Summer 2014 officially ended today. What a summer it was for us! It’s hard to top the summer in which you get married (2013, in our case) — and I suppose no summer ever really can. But if it’s possible (bolstered by how it built upon that one), then this one we’ve just come through was the best in my life so far, through God’s wondrous grace.

First of all, it was a four-month summer. Who, in adult life, is ever granted the blessing of focusing completely on important people and things for four months, and at the best, warmest time of year? We had the two months in Ukraine, a brief side trip to England and Scotland on the way home, and then most of two months back in our little town before our day jobs resumed for the fall semester. We are both extremely thankful for the flexibility our college work allows, and for my wonderful and understanding boss who gladly allowed me the summer term off for the trip to Ukraine, prayed for us while we were there, and let me pick right up where I left off in the fall semester.

In the previous (guest) post, Julie summed up our time in Ukraine very well. She was gathering her interviews for her dissertation, and we visited various simple (house) churches in several cities, sticking to western and central Ukraine.

(That’s a samovar in the picture above — a traditional vessel for keeping tea water hot.) As it turned out, I was able to assist Julie in more direct, concrete ways than I’d expected. A short span into our time there, she broke her ankle. It was a clean, simple break to the base of the tibia, and it healed well. But it did keep her in a cast and on crutches for the duration of our travels. So I put my best Japanese hosting skills to work. Fortunately, they’re about the same as Ukrainian hosting skills. Whenever guests would come over, I’d boil water, arrange cookies on plates, and bring out the right number of cups along with the tea, coffee, etc. I also got to be the grocery shopper, using little pieces of paper on which Julie would write out the phrases for me to say. I was amazed at how they worked, like magical keys. I’d say these things, reading them off the paper, and people knew what I meant! How miraculous language is!

(They’re posing deliberately in that picture, showing off the grilled pork — a fancier-than-usual picnic for the special occasion.)

In addition to getting to help Julie on this long-planned research trip, I was delighted at the chance to get in a lot of writing time! I made great strides on the revisions of Signs and Shadows, and I finished the year-long revisions at the end of the summer!

We stayed for about a week in England and Scotland on our return journey. It was truly a joy to spend time with dear friends in England, who were so kind and generous in hosting and entertaining us! We saw the Lake District there, and look! — William Wordsworth’s grave!

Here we are . . .

So anyway, Scotland . . . We rented a cool little car and drove up there from the Manchester area. We never figured out what make the car was, but it had a manual transmission and “smart” headlights and wipers: the lights would come on when the world grew dark, and the wipers would come on when the windshield got wet. So the car’s automatic energy went into those peripherals. The transmission itself was altogether manual.

Narrow, narrow roads! Stone walls to right and left! Sheep milling about in the road! Signs gleefully proclaiming, “Oncoming Traffic in Middle of Road”! Other signs ominously warning, “CAUTION! RED SQUIRRELS!” But we survived, and by grace, we returned the car without a scratch. Thanks be to God!

Winner of the Most Dramatic Scottish Landscape We Saw Award: Glencoe.

Pictures don’t do it justice. When we first drove into Glencoe, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It reminded me of the movie Inception, how reality bent, how the flat ground could be folded up at a ninety-degree angle to form a wall. I know that sounds like I’m just describing a cliff, but I’m not: the whole landscape just suddenly shoots up to the sky! What an amazing place, this site of the infamous massacre!

And sheep everywhere!

And stone walls . . .

And trebuchet . . .

No, just kidding — those aren’t all over the place.

LOCH NESS! LOCH NESS! LOCH NESS!

(We saw the loch, I mean — not Nessie. Of course I could see Nessie in my mind’s eye, raising a slender neck from the waves to gaze back at us.)

I took the photo below from the highest tower of Urquhart Castle, looking straight into the teeth of a fierce wind, straight down at the loch.

One of my fondest memories of Loch Ness is this:

Urquhart Castle . . . I’ve seen it all my life in old black-and-white photos of the Loch Ness Monster. I never dreamed I’d be able to climb all over it someday — up onto its towers and down into its dungeon!

The cool motor-scooter again:

Seeing the trees in Scotland, I felt I was seeing trees in Middle-earth.

I guess that’s pretty much the tale of our travels. But the best part of the summer was after we got home. I was finishing up the book, started so long ago, on April 22, 2010, at the McDonald’s in Niigata, Japan. The official date I have written down as having finished the revisions is July 24, 2014 — but in truth, I’m still revising little things, trying to get every nuance as good as I can get it. Parts of this book were written in Niigata; Taylorville; McKees Rocks; Pittsburgh (parks and cemeteries all over those last two); State College PA; Rivne and Kiev, Ukraine; and New Brighton and Beaver Falls, PA. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to our own Marquee Movies, who has read each chapter of the book this year and given me extremely helpful advice, urging me always to let the characters breathe. Julie has also been indispensable, helping me to get the emotional arcs right. I’m a guy trying to write from the perspective of two 19-year-old twin sisters: you can imagine how helpful it is to me to have Julie around to offer her insights.

Best of all: Julie, inspired by the book, has been composing a “soundtrack”! At her piano, she started exploring the themes of each major character . . . the action of the book’s various threads, particularly the climax, in its musical manifestation. This summer, as I sat writing on the back porch, Julie was playing this ever-emerging music. The story inspired her art; her art inspired my revision. As the fireflies winked, I would sit at the patio table, writing into the night. Julie would play on the keys nearby. The star formation known as the Summer Triangle, so prominent in the book, blazed in the sky. Dark pines surrounded our backyard, where the ghosts and visions of the story strolled daily and nightly. Endlessly, Julie read and re-read the book — she’s re-reading it still on her Kindle as she falls asleep each night! Endlessly, we’ve talked about the characters, about the implications of the book. It’s like nothing I’ve written thus far in life; it’s come so far, through the help of several generous people: Latin scholars, thinkers, story experts, sisters, fantasists, readers. I’m really excited about it!

If any of you friends would like to hear Julie’s music, please shoot e-mail to either of us. It won’t mean too much until you’ve read the book, but it is amazing music in any case. I’m thankful for it, and for all her encouragement and support. I’ve come full circle now: it’s been the best summer ever. The Lord is good and kind. Such grace!

By the way, the Cricket project has been going very well, too! “Crowd-Sorcery” is a crowd-sourced fantasy story in the making! All summer, young readers of the magazine have been thinking up characters — heroes, heroines, sidekicks, and villains — and fantasy words and concepts. They’ve been posting their ideas at cricketmagkids.com/sorcery. (You can also read my periodic prompts and updates, called “Fred Threads,” and an interview with the main character there!) Artist Emily Fiegenschuh and I have had the difficult but joyous task of reading all the character entries and narrowing down the lists to groups of finalists, which the kids then voted on. I am now writing a story, “The Girl Who Writes the Future,” which uses the winning characters. Emily is illustrating it. I’m including special items from the Fantasy Dictionary created by the kids. The story will appear in several parts, beginning in the November/December issue of Cricket, which should hit the shelves of newsstands and libraries about the middle of October. I’ll remind you again then — you won’t want to miss it!

And again, Loch Lomond:

The greatest summer comes to an end. But Hallowe’en is on the way! Long live the imagination! Soli Deo Gloria!

And a final photo:

Okay, one more!

Okay, this is really the last one! I began with a stone wall, and I’ll end with one: