scraps
September 19, 2016 § 4 Comments
As the rhythm of my days adjust to accommodate new routines, I’m noting unfinished scraps of scribbles. To keep them safe for another day and to honor an authenticity in the timelines of my reflections, I’ve decided to publish fragmented musings. The notes to myself you might find hurriedly scrawled on napkin corners or store receipts tucked haphazardly in the messy nooks of my distraction.
Sometimes they are notes of gratitude in a moment of sentiment:
There are people we carry with us our entire life, those who hold us to a place we never fully leave and allow us to be a little more ourselves. Keepsakes of self too often shuffled beneath the responsibilities of the day, the frenzied busyness that interrupts our mindfulness. Fragmented memories scattered to the far corners of our attention, but held present in trust by guardians of the past.
Other times they are an observation on the obvious:
In change so much of what we know is reconfigured into another image of familiarity. It is a yawning accommodation that pulls our thoughts beyond our expectations to allow for something unknown. It is an invitation to make space for discomfort, to clear the energy that surrounds uncertainty of invisible limitations.
Then, there are the longer ramblings of partial truths and play. A piece of a story out of order:
Sometimes I want to say your name out loud, just to hear the sound. So much of our truth is lost in old lines of misplaced time, stolen moments from years past that linger in distracted memories. You are ever here, even in your absence. A ghost of something I cannot speak even as I fight to forget. How is it that two people can know so little and be certain of so much? To be eternally connected and forever apart. To choose, consciously another path, without ever wandering.
Mismatched and messy, I’ve lost the threads of thought that bound them to my words. Here, however unfinished, they are part of a larger whole.
rattled
September 16, 2016 § 3 Comments
As is so often the case, life gives me clarity in chaos. Pieces of wisdom that lend insight inside inconvenient moments. When my hands are full and my mind is occupied, little earthquakes rattle small truths for alignment.
An online course challenged me to think about difficult choices. I’ve been deconstructing the social truths I gave emotional currency with a submissive, unquestioning validation. Taking back a little authority over self.
A new job pulled me further from the immediate distractions and false urgency of superficial nonsense. Resounding to other’s actions or managing my children’s responsibilities have been shuffled out of my in box.
Stolen moments curled into my daughter’s stories or braced against my son’s frustrations invited connection over concern. I’m listening more actively from a place of purposeful stillness.
A new book shone a light on old assumptions and adjustments to routines shifted my energy. I’m moving and thinking in ways that spark small fires; lighting me up from within.
It’s all too much for the tidy word count of a spontaneous post, but there is something exquisite to the raw tenderness with which I am living inside the skin of greater awareness.
For today it is enough to mark the moment and section off space to rest inside wakefulness.
on this day
September 13, 2016 § 2 Comments
Sleep was an impossibility, my joy for this day is effervescent. Happiness enough to balance the restless sleep and heavy footsteps of a cold I cannot shake. To find my place among so many new faces and endless pages, I am at once both child and woman. Purposeful and whimsical.
Honoring my first day with unedited notes on nerves from the eve of my interview:
Thursday is such an unfortunate runner up to Friday. It is a day of eager anticipation for the possibility of the weekend’s indulgences; rest or play, time enough for unfinished tasks or celebratory gatherings. Thursday holds the space of enthusiasm, while Friday parades its promises with the prideful showmanship of a skilled ringleader.
Today is my interview.
I don’t know how to quantify the value of one phone call; the sheer joy that comes from being invited to show up for a conversation I no longer remember the words to.
And so begins a new chapter.
to my daughter
September 9, 2016 § 5 Comments
Earlier this week you were scheduled to have multiple teeth extracted. I anticipated your fear, understood that this appointment would carry the burden of dread. I did not prolong the moment with unwanted reminders. I delivered the news quickly, acknowledging your emotions but underscoring simply the necessity of the appointment with short, staccato statements of must and will.
I let you sulk in the car, distracting myself as much as you with stories from my day. You were a silent companion the entire ride right up to the moment you walked stoically into the office. There was no resistance in your posture, only a quiet unhappiness; a peaceful protest. Fear and frustration coiled tightly in your muscles.
