enough
August 9, 2013 § 2 Comments
August is bittersweet with beginnings and endings. We turn the calendar ahead, celebrating our daughter’s birthday and begrudgingly note the dwindling days of summer vacation. The simple squares that map the month seem inadequate, an error in measurement.
Each day we hide from the dawn holding our dreams close and greedily gather the lingering length of sun stretched across our evenings into waking hours; defiantly we dismiss routine. School supplies slumber on lists tucked out of sight and our flip-flops mark the threshold of our home like totems of summer guarding against autumn.
I am not yet ready for the end. Instead I am slipping off my watch, marking off the minutes of summer with togetherness; scavenging adventures from moments of restlessness.
This moment, for now, enough.
walls
August 3, 2013 § 2 Comments
Tomorrow we’ll bundle summer clothes and unspoken hopes into our car and turn our attention towards a family weekend at my In-Law’s lake home. Once a source of directionless adventures stretched across endless summer days it has grown into a place of retirement designed around old ambitions; symbols of status have suffocated the intimacy of old walls who still whisper memories of days riddled with sand, sun, and water. Like the firmly drawn lines on blueprints of dreams structured to hold hopes closely, we have built walls between us to guard against harm and sacrificed connectivity in the maze of discontent between us.
This weekend we will move through old walls, lending our children time with grandparents while guarding ourselves from the tender places of our experiences as both parents and children; marveling at the distance between joy and sadness while standing still; trying to conjure magic from memories to gift our children joy and ourselves peace; preserving the past and building a future on the uncertain terrain of family.
thank you, but
July 30, 2013 § 8 Comments
When met with a compliment I feel a sense of earnest remorse for kindnesses unearned. I want to pin my errors alongside my blessings like laundry strung boldly across my home. I fail colorfully, noisily, apologetically each day; impatience gets tangled in expectations and perspective cluttered with emotions. It is a messy task, mothering, and I am as much a novice today as I was the moment I first held each child. I unfold each day with equal parts fascination and terror, gratitude and humility as I tend to my lessons in raising a family of individuals.
My wisdom is fleeting, I am master of nothing as each day challenges yesterday’s certainty; each truth tempered by experiences that rarely duplicate themselves. Tomorrow I wake a fool anew in search of certainty that I have loved unconditionally and learned intentionally, for anything else would be unreasonable to assume and impossible to measure.
sticky feet
July 29, 2013 § 2 Comments
The older I get the more the past seems to follow me, like damp earth stuck to the tread of my shoes; the weight of my presence absorbing passing moments until the path I leave is swollen with memories. The pieces of my past I tried so tirelessly to shake from my company are ever-present, just beneath my consciousness and quickly called to mind unbidden but newly welcome. At this time when my children are casting the shape they will imprint across the paths they traverse, I am considering the measure of my own experiences and welcoming the earthy sense of belonging that accompanies remembering.
sleep talk
July 27, 2013 § 4 Comments
My children have grown into independent bedtime routines; quiet moments at the end of the day punctuated by solitary interests. My son may linger over a discarded electrical relic, curiously dismantling it into mismatched pieces or curl into the pages of a book. My daughter will gather fragments of toys onto her comforter, rearranging pieces into a collective artistic expression or fill notebook pages with doodles, lists, and fairytales. I retreat into the pages of a book, periodically noting the length of light spilling between their rooms into our hallway.
This week my children invited me into their space with conversations on the cusp of sleep. My son was more fleeting in his sharing, a simple acknowledgment that despite our chaffing opinions and contrary perspectives he loves me. A sentimental pinpoint when I mapped the day in my mind. My daughter called me from the corner of consciousness, filling the air around us with wonder and uncertainty. Questions circled the lingering light and I understood why she puts pen to paper dispensing thoughts to clear her mind for dreams.
Contentedly I quietly recalled the countless evenings I fell asleep tucked into my children’s days and marveled at how we create belonging between good night wishes and I love you; tidy practices like nursery rhymes and beloved bedtime stories nestled on shelves to weigh pieces of tomorrow in yesterdays and connecting us in a string of memories.
deconstructing conflict
July 25, 2013 § 6 Comments
In moments of conflict my thoughts are cluttered by contradictory emotions; indignation challenges insecurity, sadness undermines anger. My younger self imagined growing into an armor of thick skin, an impenetrable shield woven from experience and wisdom that awaited me in adulthood. Instead motherhood has created an unnerving vulnerability; I have found fewer moments of peace as I wade into conflict to clarify the social language of harm, hoping to instruct my children in awareness and forgiveness.
The experience of role-playing and labeling conflict, spontaneous lessons in social behavior, have made me hyper-sensitive to secondary conflict. We sit within a moment among words, sorting the harm between us in a safe place to identify recognizable pieces. At times my nerves are raw for the absence of tenderness or presence of ignorance outlining poor behavior.
