manifesto, an exercise in living bravely
August 28, 2016 § 1 Comment
Last February, as part of my Living Brave coursework, I was tasked with creating a personal manifesto that acknowledged intimate values with a commitment to self. In the safest possible place, scrawled across scratch paper in the margin of my days, I sounded out a beginning.
I considered painful lessons and tender hopes, forgiving errors in judgement while relinquishing remorse; hesitating in my doubts to name my certainties. All the while considering the shape of my legacy, the life I wanted to honor with integrity and passion.
It is an imperfect practice, the work of living outside the armor of disinterest; settling among your fears to better tempt fate with dreams come true. Some days I fail colorfully at kindness, other days I muscle grace by the skin of my teeth. Most days, I find the truest path to joy is marked by conscious gratitude.
Every day I want to wake up to a promise to live wholeheartedly.
mindful distraction
August 25, 2016 § 3 Comments
This summer has been a season of intentional distraction and meditative mindfulness. Choosing to move against the grain of familiar comforts for purposeful discovery and greater connectivity as a family.
I let the laundry gather, the beds rest unmade, meal times draw later. I set aside my laptop and pen for my camera, loosing myself in a different lens.
We wandered further from our new home, long hikes and touristy distractions. There were no extravagant vacations, no elaborate wish lists or daily demands. Only a promise of presence in togetherness.
Our children looked past landmarks to discover love letters carved in old wooden bridges and beautiful stones along unfamiliar paths. We mapped our days by destination, loosing track of time as we sought magic with each small adventure.
As the school year demands we readjust our leisure for a more regimented practice of individual endeavors, I’ve been working to recognize opportunities for continued consciousness. Making new plans to reserve time for a greater practice of discovery and celebration for small moments. Together.
A gentler appreciation and more purposeful joy.
worth
August 17, 2016 § 3 Comments
I could measure the moment in minutes or miles, dollars or degrees. It was a hot day in an empty parking lot, only the space of regret between the water park and home. My teenage son was vacillating between the underwhelming energy of the nearly vacant park and a newly recognized wish to chase stolen moments of summer down winding slides.
He wasn’t sure we should splurge on a day’s fees for a moment’s indulgence, but the cost of passage was more an investment in joy. A lesson in listening to the little voice of intuition.
It isn’t easy to show up to our wants when we cannot hide our tenderness. Wanting to play with the exuberance of youth in the long limbed expectations of a cumbersome sense of maturity. How often do we dismiss joy in the name of reason?
Without ceremony I asked only what he might regret more, squandering a dollar or missing an opportunity? So he flew, up the stairs and down the slides in a tireless parade of contentment until there was no more pull to march the long, curving path to the top; only a restful readiness to return home.
lost in thought
August 4, 2016 § 6 Comments
Here, where I so often safeguard my thoughts by documenting our days, there have been broad expanses of quiet in the gentle busyness of summer distractions. It has been a time of indulgent simplicity, but also one of complicated questioning as my thoughts perpetually snag on a memory from earlier this summer.
It is a day I have hesitated to sound out but cannot exclude for its relevance to our experiences.
One evening in June, my husband and I found ourselves caught in an uncomfortable conversation with acquaintances who were guests in our home. They spoke in narrow platitudes and their conviction challenged our tolerance. I was tempted to end the evening, to name their prejudice and sit in judgment of their words.
I might have called out the offense, but their children were playing happily upstairs. Their daughter has been a kind and generous, thoughtful, friend to our daughter as she settled into our new community. And so I hesitated, wondering:
Is it better to offer a safe space for different beliefs or the illusion of a controlled environment? Could I refuse our children their friendship or were they stronger for the questions their differences might inspire?
There was no easy answer and I bristled against the trespass with a self-righteous indignation. How could we allow our child to spend time under the influence of those whose beliefs contradict our own? How could we not?
What if the greatest gift we could give our children was the ability to acknowledge the good within others to better speak through our disagreements, respectfully, with empathy? To see and be seen in a world that feels mapped by lines of hate.
I returned to these thoughts, day after day, as news stories kept these questions present in my doubts. I began to wonder what might happen if instead of responding to hate with anger we paused in our speech to listen. What if the ugliness in our world is really an echo that might dissipate in silence?
Of course my optimism might be oversimplified, but the work of offering uncomfortable kindness in place of polite performances of tolerance has created a different expectation of self.
