home
March 8, 2015 § 2 Comments
I am thinking this morning of the sounds of a home, the stretching and settling of the body not unlike the sounds of life from within. Friends whose company lends music and family that stretches patience with the crackle of strain. The gentle scratch of puppy paws across the grain of routine and the thunder of children’s footsteps chasing distraction. The crinkle of book bindings unfolding an adventure and the scrape of pencil and pen translating ideas onto paper with an easy haste. It is a harmony of movement and stillness that fills the corners of our day with a lyrical language of comfort; a heartbeat that counts off the day’s song.
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.
this & that
January 25, 2015 § 2 Comments
This month has been a study in contrasts; less of this and more of that.
Change and conflict were tempermental companions this past year as my husband and I navigated uncertainty with a forced conviction and false confidence. Work worries and family tensions frayed the tender strings of patience as we trudged through the unfamiliarity of old routines mourning the comforts of hope in the company of fear.
At the least convenient opportunity we leapt into a messy, full-hearted commitment to a sweet pup; abruptly interrupting our expectations with an assumption of change. It was a pinch on the arm, a foot thrust forcefully into a doorway; calling us to attention and creating space for light.
This year we have become still where we were once frantically busy with empty endeavors; attentive where we had become unconsciously paralyzed. Our routines had been reshaped by doubts and our hope informed by a stubborn complacency, hollow gestures of living shaded by misfortune.
None of this is to say happiness swings to the joy of a puppy’s love. It doesn’t.
At the core of discovery and recognition there was a discomfort that alerted our consciousness to greater contentment just askew of our perspective. In tending to another’s happiness we looked further outside our discontent.
Rather than tallying what we might lose we have been inventorying what we have; unsettled by comfort we have created sources of rejuvenation. We are trying new things, planning for change and playing at forgotten interests. More of that which was ever-present and overlooked; less of what we do not need and cannot control.
home & holidays
December 19, 2014 § 6 Comments
The last day of school on the eve of Christmas vacation is always a messy culmination of anticipated joy. Teacher gifts and classroom parties, last minute errands and spontaneous gatherings; a chaos of intentions and accidents, I scavenge stolen moments for misplaced time before we collide into quieter pursuits collectively. It is a rhythm as predictable as the months of the year and yet today arrived dauntingly premature.
In all the enthusiasm of our new addition I had not calculated the debt of time I could not balance, absences and compromises accumulating as evidence of failure. My teacher gifts were lackluster and impersonal, generically uniform and in sharp contrast to the lengthy list of rare souls who shadow my children’s school days. Holiday cards were patiently and intentionally addressed only to be stuffed beneath the congested procrastination of my kitchen drawer with stamps yet unadhered. The tree stands naked in want of ornaments that guard memories of years past in anticipation of years to come, an unintentional watermark of where we have settled in comfort against the grain.
And then I missed my daughter’s holiday party.
Despite every effort to restructure my afternoon, I could not coordinate a way to divide myself between commitments and I canceled the task I most wanted to honor out of obligation to my other child. It was an impossible choice based on logic in defiance of want made easier by the presumed acquiescence of my daughter’s silent approval. I didn’t see her brave face in our frantic morning goodbye and so I misread her hasty hug for feisty independence.
It would be so easy to stack what did not happen today, what cannot possibly be fixed tomorrow, into a guard against joy. Sometimes our first choice does not provide a second chance, but then again some days the broken places of our best efforts invites grace.
Tonight I am dwelling on a casual exchange that might not have occurred had my daughter not needed comfort and had my day had ended inside her classroom rather than outside the festivities at the perimeter of dismissal routines. In a moment of tender confession my daughter declared to a well-loved, long trusted aide that our home is not perfect and that’s perfectly ok.
It was the validation I most needed to hear today and the gift I could not possibly have formed into a wish. The measure of home against the impossible standards of the holidays. Forgiveness and acceptance in a child’s love.
puppy love
December 17, 2014 § 14 Comments
It feels too recent that we tended to the emotions of an abrupt goodbye to our first family pet. Impossible that we could tread against the familiar landscape of our memories and love someone new.
The logical pieces of my brain have calculated the unavoidable messiness of sacrificing order while creating a new normal. Sleepless nights and inconvenient messes, hallmarks of a puppy’s home.
Emotionally, I can already feel the weight of my companion’s shadow and the eagerness of her untempered affection. It is a new beginning in an old love story, all for the love of a puppy.
home & holidays
November 23, 2014 § 9 Comments
Curled beneath the blanket my mother knit, the sounds of my family sorting through individual distractions interrupting the silence, I am content. Old toys and new projects, quiet interests and easy company are hallmarks of our weekends. Holidays are similar in their simplicity; well-loved decorations will nestle corners of our home in nostalgia and familiar meals will draw us around our child-weathered table in good company.
Our traditions are informal, inviting opportunity and chance to interrupt the stillness while holding our place at home with a promise to return.
This morning we ventured outside our routines, gathering new memories along familiar streets. Shuffling between store windows and street performers, we settled into the magic of a musical. Both children, too grown to be so easily lost under the spell of make-believe, leaned into the performance allowing themselves to be tricked into a story. Returning home to the comforts of less grand endeavors, I thought of days past and marveled at the inequality of time.
