to my family
March 1, 2015 § 2 Comments
It’s been a week to remember. Scary for the uncertainty and exhausting for the roller coaster of emotions that swept through sleepless nights and interrupted our collective routines. We are tired, restless, overwhelmed. We are also patient, generous, thoughtful, and invested. After days of feeling ill or overlooked, it would have been easy to excuse short fuses, but we found a gentler way to work together and I couldn’t be more proud.
To my husband, You chased after spontaneous food cravings at every untimely want and shuttled our son between work day responsibilities without complaint. When I moved our daughter closer to my side, you slept uncomfortably in the disruptive company of our pup. Gone are the hallmarks of family meals, morning coffee, and evening time alone. Most of our time together has been in passing, as we trade places beside a child or share updates. I haven’t been able to tell you how much your circus of comedy in the hospital lightened my spirit or how grateful I am you held my fears gently as I fussed over each decision. You have been a sounding board and silent support system I couldn’t have done without.
To my son, This week you grew into added responsibility. Your father and I have drifted through the days tired and distracted without the reserve of energy that would have normally been yours to claim. You found your way through your school work and helped around the house, prepared a simple meal and tended to the needs of our pup. It would have been easy to disappear into more frivolous interests while our attention was occupied, but you matured into demonstrations of respectful consideration and I am so proud of your effort and selfless concern.
To my daughter, Even on the nights you were feverish and miserable there wasn’t an unkind demand or selfish exclamation. There was no entitlement or pity party between your please and thank you. We’ve hidden from the worries in the language of a new story, tumbling into the elegant imagination of H.G. Wells while we travel through time a little misplaced ourselves. I miss your smile and spunk, but I’m thankful for the minutes we have collected in conversation when light and sound were too intrusive to your overwhelmed senses.
To my family, Thank you for making a difficult week, easier; for nurturing one another with kindness and generosity; for sharing responsibilities, respectfully.
Love you.
to our daughter’s nurses
February 28, 2015 § 2 Comments
I’m sure we seemed unexceptional upon our arrival, a little cautious and confused we carried our worries like the bulky winter coats that guarded us from the evening cold. The experience had the surreal experience of a dream, one I kept expecting would dissipate into the comforts of another reality.
There was something intimidating about the unfamiliar routine of the hospital emergency room. The staff navigated the chaos with a quiet confidence and practiced protocol, a language we stumbled through clumsily. The only thing more discerning than our own displaced equilibrium and anxious disbelief was our daughter’s desperate misery.
Our daughter cried outside your entrance and begged us to go home, her feverish limbs were fortified by a nervous fear. An old experience in another hospital, a casual untruth and empty reassurance, undermined your care. She felt every discomfort with the magnification of these memories and there was no reassurance that could endure the balance of this debt as she measured words for trust.
You called our little girl brave and smart, despite her panic, acknowledging her fear and building a relationship based on respect. She challenged every fact and questioned every uncertainty until her tension slowly unraveled into rest that accepted care. The tears faded into a smile and we left a little more trusting than we arrived, unhealed as yet, but mended.
For the exceptional care that is your standard, thank you. The kindnesses will not be forgotten.
saving seats
February 27, 2015 § 4 Comments
Over the years I have tinkered with social media. More often than not, it feels a little like peeking in the privately public space of an acquaintance’s medicine cabinet. There are labels and indulgences, personal and generic tells that give away more than I need to know; some of which, in hindsight, I would rather not see.
For some, the public domain of personal sharing is little more than a day planner or scrapbook; an open journal among friends. For others it is a platform for opinions, a resource that invites conversation and change. An outlet for creativity or resource for connectivity we use these spaces in curious statements of self as we draft images of our lives into a light that sometimes illuminates fragments of self we might rather leave to mystery.
I wonder often what we might take back, the casual harms of public insensitivity and the intimacies we unintentionally expose; if we are braver for the illusion of privacy or more vulnerable in our accessibility. Some days I consider the chaos of my eclectic online companions with the same measure of enthusiasm and caution I once gauged school cafeterias.
I’m saving seats for those who share opinions respectfully, who speak first with kindness. I want to sit with the dreamers and thinkers, the doers and believers who wear their truths comfortably with room enough for tolerance and curiosity for differences that inspire and challenge assumptions. I want to earn my place among these people and walk gently in their company.
to my husband
February 26, 2015 § Leave a comment
There was never an expectation of extravagance. From the very beginning we have been mindful of the balance of responsibility and indulgence. We travel when we can, nestle our home in comforts that lend joy, and temper our splurges with small sacrifices. It is a life of saving up and spending thoughtfully. Investing in our relationship with measures of time and compromise in place of grandiose demonstrations of appreciation.
