Scribbles | scribblechic

consciously cordless

January 12, 2015 § Leave a comment

This week I am taking a self-imposed vacation from the temptations of those distractions that keep me tethered to lost time. I’m logging off social media and pushing the seductivity of on-line convenience a little further from my reach. I’m filling my hands with laundry and hardback books, pencils and puppy play. I’m turning up the volume on my phone to keep myself open to emergencies, but stowing my device out of sight so that I stop reaching to fill moments of restlessness with an virtual wandering among inspirational quotes and glimmers of artful expressions of living.

It is a week that begs greater attention and a clarity of intention as I navigate complicated questions in search of honest answers; the quiet of my resolution drowned too quickly by the noise of so many distractions. It is an imperfect exercise in balance as I stay open to the necessity of e-mail correspondence and the serenity of these written meditations, but it is a much needed reprieve from the false assumption of availability that extorts time and attentiveness from greater personal consciousness and emotional connectivity.

purposeful accidents

January 10, 2015 § 5 Comments

Most days I count my blessings before my worries, naming first the companions that lend me strength and nourish hope. It is a preference I learned first from my mother who always guided my mindfulness towards a positive perspective with frustrating refrains of overly cheerful adages and stern reminders of worse misfortunes. In motherhood, my worries are the balance of my children’s joy.

Some days there is a loneliness for the fears that alienate me from the sisterhood of friends whose worries divide us with complicated languages of need. On these occasions, it is a gentler love that offers borrowed strength; a kind smile, shared laughter, or fleeting distraction that helps us tread the water of our worries until we are rested enough to hold our own heads a little further from the threat of drowning.

Some days, the friend is a familiar stranger. Today I am giving thanks for the company of friends who lend us perspective on impossible days.

This morning’s errand to my least favorite grocery store placed me solidly in the path of a woman I know by heart more than name. Our experiences in motherhood have gifted us a language of compassion and courage that inform possibility in the face of exhausting doubts. She is someone who speaks in a subtext of understanding that allows me to drop the armor of false bravery for a more tender authenticity.

To this woman I met by chance in a manner I will forever feel was orchestrated by an architect of fate,

thank you.

sharing secrets

January 9, 2015 § 2 Comments

There is a lovely message of friendship circling my facebook newsfeed; individuals inviting and accepting the challenge to create a commitment to kindness. A voluntary chain letter that promises generosity of friendship with anticipated acts of unexpected kindness.

I was first introduced to this concept last year when an old friend extended the invitation online. My response then was to challenge myself privately to embrace the spirit of my friend’s promise. It was in this vein that I talked my family into a road trip to celebrate the same friend’s birthday; it was the encouragement that buoyed me to take the uncertain first step in getting to know someone I admired and inviting a friendship of sincerity; is was even the borrowed bravery that allowed me to be present for a friend in the face of grief despite a longstanding discomfort that borders on fear of raw loss. The challenge was a catalyst for a perspective that invited greater commitment to relationships often procrastinated in the busyness of everyday care for family and home without compromising the integrity of prioritizing my husband and children before others.

What began in attentiveness evolved into something greater than a singular act, the momentum of kindness created a richer experience of friendship.

This year I would like to challenge others privately to extend kindness to strangers in the same way we offer kindness to friends. I won’t choose an ideal number of acts to perform or a timeline within which to demonstrate this secret conspiracy of kindness in word or deed. I wonder only what change we could inspire if we woke committed to creating an opportunity to practice kindness without an expectation of completion. It is a perspective of generosity that informs a more beautiful community and a more empowered image of self with greater mindfulness.

A secret worth sharing.

to my children

January 9, 2015 § 2 Comments

There is a thread of worry that ravels itself between my daily actions, little fears for days to come and situations outside my control. I try to offer fragments of wisdom in unpredictable moments of attentiveness, hoping to educate the little voice that speaks internally to your doubts, filling the noise of uncertainty with a gentler conviction. Over the past week, I have heard echos of old lectures in familiar voices.

To my son, Your friend is navigating heartbreak, an ailment for which there is no cure. Rather than offer false hope or empty understanding, you have sat sentry to your friend’s emotions; allowing them a safe place to be vulnerable but not alone. When the worries felt greater than your comfort, you offered them the number of someone you trusted with your problems not knowing I would see my number or your message of encouragement. It was a small thing, almost comical for the unexpected endorsement, but reassuring; your voice quieting my doubts that you value my efforts to listen.