This week, as our daughter celebrated her twelfth birthday, we included the child whose family’s beliefs are so very different from our own. I listened as the small group engaged genuinely on topics that invited conflict, but were met with genuine acceptance and realized that our children are living a kinder truth.
In the noise of so much heartache, our children (collectively) are offering empathy where others might close their heart to compassion, exercising kindness where adults so often struggle against anger. Extending patience when emotions are passionately challenged.
They are listening and learning from our hopes and fears more than any of our certainties; sounding out their own truths, choosing their own friends.
to my daughter
June 27, 2016 § 4 Comments
There are many ways I might remember yesterday, but the moment I most wish to capture, I did not see. I can speak only to the minutes before and after, admiring the in between.
You were coveting a small vase at a local art festival with insufficient funds and a determined hopefullness when you asked me if you could approach the artist with an offer for less. I wanted to tell you no; be still, be quiet, be grateful. Let what you have be enough.
Instead I gave you room enough to act. Alone.
I expected the vendor would politely refuse you, but your face told another story.
There was so much joy in your expression; exuberance as you displayed your bright, pink bag.
The artist engaged your question and indulged your request; she sold her work at a fraction of its worth and honored your sense of value in the process.
You were proud, radiant in your enthusiasm as you replayed your victory.
This kind stranger respected the gumption you demonstrated and celebrated your interest in her work by accepting your offer. You taught me a lesson in reckless trust and uncertain effort; leaping toward confidence and gambling hope.
Love, Mom
to market
June 24, 2016 § 4 Comments
Maybe it was the predictable pattern of beach days or the sudden breeze that pulled at loose ends and shuffled my sense of order, but yesterday found me gathering the kids into a different direction as we headed to our local farmers market.
Crowded sidewalks with broken lines and overlapping conversations trailed behind us like small children with sticky fingers. Fresh produce and artisan baked goods bookending handmade gifts and overpriced lemonade. We ate curled into shade to avoid hot park benches and window shopped air conditioned offerings.
Colors like street performers created a riot of music that drew the eye pushing us through currents of congested shoppers. We sampled and explored until our bellies were full and the sun slanted against our backs, each child lost to an unexpected treasure and eager for silence.
beauty marks
June 23, 2016 § 4 Comments
Before our move I tried on each piece of clothing in my closet determined to keep only those items that fit, were in good shape, and made me feel beautiful. It was an indulgent experiment, a consciously minimalist exercise in less that lightened the work of moving while creating a need to replace a few necessary wardrobe staples.
For the past year I have happily managed without many new purchases, until now. As I filled the gaps in my children’s summer wardrobe to accommodate winter’s growth, it became obvious that my own choices were sincerely lacking. I spent an afternoon drifting between stores, struggling to find clothing that was neither matronly or juvenile, only to find myself confronted with an unhappy reflection of unflattering choices.
This was what drove me to seek direction with an outsourced service based on tidy measurements and instinctive preferences. Impersonal details that might communicate greater possibility to someone uninhibited by my skewed sense of self how I might look in something unfamiliar.
Today was my third attempt in as many shipments. The first two forays into this new experience were frustratingly disappointing. Sizes were a little off, but fabrics were hopefully delightful. Prices were reasonable and styles were novel to my daily uniform of denim and cotton. Colors and design elements began a new conversation in form and function, need and pleasure.
There have been a couple close misses, tops or dresses I wanted to keep but could not rationalize for poor fit or inconvenient practicalities, but today’s dress was a beautiful disaster. I fell in love with the lightness of the fabric as it spooled through my fingers. A whimsical design that felt immediately romantic for the ribbons of flowers and birds that chased the length of a skirt with slits cut discreetly along each leg.
For a moment, I wanted to keep the object that lulled me nearer a fantasy so I smiled as I twirled for my daughter. It was as I was smiling that she noted my wrinkles then quickly qualified them as something good; a sign that I smile so much.
In that simple acknowledgment I felt more beautiful than the elegant pattern I knew I would fold neatly to return; the dress that I wouldn’t wear for the ill-fitting design of a top too small and a style more impulsive than timeless.
I’m keeping, instead, the lines on my face and a new smile for a stolen moment of dress-up. A snapshot to hold safe this memory for another time. Grateful for the keepsakes of old smiles in telltale laugh lines.
disappearing acts
June 22, 2016 § 2 Comments
It has been thirteen days since we first disappeared beneath the sun. If I am absent among my words, I am more present in the minutes given to conscious distraction.