You accommodated each of the technicians’ requests, settling into the directions but holding your body rigid. I sat just out of sight, until the tears came. I understood there was no way to stop the procedure, to interrupt would be disruptive – so I placed my hand on your ankle. Such an insignificant offering to the scale of your muffled misery.
Of course, in this instance, I understood you were safe, but the fear was no less real. Your need to catch your breath and feel in control were tangible. The technicians couldn’t understand that the pain had validated your fears and erased whatever comfort or trust you had tried to offer. Their encouragements were hollow against your experience, so they worked through your emotions alongside you.
Your sounds were a primal language of fear, a flexing of muscle against logic; an uncomfortable demand for permission to claim your needs. I love this about you, your willingness to speak up even in the company of those with more knowledge or strength. I admired the messy, emotional declarations that interrupted the expected and took ownership of your fear with fierce tenderness for your own vulnerability.
You were not silent in pain, but you were no less respectful for your honesty. You did not flail your arms or clench your teeth, but you did not make yourself small either.
You are one of the strongest, most gentle spirits I know. I hope you always speak through your fear and disrupt expectations. I hope you take up space with questions and never settle for rote encouragements.
No one in the room thought less of you for your tears, no one shushed your sounds or undermined your fear. Every inch of your body is your own, to love and protect. Instead they honored the fear, called it by name and gave it weight. When we said you did well, everyone understood that you had not endured the discomfort but found your way to safety.
Love, Mom
less of more
September 5, 2016 § 9 Comments
This past year I had the luxury of dressing in humble, leftover staples of comfort. Long walks with our dog and errands afforded me an unexceptional excuse to recycle my wardrobe in varying combinations of unintelligible shades of largely, shapeless neutrals.
In moving I intentionally packed light; making a conscious commitment to a minimalist mindset that inspired an unintentional exercise in creating a capsule wardrobe. Most days I could have dressed safely in the dark and there was a certain pleasure in the elegance of less.
As I prepare to work outside our home I recognize there is a need for a more structured series of basic interchangeable pieces. I’ve no desire to shop trends or splurge on seasonal whims any more than I want to invest in poorly tailored objects that might fall apart with moderate wear.
Yesterday I spent hours drifting between storefronts, exploring the cuts and colors of borrowed style in search of a familiar self. Tempted to shape myself into an image of something predesigned to escape the exercise in choice, I was slow to recognize the work of self-expression.
I marveled over how quickly we can conform an idea of self by the offerings of cleverly marketed offerings. The fleeting confidence of finding my size in someone else’s image doesn’t allow me to move authentically through my days.
I want my clothes to continue to serve as a background for my thoughts and actions, an understated expression that requires less burden of extravagance. To move seamlessly among my threads.
dreaming big
September 2, 2016 § 6 Comments
Yesterday’s hopes are today’s celebrations. I was offered the job I dared to chase.
It is a fairy tale of sorts, a chain of happy coincidences that created a footpath from daydreams to possibility. It begins with a new acquaintance, a lucky inheritance of my daughter’s friendship.
Over a morning coffee date, I bemoaned my lack of direction at forty; confessing my eagerness to fill a newly recognized wish for something to do outside our home. Asked what I like, I crafted my ideal job with self-indulgent details almost frivolous for their specificity.
A part-time position that complimented my children’s school days, afforded me time enough to care for our dog and tend to household tasks. Something close to home that would not involve sales and might allow me a change of wardrobe. Work I could perform independently among a larger community, preferably something pertaining to books.
Days later my new friend forwarded me an opportunity. A part-time job in a neighboring community, tending to books in a library. Hours that let me hug my children at the start of their day and welcome them home each afternoon. Time enough to honor my established routines while carving out time for something new.
I applied with an enthusiasm that left no room for caution, typing my resume as quickly as my fingers would permit. Imperfect and outdated, I offered my inadequacies alongside my qualifications. A week later I had almost resigned myself to failure when the invitation came to interview.
Yesterday afternoon I replayed my interview, holding each question in my mind’s eye and worrying the details against the grain of my hope. Wrestling my insecurities I decided to celebrate my effort and invited close friends to help me ward off doubt with borrowed cheer.