Traditions slow the minute hand least I move too quickly through my days. Just as the trees have emptied their leaves beneath the burden of shortened days, I too have drawn myself further into the season; giving thanks for time shared and conjuring magic with a celebratory spirit. Stretching the days across fleeting years.
breadcrumbs
July 12, 2014 § 2 Comments
Enchanted by another’s recognition of self in an environmental place of belonging I have begun considering my own sense of provenance. A question of physical space of origin, an authentic self reflected in the boundaries of land and community, has tickled the corners of my curiosity begging a conviction of connectivity I cannot conjure.
My earliest years were stretched between my parents’ diverging paths, there are few places of permanence that I recall with a sense of self. Instead I find myself scavenging the landmarks of a life scattered, revisiting the past for an intimacy of sight, sound, or scent to guide me.
Some years ago I visited my grandparents’ home, a familiar hallmark of my childhood, anticipating tremors of recognition; internal resonance attuned to time and place. Moving through old rooms I remember looking for markers of belonging, messages of self coded in old fixtures and leftover structures. Instead I found physical boundaries simultaneously familiar and foreign for the contraction of emotions that accompanied the experience.
Last year I weighed an invitation of homecoming for a sentimental school reunion. In my mind I traversed a troubled path to a slumbering past, tempting demons with old ghosts. Unable to follow my thoughts through the hallways of a time lost to the traffic of new travelers, I danced around the corners of remembering unable to reconcile the enormity of memories with the disorienting passage of time.
In as much as I might tenant places of my past, I return to self in faded lines of old script. This is my home; the smell of pencil shavings and the crinkle of paper, wordplay and errant punctuation.
More than bricks and beams language binds me to a path marked by letters scattered like breadcrumbs. Even as the world around me changes, I find my way with words in much the same way one might navigate the sea by stars. My landmarks are guardians of old memories fixed in time and bound in shape by letters that map a lifetime; lifelines to pieces of self in a journey yet incomplete.
Still, this question of belonging lingers in doubt and I cannot help but wonder if there might come a time when I will trespass a moment and stumble into a familiar other that will inform a sense of knowing and create an unexpected homecoming.
home for the holiday
December 30, 2013 § 4 Comments
It happens each year, a quiet day invites my attention inward and I begin tucking away pieces of the holiday and cleansing out the congested corners of our home to ready our threshold to welcome a new year.
I started with the Christmas clutter, knit stockings now empty and paper wreaths formed of tiny handprints. I left the Nutcrackers that our holiday spirit might linger beneath their tireless watch and stowed away our ornaments. I gathered the holiday books into a bin and corralled my children’s colorful collections of beloved seasonal trappings. Soon the surfaces of our home were open and I welcomed the space that seemed to invite change.
Inspired I began to explore neglected nooks for forgotten trimmings tucked sleepily into my favorite hiding spaces. Unhurriedly I gave time where I previously had none, sweeping out the spaces whose weight pushed against my patience consuming time and energy.
By afternoon I had engaged my family’s help as we turned our attention toward each child’s room, sifting through unused evidence of old interests to make room for favorite pastimes and new pursuits. Beneath uncluttered workspaces we preserved room for creative endeavors and classroom assignments.
There is still much to be done, like a living creature our home grows to absorb our distractions and we are inconsistent in our care. For now I am merely inviting room for change and hoping to greet the New Year with space for possibility and time for adventures yet undetermined.
home & self
October 10, 2013 § 11 Comments
Occasionally I will look at my home with the removed curiosity of an anthropologist. Familiar items and assumed routines become evidence of our home’s inhabitants’ lives; clues that encapsulate our personalities, sometimes betraying little secrets.
My children are harmless hoarders, they store pieces of unremarkable items with the reverence of explorers gathering evidence of their journey with peculiar treasures. Pant pockets and book bags are weighted with pieces of discarded objects and scraps of paper. Both children’s rooms are fun house mirrors of identity, elements of their space orchestrated to nurture play and rest; their truest selves are most apparent in corners marked by personal distractions. I could outline their reflections in the shape of their clutter, but it would only dismiss me of looking inward.
Our home is a kind guardian of my own secrets. For all the care I place in the appearance of structure, there is a quiet chaos; like creaks in floor boards that whisper of stories past, just beneath the surface old ghosts slumber. My weaknesses are tucked in drawers and dark corners, poorly hidden but ever present. Insecurities and personal failing piled haphazardly out of sight. If I disappeared from my day, I wonder how long my truths would hide in the shadow of assumptions.
Distracted by books I tend to lose myself in stories rather than draft my own. I look to reference books to navigate the unknown; inspirational encouragement to contain fear; and fiction to escape reality – small coping tools that underscore my uncertainties. I gather pieces of favorite memories into tidy boxes to guard them against harm rather than unfolding them more casually into the fabric of our home.
In many ways these little personal truths are my oldest companions. Looking back to early days as a child navigating my divorced parents’ homes, I remember creating my space in such a way that my treasures were near but guarded from harm; projecting reflections of self into foreign space while holding tender pieces safe by hiding in the pages of novels. The uncertainties of my earliest worries manifested later in my teenage years as eating disorders and poor choices, pleasure and control masking sadness and need. I wonder how many of these same fears and insecurities linger in corners of my home; self concealed in a safe haven.
Book titles that hint at worries and unfinished projects that speak of inconsistencies; missing purchases that anchor me to tasks undone; dusty surfaces and unvacuumed corners that betray my distraction; beloved treasures stored safely out of sight to guard a memory. How much of my story could be divulged in the details of home?
scribblechic 