disconnect to connect - a day with my girl

We slept in on a Saturday morning. If 6:00 a.m. is sleeping in, I did it; Jolie until 8 or so. The forecast had laid out a great day. We were taking it. 

The truck was packed with blankets and pillows and food. 
A camera, a knife, binoculars.
Gas.
A daily dose of air in the leaky tire. 

My boy had set his sights on another Saturday thing. My son, my heart. He doesn't get into the whole social network deal. His stories and photos are mostly his own. I respect that, and while he is here and smart and funny and wonderful, you won't find much of him here on this blog.

So, to the woods we go.
There is no wi-fi. No internet. No bars. But there is a definite connection.
Conversation wasn't deep, but between us and the woods, our connection went beyond any ocean floor.
Few words, but we were on the same page, turning to the next with each step, skip, or jump.

We were on a path in LBL. Land Between the Lakes here in Western KY where I live. Beautiful. The path goes around a lake and takes, I guess, about an hour to go around. Well, sister and I got off of that path often to make a new way, stopping here and there. I think we got around the lake in about three hours or so. 

We sat down in those woods and I said, Sister, just listen to that. There's nothing except for the water, the wind, the dry leaves and that one honking goose. It's nature and it's peaceful and it's perfect and it's everything. Can you hear it? Can you feel it?  She looked up at me and leaned into me and smiled, and what I had just said was mirrored in her face. Perfect peace. 

We hiked on and back out to the truck, that was actually parked next to a picnic table, but we sat up our picnic in the truck bed. We had hiked up an appetite and that was the sweetest, bestest, most mouth-watering lunch ever in the history of food. Nobody on the planet ate a better lunch that day. We earned it. 
Lunch: apples, strawberries, chocolate, cheese, chicken salad sandwiches, chips, nuts, coke, sprite, water. 

We talked about how it was the best day ever. We sang it on the trail. She loved it. She soared in and around those trees like the eagles that take the sky. Freedom to be goofy, laugh, explore, think, concentrate. Freedom to be. 

At one point, Jolie asked me why so-and-so or so-and-so didn't come along with us. I told her because I wanted the whole day with just my girl, and she smiled her on-the-shy-side-smile. The smile where you can see straight to her sweet, tender heart. She knows I'm here all the time for her, but in a world that seems stirred up like an interrupted bee hive, working and hustling and taking care of everything and then some that has to be done, and maybe feeling a little bit frantic in all of it, it is so, so good to disconnect from that routine and be connected one on one. 

I'm not sure what exactly was going on the other day when I was told to shut up. It was such a foreign thing. An insecurity maybe? I don't know. I'm not willing to make a huge deal out of it. I was definitely willing to make a day trip with just the two of us, though. That incident has been washed away. Maybe sometimes she just needs to be reassured. We all do, right? To be recognized and appreciated and know it. 
She smiled that smile several times that day. 

I love you, Jolie.
Whose girl are you? Momma's girl.
Whose girl are you? Jolie's momma.

-Angie