Today the job I so recently dreamed has come to fruition and I’m celebrating the intersection of dreams and doubts; the place we leap ahead and hold tight. The path we choose and the people who accompany us as we chase the impossible into reality.
apply within
September 1, 2016 § 4 Comments
This morning I was recklessly hopefully, almost obnoxiously joyful as I woke to a personal milestone. Today marked the first time in over sixteen years I was invited to interview for a job I desperately want.
If I am painfully honest, I had already choreographed my celebration; contrived in photographs and status updates how I might announce my news. It felt anticlimactic to return home without word, to unsheathe my legs of the nylons and pristine ballet flats that are in such sharp contrast to my more typical leisurely attire. Except, I’m a stubbornly hopeful person.
Today I interviewed for a job I cannot imagine loosing. There were so many lovely indicators that the universe had aligned to draft me for this calling. My birthdate stamped on the post where I parked. My son’s birthdate engraved against the brass plate of an antique bench sitting in the foyer. Even the greeting card that proclaimed “you’re hired” as it sat misshelved among birthday cards as I ran an errand post-interview.
There’s something tragically fearful in hiding our hopes, we unwittingly undermine the joy that comes from wearing our vulnerability where other’s may witness our courage.
I may not get this job. The very thought is heartbreaking for its impossibility. So, instead, I’m celebrating taking chances and leaping joyfully toward something new. Whole heart, fingers crossed, knock-on-wood hopeful.
muscling gratitude
August 31, 2016 § 2 Comments
I’m out of shape, easily winded and tender. No matter my regimen, I am perpetually on the other side of fit. It has been years since I moved unconscious of appearances, confident in my strength.
Still, I move determinedly; slowly and sometimes clumsily, but forward.
Yesterday, I was pedaling after the retreating image of my husband’s more capable form when we rounded a stretch of trail that presented an unexpected distraction. Graceful and hesitant, tucked into the shelter of trees was a fawn.
In that moment, I forgot the temporary aches for awe.
Gratitude has a way of tempering negativity, shifting our perspective from a scale that measures the burden of our worries and insecurities to a truer gauge of our abilities and gifts.
Some days I muscle through gratitude, consciously. Other days it comes unexpectedly, drawing me further from myself.
auld acquaintance
August 30, 2016 § 1 Comment
The past and the present do not feel so neatly defined in the curious spaces of social media, old friends and once forgotten memories trailing sentiment and nostalgia between the quieter experiences of my days.
I have watched friends shed the awkwardness of adolescence as they flourished into entrepreneurs and parents, artists and academics. They are politically passionate and community oriented. Travelers and therapists, writers and athletes.
There was a time, in the arrogance of adolescence, I considered myself better than the experience of my environment, suffocated by a short sightedness that could not perceive the commonness of my confidence.
I thought I might change the word, trampling the mundane in elegant armors of elaborate degrees. Instead I have watched from the sidelines of my own doubt as others raced past my hesitation. Disoriented by a restless admiration for the certainty I no longer posses.
Contentment has made me comfortable within a new dream, appreciative of a gentler experience of joy.
The youth that was so eager to escape the company of her classmates, is suddenly curious to make their acquaintance, anew.
around here
August 29, 2016 § Leave a comment
The past week has been one of hopeful change, individual growth and familiar routines. Our children have settled into their school days and I’ve recognized new efforts at independence and accountability.
Our son is navigating complicated course material, struggling with doubts and nurturing his confidence with frustrated efforts at self-care. He’s asking for help, expressing worries, taking time to pause between assignments to connect at home and reach out to friends. It is an imperfect practice of resilience, but he’s gaining greater control over academic and emotional challenges.
Meanwhile our daughter is becoming more independent at home, taking greater care of her self and the space she consumes. She’s accommodating new expectations and seeking greater responsibility. Demonstrating small gestures of appreciation that communicate a greater awareness for those around her.
While our children are moving more independently through change, my husband and I are honoring time together; exploring new bike trails and swapping recipes while we draft ideas for our home and schedule plans for the year to come. Without the toxic behaviors of extended family, we’ve settled into gentler practices of parenting that more genuinely express the values and goals we share for our future.
Collectively, we’re nestling further into our community even as we gather quietly around simple family dinners; celebrating old friendships even as we cultivate new relationships.
scribblechic 