more than a feeling
January 9, 2016 § 3 Comments
This morning a serendipitous question burrowed into my sleepiness, stirring a pleasant awakening. The question was not my own, it comes second hand from another’s sharing and begs an answer to how I want to feel today and what I might do to create that emotion.
What would I choose?
My words came easily with little end to my means. The day stretched broadly before me with endless opportunities to choose my own adventure.
Like chapter books of my childhood, I could turn the page according to my imagination; adjusting my path with choice.
What will I do?
Accountability is a powerful motivator; it speaks in facts without emotion and does not justify excuses. It is a quiet witness to our truth and a mirror to those things we keep to ourselves.
Certainly there are days we cannot create what we choose, moments when fate acts upon us and tears the rug from beneath our feet, but what of the days we can?
role reversal
January 8, 2016 § 2 Comments
It started in a moment of mothering, an emotional unraveling that derailed my intentions. I was reacting to fear, rambling over my worries with too many words, when I recognized my son modeling the very behavior I was forgetting.
He listened patiently, without interruption, as my voice rose; accepted his responsibility without excuse; offered genuine remorse. He also proposed, independently, to rectify the wrong. He had received the difficult message and respectfully assumed the weight of his error.
When there was no anger left in my posture, my son cried and I saw the little boy who always smiled from the truest, most joyful, part of his soul. The toddler who had to climb and explore, to push boundaries and move fearlessly in creativity. The boy with ideas bigger than his years.
The teenager who is not quite ready to grow-up and desperate to be taken seriously.
Then I considered the problem at hand. Something so much smaller than the scale of my reaction and the scope of my son’s day. An incomplete assignment became a lesson in presence.
I was so busy teaching that I almost missed the demonstration of mastery. I forgot the spirit of the little boy whose shoulders are now taller than my own and the character he has not outgrown. We aspire to shape our children for the world we anticipate, but they create a world bigger than our experiences with uncomplicated wisdom.
We are each greater than our mistakes.
friction & fire
January 7, 2016 § 7 Comments
There is a place just outside my comfort zone where resistance challenges my fortitude and creates a burn. Pressure points where my spirit lights with small sparks of passion; attention and energy in action.
I used to think these fires came from something outside myself, kindling in want of chance. I’ve come to wonder if the greater truth is these fires slumber in need of air; if in naming our wants we breathe them into something greater.
When I look back to my most challenging moments, there is a physical-emotional memory to the work of joy.
I remember the tired limbs of long hours juggling multiple jobs in college and the mental exhaustion of dense course materials with a familiar memory of early motherhood. In both experiences I was inexperienced and overwhelmed, my environment and my determination creating a spark that infused dark moments with light.
It was the same passion that informed patience during complicated discoveries and difficult lessons as a parent of children with special needs or loving a spouse with the imperfect experiences of marriage. The work of loving burns through doubt with a simpler certainty.
Smaller, self-imposed challenges create this same energy. An exercise class completely outside my comfort zone, playing artistically or something as simple as a social engagement in an unfamiliar setting all demand a determined discomfort; friction of want.
As I consider living wholeheartedly, I’m thinking of the places in my day where my wants meet resistance and the invitation to struggle. The work of sparking fires in my soul.
one small thing
January 6, 2016 § 2 Comments
January often bears the burden of grand goals, intimate resolutions that too often undermine our mindfulness for the many blessings of our life as is.
Efforts at growth misconstrued into expectations of change; good intentions suffocated by the comfort of familiar routines. This week, drawing further on the subject of mindfulness for what is, I am celebrating small gestures of wholeheartedness.
One small thing, each day; from finishing projects to intentional eating, I am taking greater care with the small pockets of time that are so often lost to restless discontent.
Little love letters to a life in progress.
planning perfect
January 5, 2016 § 5 Comments
Maybe it was my children returning to school from vacation or my son’s impending semester finals, but yesterday I was caught off guard by the memory of my younger self struggling against impossible expectations and an accidental legacy of self-inflicted inadequacy.
I remembered early school days past, scribing my work with plans to intentionally redo my efforts for a performance of perfection. Wanting to reframe my work into something exemplary, postponing completion for the anticipation of something better only to feel overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task I burdened myself with.
I do this still.
I plan to eat with greater consciousness and exercise more consistently in anticipation of reshaping myself to wear a dress hidden dismissively among an unexceptional wardrobe of invisibility. I schedule time with friends to allow time enough to clean up the honesty of my space for the image of the life I plan to live when I am more organized. I procrastinate my dreams for uncertain qualifications.
Then, with predictable consistency, tomorrow arrives dressed as today in yesterday’s intentions. Time is too costly a barter for perfection.
I wish I could whisper in my elementary ear to finish homework the best I could and move on so as not to squander my time on a lost task. That sweet girl grew up assuming her best would inevitably fall short of acceptable. I want her to wear the dress that makes her feel beautiful without first waiting on a different reflection and invite company without worrying her home is not properly tended. I want her to dream out loud and expect struggle even in the pursuit of joy.