Last week we crafted anniversary plans that we could share during our children’s school day; borrowing a moment to ourselves to honor the day with a leisurely breakfast and a meaningful venture to a new storefront. Rather than travel from home or mark the day with gifts, we chose time together over a meal and an opportunity to celebrate your newfound culinary curiosity with a sprinkling of new spices.
Instead, today arrived and our daughter is still resting from the fever that has stolen so many moments this week. A school meeting and lecture, time with friends and school work. Unglamorous and far from the celebratory tone of the day, it is a significant and timely reminder that years are culminations of imperfect days. There was no remorse or bitterness in our canceled plans, rather an understanding that we would celebrate another time and make time today to enjoy the meaning of the day no less ours for the absence of festivity.
We create our own enthusiasm, the burden of ceremony and sentiment is ours to share. Today it is enough to begin in gratitude for the resilience of our promise over years of uncertain challenges, to stand together, still, in a place of intention and tenderness with respect and kindness for the life we share as a family and our individual aspirations.
Fifteen years ago we promised to find our way into the unknown together, never loosing sight of ourselves while creating a home that would honor togetherness. Each year I stand on the threshold of our anniversary and marvel at the path of our efforts and wonder at the days untold.
Here’s to the mystery of what will be and the certainty of what is. Happy Anniversary!
Love, Me
care & keeping
February 25, 2015 § 3 Comments
There is little glamour to housekeeping and errands, but creating and nurturing the atmosphere of home with small obligations of care create, for me, a sense of purpose. These same tasks also validate the flexibility of my days as a homemaker, allowing for the luxury of selfish indulgences that nurture independent interests and creativity that sustain my spirit for more mundane moments.
This week, when my daughter fell ill, the frivolous pieces of my days and routine responsibilities alike were quickly scattered like errant crumbs. Instead of chasing calendar commitments, I marked time by my daughter’s inconsistent sleep and our puppy’s predictable needs. Without opportunity to invite company or pursue distractions, I shifted between loads of dishes and laundry with an almost meditative leisure. When my daughter would rest, I was forced to stillness; reading and resting at odd hours that contradicted natural tendencies toward busyness.
In times of necessity our world shrinks to the capacity of our ability. A fevered hand absently wrapped across my own shifted the balance of my attention with such clarity that I was more mindful of even the simplest effort. So many of my efforts to care for our home and those who fill the space with meaning are lost unintentionally in empty concentration or rote attendance.
Today I am thinking about how we love, the pieces of our routine that sustain us and the commitments of care that inform our intentions. The space of home as important as the language of family.
the hardest part
February 22, 2015 § 4 Comments
I think the longest minute is the one for which there is no control. Worries held captive by the frustration of helplessness. There is no peace for a mother whose child is in need, too far from the span of her reach to offer comfort.
When my husband called yesterday from a camping trip to caution a hurried return with our little girl, my mind danced between the details; an unkind imagination of worst fears. I measured the minutes and miles between us in what ifs without a face to gauge for clues. It is an impossible triage of care, calculating could be’s and hypothetical how to’s without a brow to sweep for temperatures or eyes to divulge discomfort.
Today will be a long day, one not unlike so many other unexceptional days lost under the weather. It is an expected experience as parents, we anticipate need and care as we tend to the wellbeing of children that will one day care for themselves and others in our absence. In last night’s fleeting fears I recognized something greater than the familiar worries of seasonal inconveniences, I was reminded of the inevitability that each exercise in helplessness seems an invaluable lesson in faith and hope that we can survive the impossibility of our hearts wandering outside the safety of our keep.
to my son
February 19, 2015 § 4 Comments
Yesterday you noted the neighborhood children piling off the school bus and registered familiar faces with remorse. You shared a simple wish for a reset button, a second chance to go back in time and not make old mistakes. You thought that maybe then those children you always considered friends would invite you over and include you in their easy comradery.
For a moment the car was completely quiet. I quickly contemplated all the ways I would use such a button, the choices I would remake and the actions I might retract.
My first response was to honor the humility and self-awareness of your wish. I validated your emotions and shared my own remorse for the impossibility of time travel. Then, I reminded you that friendship is not so easily misplaced. You were looking to the gentler memories.