Weekend meals with old friends stick to weekdays stretched across an almost empty beach. I have fallen in and out of new books and squandered an afternoon among dreams.
Time feels both endless and fleeting as days blur and minutes unwind in extravagant simplicities. Watermelon cubed and chilled pasta salad, white bread that presses pleasantly in hurried bites; sunset dinners and afternoon ice cream cones.
My tidy list of summer promises and curiosities sits forgotten beneath open faced books and notes that loop around fragmented wonderings. Calendar dates like photographs not yet developed.
one day
June 9, 2016 § 3 Comments
I spotted the beach last weekend and wondered if both children might discover a new sense of familiarity this first summer away from old routines. Each season since our move brings memories that awaken a disoriented contentment, a loneliness for something uncertain or a guilty exuberance over an intangible certainty. Home is a memory of something simultaneously old and still unknown.
I wanted only an hour of their time, without guarantee they might one day return. It was all I asked for – time enough to explore a new idea for possibility over permanence.
I suggested both children consider the unfamiliar beach an experiment and reinforced my encouragements by traveling light. Faded towels and hastily filled water bottles, sunscreen and a last minute football. No books that might stretch on through shifting sun patterns or sketchbooks that would demand extra care. No elaborate sand tools or snacks. I left the unused, inexpensive inflatable rings buried in my bag as a leftover intention from another day.
A gesture of optimism or guilty bribe.
The beach was quietly busy with comfortable stretches of space between clusters of children; room enough to bury our feet long past the edges of our towels without our conversations reaching our neighbors. Toddlers wielded clumsy shovels against misshapen castles and teenagers waded past the reach of adult reminders.
My children settled into a solitary excavation of distracted amusement. Hours fell comfortably like the sand that dried against our skin and I held my thoughts while stealing photographs of their uninhibited joy least they change their minds and ask that we return home.
In the end we stayed until the temperature threatened good sense, both children bartering our leave with promises to return. One day for another and more to come after. A new pattern emerging in the sand.
to my daughter
June 7, 2016 § 3 Comments
Some days I want to gather memories into one of the many eclectic containers that litter corners of your room, your personality like bits of confetti that stick to my days making everything more interesting for your company. Little moments that cannot be strung together but only collected into a cacophony of sentiment.
Over the past week I have held turn of phrases over, delighting in fragments of humor and gentler expressions of fiery certainty. The way you cocked an eyebrow when I suggested a chore to demonstrate responsibility; the tilt of your chin as you rebutted with a demur, “we both know that won’t last.”
Or maybe I could capture the way you spontaneously unearthed painting supplies to capture a movie because you couldn’t quite sit still and touching paint to paper helped you fall further into the story line; cloaking yourself in colors as the sound lead your hand to create.
There’s catching you long past bedtime cleaning your room by balancing everything precariously from the tip of your walking stick and the way you bundled your stuffed animals curiously into a noose. I understand the moment is temporary and that the structure of your organization cannot be decoded, but there is a simple gesture of appreciation in the illusion of order.
Most definitely I would gather your language. Early speech struggles still interrupt eloquent exclamations and I may never outgrow the way you structure what everyone else sees from a perspective just askew enough that we still piece together your meaning first by shades of colorful interpretation. I must write these before they are lost to poor memory.
There was a moment only last week when you caught a music video for an artist you like and you mused over an inner turmoil when the visual presented contradicted the strength you had inferred in her talent; pieces of overly sexualized imagery that felt disjointed invited an impromptu conversation on objectification and body image.
I wonder what color your passion for individuality might inspire. Consistently inconsolable over the injustice of “girl colors” you intentionally choose objects in shades that challenge generic assumptions of femininity for creativity. Gladiator sandals to pair with your animal print blanket shaped into a toga and held by a turquoise belt and anchored by a backwards baseball cap to hide a nest of tangles.
These moments only hint at larger truths; you are profoundly insightful and playfully uninhibited, cautiously aware and tenderly curious. Flecks of spirit are ever present pieces of self; prisms that catch the light as you shape your lines of thought.
Beautiful fragments that leaving me scurrying to remember fleeting minutes of days that pass too quickly into years.
Love, Mom
scribblechic 