Not every effort is beautiful, but lost opportunities supplement dreams with remorse.
Today I’m working on a more forgiving expectation of self that I might unburden my actions of unkind standards.
monday’s child
January 4, 2016 § 5 Comments
Sleepy heads and heavy feet, full hearts and forgotten routines. We’re back to early mornings and long days, heavy backpacks and extra circular commitments.
I struggle against school mornings. Waking my children to herd them through breakfast and dress to catch their bus before the sun has dismissed the evening sky it’s labor.
Already it seems they have begun to outgrow their childhood like ill-fitting clothes that cannot contain the limbs of their dreams. Most mornings I watch them travel the short distance to their bus stop and marvel at how quickly the days pass.
Last night I set my alarm a little earlier, that today I could quickly prepare an unexpected treat. Something simple and warm, playful and sweet to stretch the morning hour.
Monday began with homemade pancakes and new shoes, under dark skies and over snowy sidewalks. Small protests against the cool air and early hour, last-minute objects and extra hugs.
So often we race through the week, eager to chase our responsibilities for play. Today I’m begging stillness in the frenzy of our demands that I don’t hurry the blessings of this day.
trust
January 3, 2016 § 3 Comments
As part of my wholehearted year I am embracing exercises in self; unique opportunities to challenge my assumptions and grow more open to a perspective that encourages accountability with greater understanding.
A perpetual student of curiosity with messy, imperfect efforts at intentional living I am consistently encouraged by the work of Brené Brown who speaks on subjects that intrigue and elude me; inspire and inform greater consciousness. This morning, coffee in hand, I listened as Brené spoke on the subject of trust.
In her lecture, Brené sounds out the significance of trust within the intimacy of our most vulnerable confidants; identifying the ways we trespass trust when we speak unkindly, disingenuously, or share information that is not ours.
I have sacrificed relationships that consumed considerable space in my life for the peace of security when my trust was undermined by this very behavior. Individuals who spoke ill from different sides of a mouth that smiled falsely.
It is a heartache I elude with avoidance, but what of my offerings? It would be easy to shy away from my errors in judgment, so I am looking tenderly today at those places where I may learn from difficult mistakes.
I have broken others’ trust with passive dishonesty; dancing around uncomfortable conversations with polite silence or performing acts of complicity as currency for trust. This year I want to wade into the discomfort of my vulnerability and honor, with integrity, those boundaries that demand respect to preserve trust.
To live wholeheartedly in trust.
calendar girl
January 2, 2016 § 2 Comments
We find remembering like blossoms beneath dried leaves, signs of life forgotten in seasons of slumber.
Years ago I would draw clean lines on blank paper, cataloguing my days into calendars. I did this with a concentrated, meditative calm; sharp lines and curving script that wrestled the chaos of responsibilities and daydreams into the promise of time and attention.
I have a fondness for paper and pencil, order and time that was ever-present, but untended in the space I so often look to guide my hours.
This morning I borrowed my daughter’s new artist pad and marker, free handing an old love onto a clean page. In the familiar lines I remembered grade school calendars etched onto ruled paper and college calendars doodled into the margins of my notes; it was the way I counted my way through difficult experiences and the measure by which I held anticipation close.
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Such a little thing, a block of days to remember the past and map the future. More than necessity or function, they were a love letter to the minutes that collected beneath my pen. How could I have forgotten such a simple joy in so obvious a place?
Today I am drawing my own calendar, imperfect lines and favorite quotes; encouragements pledged in my own hand. Still, there is something more to this moment I want to guard, for myself and my children; a lesson too easily lost in plain sight.
To my children,
Note those easy distractions that your hands reach for with muscle memory, the soul whispers that inform joy. Unconventional materials shaped into familiar objects, wood carvings, and written ramblings. There will come a time when the burdens of your responsibilities will threaten to distract you from these exercises in self – guard them. There is time enough in every day for joy.
Love, Mom
2016
December 30, 2015 § 1 Comment
This year my One Little Word® came to me in the shape of letters that formed almost unbidden beneath my pen. Each letter stroked seamlessly in a single wish.
It is a promise to recenter myself in presence and passion that I act from a place of intention and gratitude for the richness of each day; a recognition that in the complicated, imperfect mess of everyday demands there is grace enough to create a legacy of love and purpose.
in a word
December 27, 2015 § 2 Comments
A few years past, I joined a close friend in naming the New Year with Ali Edward’s inspired One Little Word®. It is a fresh perspective on the tradition of resolutions, an engaging and individual year long reflection with monthly directives that nurture a mindfulness for good intentions too often lost in the brevity of holiday momentum.
I have come to treasure the challenge of one word, settling into the list of possibilities; scratching them upon paper, waiting for one to answer an unspoken question with the subtle shift in the shape of my letters or weight of my pen in hand.
I sift through words that conjure strength or boast conviction, challenge play or validate care; words that elude me and those that name my hopes or weaknesses. It is an intimate exercise in honesty, a tender searching for a resolution of will. One I am still doodling playfully into the margins of these last lingering days of a year rich with more.
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