to my husband
January 31, 2016 § 7 Comments
It’s been an exciting couple of days. You’re on the road, re-introducing a body of work that has been a labor of love for many years; something that was previously a hobby is now your chosen occupation.
We’ve only spoken on the phone, briefly, but already the smile in your stories tells me everything I need to know. That’s the thing about doing what you love, it lights you up from the inside. You speak and act from a truer place and that energy is infectious, it draws people and opportunities into your life that fan the flames of passion.
I’m proud of you and excited for you, inspired by you and confident in your ability. I’m also encouraged by the message you are providing our children about living beyond the status quo; showing them with your actions the value of believing in yourself by taking charge of your dreams and making self a priority.
In all the daily demands of grown-up responsibilities we can lose sight of joy, shy away from risks. It’s so easy to strive for stability; consistency and predictability offer essential measures of peace – financially, mentally and emotionally. As parents we are providers of necessities, but also of inspiration.
We encourage our children to dream big and believe in themselves, but we must first demonstrate the work of living a dream with confidence.
This past year was difficult, it would have been easy to give in to hurt, anger, or disappointment; to be submissive and defer your happiness to predictable pursuits of less fulfilling work. You might have chosen something to get by, a job that you endured for chunks of time until you could dream out loud, but instead you invested, confidently, in self.
This is not to say the path you have chosen is easy. The pursuit of happiness demands attention and care.
You are teaching our children the work of dreams and the value of self so that they, too, might choose a path less traveled. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the past of couple days, excited about the work of months to come as you carve your way.
Love, Me
off days
January 22, 2016 § 6 Comments
It was a long week. Even with the grace of a three day weekend, Tuesday felt like Monday and yesterday felt like a betrayal by Friday.
Each day I stumbled out of bed on the wrong foot, tired. My son made a messy mistake at the start of a new experience. My daughter rebelled against every morning routine. New pants fell apart and winter hats were lost at school.
The further we fell out of rhythm the more I fought the imbalance, overcompensating until I surrendered to a simpler effort.
I endeavored to start the day well, to offer care and respect; homemade breakfast and kind words at the door sealed with a hug. Cold walks with our dog, hands free and mind centered on the ground beneath my feet as I picked a path around ice and through snow to find stillness in motion.
It was an excruciatingly unexceptional week. There was no poetry in the madness, but there was beauty in the smallest detail so long as I remembered to look.
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. -Ray Bradbury
to dance
January 16, 2016 § 5 Comments
I used to watch a popular, reality based, television program called Dancing with the Stars. Each season novice dancers who are celebrities of various accomplishment, in seemingly unrelated professions, compete in dance competitions broadcast live.
Weekly I watched edited pieces from practice, the emotional highlights of conflict and struggle that documented both the relationship between partners and the evolution of individual dance routines that culminated in a live performance.
More than the elegant costumes and choreographed movements beneath theatrical lights, I admired the novice dancers for their willingness to be seen imperfectly to an audience of strangers, the honesty of their effort, and the uncertainty of success.
There is something to dance that we cannot pretend, a letting go that transcends the performance for something intimately uncertain.
We are all called upon to dance in our own way, to take risks and invest in ourselves wholeheartedly that our life is more than empty movements.
This morning I’m thinking of the ways I let go in faith and the places I hold on in fear.
For all the topics I dance around, the ways I struggle to be visible in my fears; it hadn’t occurred to me I was begging to be seen. Me, too, comes from first placing self in a position of sight.
There’s magic in stretching our arms high and looking out into the world tenderly.
day planning
January 14, 2016 § 9 Comments
It was just after I drew January’s calendar of days that I came across a brightly colored, inexpensive day planner. The cheerful hue drew me from my task. I hesitated, weighing the frivolousness of my find, but there was just enough joy in the discovery that I indulged my impulsivity and invested in whimsy.
Appreciative of the convenience of technology but nostalgic in my love of paper, I decided I would use the large blocks of space to map my thoughts on multiple classes, preserve fleeting inspiration from borrowed quotes, chart the work of unexceptional errands and note efforts toward personal care.
Curiosities and quotes, doodles and debts of time now sketched in a place near to where I rest. Gone are the torn fragments of hurried scribbles and misplaced thoughts in want of paper. It is a diary of days and a place of self, an active commitment to an investment of time.
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today!” ―Mark Twain
sweet spot
January 10, 2016 § 5 Comments
There may be no truer photograph of my personality; my proximity to delight and transparent guilt. Arms in a gesture of surrender, wide eyed eagerness to please. I love this photograph for its unfiltered honesty.
I have refrained from sharing photographs here, partly in a conscious effort to craft images with words, but also to honor a measure of privacy given the intimacy of my musings. This year, I am hoping to engage personal photographs as a part of my One Little Word. To exercise wholeheartedness with a new gesture of trust.
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?
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.
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.
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
scribblechic 