To my daughter, Schoolwork is rarely synonymous with learning; exercises in rote memorization are clumsy and inconsistent at best. Sometimes, in play, we shift roles; I become the student and you guide me into a game or topic of interest to you. It was during one of these moments of instruction, as I strained against the names and connections that are so naturally ingrained upon your interests, that you offered me familiar encouragement. You reminded me that mistakes are a part of learning; a message I have championed for years, but you more recently adopted from a classroom poster as your own. You are rarely as patient with your own mistakes, so the ease of this language in a teaching moment was a comfort to old anxieties.

To my children, Heartbreak and error are predictable pieces of imperfect experiences. These moments of awareness for others’ frustrations inform the presence of an inner dialogue I hope will offer a similar kindness to you when I cannot guard your joy from doubts. For now it is enough to know that you are listening and practicing a language of generosity in friendship and in learning.

Love, Mom

be(ing)

January 7, 2015 § 6 Comments

I possess an undeniable affinity for messages of worth that empower an appreciation for, confidence in, and expectation of growth; values and endearments, affirmations and declarations that speak to individuality and resilience. I scribble words into the texture of my day with artwork and jewelry, letters and lists; goals and promises that guard the sanctity of my dreams for the life I craft with my choices.

Still, some days the language of my hope suffocates the joy from more imperfect experiences as the words that measure my accomplishments do not align with the image of self that is fractured with shortcomings.

What if instead of holding to the cookie cutter, hashtag culture of abbreviated, social media mission statements we edited our wishes to a quieter contentment? Perhaps it is enough to Be without more grand aspirations of excellence trapped in exhaustive adjectives that suffocate gratitude for less with expectations of excess.

I speak only of my doubts as I sift through emotions and questions that challenge my assumptions and tendencies; condensing an image of self into catch phrases that overlook the complex contradictions of individuality that resist generic exaggerations of accomplishment. Perhaps our greatest accomplishments require only the courage to be ourselves.

snow day

January 6, 2015 § 2 Comments

The phone calls have been made, this morning’s whispers are tomorrow’s promise; a day wiped clean of routine by the whim of weather. It is a small thing, the simplest joy banging noisily against the fullness of empty hours. Happy mischief and harmless mayhem wait on the other side of a winter night’s dream.

dog days

January 3, 2015 § 2 Comments

The past two weeks have been a happy blur of holidays and home. Lingering Christmas decorations are as telling as the misplaced shoes drafted for mischief in moments of distraction.

There is a joyful chaos to the predictable disruption of order that can be measured in muddy puppy prints and unexpected puddles. Each mess is met with the comic frustration of uncoordinated damage control as we trip collectively over the rough edges of progress in a cautious choreography of care.

Simple expectations and firm boundaries have gifted us a new language as we struggle, clumsily, toward consistency. We’re teaching our pup about the space of our home, but we’re also learning a bit about ourselves and one another as we share inconvenient responsibilities and celebrate unexceptional success with notable enthusiasm.

We are laughing and sighing in unison, sharing sympathetic glances and uncovering new smiles. We’ve set aside of our worries and found extra excuses to play, spent less time planning for company and more time doing nothing, together.

This is the secret I’ve come to understand, the days are longer in puppy years for the time we cease to count while we tend to the little things that matter.

mind body

January 2, 2015 § 4 Comments

There is an unwanted voice in my mind that interrupts my comfort with unkind whispers. Insecurities that exaggerate my flaws and dwell in criticism. It is a voice I would not use to address another and yet I give this companion residence in my heart. My mind debates the manipulations with logic and well rehearsed messages of unconditional acceptance for personal imperfections, but confidence fails me still. This morning, curled into a cloak of gentleness I am tempering the quiet battles with care; an unhurried cup of coffee in a quiet house, clothing so soft it falls weightless on my frame, a naked face and freshly washed hair. Little indulgences that bind me to a sense of delight; a letting go and coming to.

write

January 1, 2015 § 4 Comments

This day will not come again. The stillness of an uncomplicated and quiet togetherness born of sleepy souls shifting contentedly between insignificant tasks is today’s alone. It is the day we gift ourselves extra care and permission to rest, the tint of last night’s celebrations casting the day in a soft filter of nostalgia for the year past. Resolutions press against the binding of a new calendar, but I am rapt with gratitude for that which I would not change as I dwell peacefully between yesterday and tomorrow.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

wake

December 31, 2014 § 8 Comments

We begin in truth; breathing life against filaments of hope and embers of love still warm beneath so much loss and fear. December will wake a New Year and we will draft our dreams against the dawn; the blush of our conviction written into a new beginning.

We sleep on the cusp of possibility.

Where Am I?