My son has learned the language of unkindness in much the same way he memorizes pages of texts. He understands unkindness as it reflects experience and recognizes harm in betrayal. In moments when a friend is unkind or a harm is said in friendly tones, the contradiction creates new wounds. My daughter hears harm unspoken and feels others’ unkindness even when the wounds are not her own. Often the most difficult part of navigating the language of conflict is the unmarked, endless space of tomorrows.
The absence of a tidy resolution, letting go when a harm is too tender to forget; this is the challenge of finding peace in conflict. It is a lesson I am still learning myself; to walk in the world with strength of self and faith in others.
Note: This draft has lingered unsettled for a while, a thought more than a certainty, written at a time when both children were finding their way on a difficult day. Rereading my reflections I am reminded that we must revisit old harms and weigh their relevance in moments of peace to reinforce the value of time and perspective. Learning and growing at each opportunity.
sandcastles
July 22, 2013 § 4 Comments
We welcome the earliest days of summer with the cluttered noise of children unloading hopes onto an empty beach. Towels, treats, water toys, and sculpting pails map intentions onto a corner of a boundless expanse of possibility. This season of discovery is with us always, but too often we lose sight of the magic beneath the mundane lulled by the rhythm of anticipation.
This summer I have found new delights in the ordinary, like clouds performing shadow tricks onto a bright blue canvas there have been glimpses of something new among the old causing me to still myself, chasing after the shape of my children’s choices and marveling at the images they provide. Conversations like pebbles waiting for the tide and castles built without sand. A season of the heart.
brushstrokes
July 18, 2013 § 6 Comments
I conjure images of myself expecting the momentum of a vision will sweep me into action, thoughts coordinating into movement. Spontaneity spurred by intention. In truth, inhibitions or insecurities intervene and I cannot shed the stream of thoughts that betray false bravado, tethering me safely to the perimeters of unpredictable spaces. I watch as others relax into whim, marveling at the ease of their openness. My own hopes and fears are stowed safely outside the scrutiny of others. I fail flamboyantly at letting go.
I stewed internally over this personal truth during an evening outing with friends. Our plans to paint over wine and conversation promised a keepsake of play; I had hoped to create something of myself on canvas that I could anchor firmly in our home. Instead I uncovered uncomfortable truths that I would rather cover up with bright brushstrokes. Overwhelmed by the uncertainty of creating something from nothing I felt disheartened by a familiar measure of discomfort.
Following my emotions I silently identified other moments when my thoughts and actions contradicted one another creating frustration and disappointment. Where my feet halt abruptly at the edge of certainty, I watch others tread onward with confident gestures of self. My joy in solitary endeavors and intimate settings seem dispassionate against examples of women whose actions and words seem to project a careless confidence.
Today I am wondering if there is a secret wish in my heart for a sense of otherness, remorse hidden beneath chances untaken. Perhaps I must simply accept my truths unapologetically and forgive myself discomforts that hold me to the shadows of others’ light.
thoughts unsaid
July 16, 2013 § 8 Comments
Lately I feel caught in the uncomfortable uncertainty, or perhaps certain uncomfortableness, of my son’s teenage experience. As his limbs lengthen and voice deepens, I am forever looking toward the little boy beneath the awkward mannerisms while my husband endeavors to outline the man our son will become.
to my boys,
There was a time the heavy tread of the father was followed by a hurried, muffled thumping of little feet. An eagerness in sound and space to fill the footsteps that loomed larger than life. As those tiny feet have grown into their own path, you meet toe-to-toe in conflict; demanding respect while quietly yearning for understanding.
I see a man with the sensitivity of a child lonely for his little boy and a child confusing freedom with respect, seeking equality without the experience that informs authority. I stand in the periphery of your experience as father-son, balancing my promises to partner in parenting alongside my need to nurture.
I have an expectation we have only begun to experience the growing pains that accompany this age. Self and selflessness, family and individuality. These are the years we draft silent promises in contradictory spaces, boundaries that hold us tightly together while outlining freedom.
This is my promise to stand between you in love with compassion and patience, respect for what we share and faith in the beautiful differences between us.
wanting & having
July 14, 2013 § 6 Comments
This morning my husband and I circled our daughter with choices, attempting to create birthday plans that would evolve into cherished memories from daydreams and wishes. What would you like? Who would you like to include? What might you like to do? Each of us became dizzy from the momentum of expectations.
We looked outward toward dramatic visuals pinned with promises of parties tinted in tones of joy. Images not unlike the of artistic filters that cast contemporary photographs in shades of nostalgia. Themed cakes and clever goody bags were missing the quaint charm of blank space.
Then, we looked inward.
I cannot remember my parents interviewing me to create an ideal, rather I remember a sense of gratitude for candles that invited a reason to cast a wish among friends. My experience was less wanting and more having. In truth I had less and dreamt more, my riches greater for my dreams.
My daughter’s birthday is just around the corner and this year I am giving her a little more wrapped in a lot less. A simple cake and a couple of friends. A special gift and room to wish.
scribblechic 