods with bears and mountain lions and elk and deer and raccoons and palmetto bugs.
The earth has never felt more like my home.
It's easy to let the idea of earth being our home stay abstract when I drive the same highway and live the same routine in my small corner of the world. But it's true, what St. Augustine said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.’’
Have you ever read a book (or maybe seen a movie) that you tell everyone about? You can't wait for others to experience it. You yourself want to relive it.
That's what I feel like this trip has been. The most incredible story that I want everyone else to be able to share with me.
But now imagine those pages keep disappearing—whole scenes forever erased. Wouldn't you try like hell to keep that book intact?
After reading those chapters, I certainly do. The perk of having to live in a thoughtfully clean, leave-no-trace way for the past two months, is that I have a slightly better idea of HOW to take care of our home...slightly. I'm no expert. But I'm learning and I'm trying and that feels like a good start.
What does ‘trying’ look like? It looks like recycling what I can and being purposeful in my decisions involving plastics, etc. Like asking for no straw with my drink because do you know how many straws are thrown away each year??
Or asking for no bag for quick-stop grocery items--or bringing my own cool bags to the grocery store (in California, you have to pay for every bag you buy, so I've started acting as if that also applies to wherever I am).
Here's a challenge: Try a week of educated shopping. Find out where the stuff you buy comes from, who’s involved in the process, what happens to the waste. Let that ruminate in your mind as you use the product: ask yourself, “Is this thoughtfully clean?”
Love from the road,
Caylie and Joshua
Share your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook / Instagram @redbudsuds #thoughtfullyclean.
Love deeply. Adventure gently. Be thoughtfully clean.
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Thoughtfully yours,
Lisa