Ardis Journal

When the rainy season first started.  I was THRILLED!  The heat, the walking, the indignities of traipsing across the American continent had long lost their luster.  I think I ate more dust than food in that trek!

Lying in bed at night in a snug, safe home, it felt cozy to hear the rain tap tap tapping on the roof.  I felt warm, protected and happy.  I felt that way when it rained for a week.  I felt that way when it rained for two weeks.  When we reached a month I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, like the rain was penning me in!

Unbelievably to me, Blake did not stop working, even when the dirt turned to slick, sloppy, black mud.  He said that the rain made it easier for him to move the giant logs that he's collecting to build a bunkhouse.  He chops down a giant tree, then he strips off all the branches.  He prefers using hardwood, but there is more pine here.  He has come up with ingenious ways of making the pine more durable.

I have the house to myself right now.  I'm enjoying this quiet time to write out my thoughts.  Both of my parents wrote in journals.  They didn't write every single day, but when ever they could.  They told me that they were recording their life experience as they wrote.  Their journals would be a heritage to me, and to my children.  I do treasure them.  I have them with me, here in my room in Blake's home.  Somehow reading their words brings them close to me.

Dr. John and Blake sleep in the other room in Blake's two room house.  We have at least one person stop by almost everyday for Dr. John's medical skills.  He's so patient and kind, and he figures out how to help people very quickly.

I help him.  He says that I'm a natural at nursing.  He's suggested some schools that I could attend back east to become a nurse.  I have explained that I just arrived in the west.  Somehow education across the country holds no appeal to me!

We had an interesting case last week.  A man slipped and fell onto a jagged rock.  He had a deep hole in his leg.  I thought that I would vomit.  I had never before seen the inside of a human body.  I still like skin to cover each and every person!  At the same time it was wondrous to me to see how bone, muscles, and nerves worked together.  Fortunately, the man had not broken the bone, or torn any of the soft tissue. 

Doc had me give him ether to help him be free of pain.  Next Doc cleansed the wound with water, and then alcohol...I believe it was rum?  He mutured that it was a waste of good rum!  I chuckled at that idea.  The wound had small pieces of rock, and lots of mud throughout.  When the water that Doc was using ran clear of mud, that is when Doc poured in the rum.

Next Doc stitched up the wound with tiny, even stitches.  It looked like the stitching that I do sometimes to make samplers, only it was on a human leg?  I asked him how he had learned to stitch a human like he did.  He explained that his mother felt like all humans should know how to mend their clothes and sew on buttons.  Who knew that skill would be used to sew humans up?

Heavens, I just looked at the clock and realized that I must hurry to have a meal ready for Blake and Dr. John.  I will write in here later?







  

Ardis Journal

Our picnic (I LOVE picnics) today was at a place called Fern Falls.  Dr. John came with us.  We had a lovely picnic...even better because I had nothing to do with cooking it!

After eating we decided to hike up a trail that goes around the side of the falls.  We must have hiked about an hour.  We were about to turn back because the path was so narrow and there was a sharp drop to the side.  I'm terrified of heights.  It has nothing to do with reason.  It doesn't matter how much I tell myself that there is no real danger.  I was clinging to the face of the mountain that was on the other side of the path.

Suddenly, the mountain face gave way, and I fell.  I was too terrified to make a sound.  John and Blake saved me from any harm.  I got a little scratched up but nothing significant.  Apparently I had stumbled upon an insignia carved on the side of the trail, and that insignia opened a door into this space.

Well imagine our surprise to find that we were in some sort of sacred place.  It was circular as though marks of a chisel showed that it had all been hollowed by human hands.  There was remnants of a roof above the circular space.  On the walls were amazing paintings that had been carved, and colored in a way that I've never seen before.  Looking more closely at them I realized that some of them seemed to be from the Bible.  Adam and Eve were there together, then Cain killing his brother Able.

The next portions told different stories from the Bible.  Reaching the second half of the room I noticed that these panels were still sacred but their story was not told in the Bible.  I saw a people that built a boat and sailed.  Next I saw that they built homes in the wilderness.  Then something or someone in human form was coming down from the sky towards them.  A man was all in white, and he was blessing children.  Last panel showed people in a boat again traveling on water.

All of a sudden, the silence began to feel oppressive.  I felt the small hairs at the back of my neck rise.  I knew exactly what I was feeling.  It was like the times that I have witnessed somebody die.  There have been way too many of those times in my life.

Apparently Blake felt the same way.  John wanted to study all of the pictures more.  Blake and I left with John promising to come soon.  That was when the water party began.  It was so innocent and fun.  Honestly, I didn't feel guilty, well probably a little.  I kept telling myself that Blake and I were like brother and sister, we weren't doing anything wrong.

The trip home was not as much fun as the trip to the falls.  We couldn't get John to say a word.  He seemed overwhelmed by something he saw in that place.  Finally, I fell asleep.  When I woke up I was safe in my bed.