I didn’t share my memories; the gatherings I tolerated adults mocking your inconvenient fascination with batteries or unfortunate unauthorized appropriation of household and garage materials for play. I didn’t share the destruction their children had similarly imparted on our home or defend your impulse to create when left outside the circle of their children’s company. I thought I could pretend away the things that divided us as parents, to save you a place at their table. I still remember the sadness in your voice when you would ask for help on the routine occasions those same companions made you cry and the quick dismissal of your peers’ accountability as we dismissed ourselves prematurely from each invitation.
I cannot guide your wishes any more than I can undo what has passed, but I can inform your understanding.
Friendship doesn’t point fingers or turn its back. It doesn’t come and go to the lull of convenience; it accepts us as whole, filling in the broken places with kindness not criticism. Sometimes we miss the illusion of something familiar, forgetting with the luxury of time the uncomfortable pieces of casual harm. You haven’t lost the safety of friendship, strangers lost the privilege of your forgiveness.
This doesn’t ease the ache in your chest; you miss what was never really there with the fullness of genuine loneliness. Rather than looking behind you, look forward; your truest friends are those who stand beside you.
Love, Mom
it’s me, not you
February 18, 2015 § 2 Comments
There are days I am lonely for a misplaced friendship, acutely aware I have fallen out of the social graces of your company. Some days I whisper across the chasm between us, inviting a familiar smile or laugh; missing the sunlight of your enthusiasm and the effervescence of your chaos.
I thought I left because of you, but maybe it was me.
When we met I was outside my comfort zone and trying desperately to assume a role that did not fit. I was less myself and the surety of your confidence permitted me a place I could more easily disappear. Had I given my needs a more honest voice, we might still share conversations that don’t hint at forced politeness.
Instead I abandoned our friendship, consciously, with a passivity that was cowardly. Had I waded further into accountability and invested greater trust, I would be a better person in your life.
It must be acknowledged that our last year together was a horrible time for both of us, I offered only what I had to spare without trusting you might survive the burden of my grief. I waited for you to see my heartache, but I had stood too long in a place of silent acquiescence.
Some days the things I did not say sit against my tongue with a bitter aftertaste of remorse; I should have fought harder for the goodness between us. Instead I am carrying the sharp pieces of these lessons with greater consciousness, inviting myself in all my uncomfortable imperfection to each new relationship so that I am more present in my care.
It wasn’t you, it’s me.
to my son
February 17, 2015 § Leave a comment
There is a quiet grace in the eagerness of your vulnerability, the unabashed honesty of your emotions. I wonder if you understand the rarity of your openness, your willingness to step outside a prideful posture and stand unguarded in your tenderness.
Yesterday I watched you gather your worries and fears into a language of need; washing your smile in a flood of tears you purged the thoughts that confined your smile. In that moment the years tumbled away and you looked lost in unhappiness that hung from your frame like a child dressed up in the ill-fitting garments of problems too large for your experience.
Sweet boy, for all the language of expectations that dictate the responsibilities of a young man we must remember to honor the fleeting fragility of your childhood. Thank you for trusting me with your worries, that I might better guard your smile.
Love, Mom
second fifth, last third
February 12, 2015 § Leave a comment
Tomorrow is my youngest child’s last elementary school classroom party. It’s a funny emotional hiccup that keeps pulling at my attention today, a small acknowledgment that these otherwise unexceptional experiences are exquisitely fleeting in their inconvenience. For all the times I cursed the chaos of crafts or the responsibility of organizing restless bodies into overly enthusiastic efforts at recreation, I am suddenly unwilling to imagine this is the last time I will chase after last-minute necessities or fuss over the impossibility of reinventing traditional games into politically correct, themed celebrations.
If I am entirely honest, I should confess that I won’t miss the preparations; the uncomfortable suspicion that I have overlooked or underestimated an idea. The secret insecurity that manifests in wanting to please the partygoers and not lose face among mothers who so often seem in possession of a secret knack for the task of controlled silliness. Most often I drift to the sidelines of the synchronized madness, marveling at the mechanics of my child’s community of peers and wondering at what futures wait for them as they grow further into the personalities I have had the privilege of witnessing.
More than the festivities of the day, I am mindful of the impossible goodbye within the routine of these elementary traditions. It is my second time navigating the halls of my children’s fifth grade experience, my last third party of the school year, and a bittersweet milestone as we near a new beginning and move further from the halls that guard memories of my husband, son, and daughter’s childhoods.
