silence
February 4, 2016 § 4 Comments
It is my favorite sound. Second only to my children’s laughter or our pup’s eager paws scrambling an anxious greeting.
Peace pregnant with ideas that move fluidly in the space between speech; truth we hold tightly against the brashness of daylight, like a sacred mantra of self.
In my stillness I am more intuitive, less responsive to my surroundings; more attune to a gentler voice.
This week I can feel the conflict of thought against the noise of the mundane, the friction of demands that interrupt a sanctity of silence.
Words like promises on the tip of my tongue, lost to a language of busy distractions.
Rather than wrestle the noise, I am moving more stubbornly within it; reaching just past the cacophony for quiet.
fifteen & eleven
January 28, 2016 § 2 Comments
This is the secret I’ve come to appreciate of fifteen and eleven – for all the fiery independence of their age, both children still clamor for borrowed time.
Some days I forget how little effort that takes.
This morning I leashed our dog and invited myself along for the short walk to their bus stop. Not because either child needed me, but because I could. There was no obligation to intervene in their time together and no vote to challenge my whim. There was also no resistance to my company.
The lawn crackled its protest against our footprints as we cut a path around the ice that mocked our cautiousness. Together we marveled at the pattern of stars scattered across the sidewalk as the moon lit the snow and ice with magic. Little clouds of happy exclamations against the crisp winter air.
I had forgotten how much there is to see and hear in the fleeting moments before dawn. So often I watch both children lingering distractedly over invisible interests, wondering at their amusement, but today I let myself entertain their discoveries.
Minutes stretched in frivolous excess, turning nothing much into something extraordinary for the effort.
As both children boarded their bus I turned my footsteps to walk my afternoon path in reverse; waving one last goodbye as the bus circled the neighborhood en route to school.
Stealing a moment for myself.
to my daughter
January 24, 2016 § 2 Comments
Earlier this week Dad and I stumbled across a video – you and your brother, years ago, hamming it up for the camera. It was one of those spontaneous living-room productions, siblings collaborating in boredom.
The first part of the video was painful, you were directing your brother’s performance; an overly articulated, forced execution of a joke the audience could not decipher. I was set to delete the clip until the very end when your face popped into the frame. Speaking directly to the camera, your image consuming the screen, your voice boomed with the comedic timing and grit of a weathered entertainer proclaiming affection.
Love you, people. Love ya!
It was almost physical the way you threw your words. Fearless and playful.
You have long since layered yourself in more cautious performances of self. The world around you has etched away at the tough exterior, but your spirit is no smaller.
I’m saving the clip for the days you hide behind your doubts or hesitate too long in joy. For the time when you are old enough you cannot remember being little, or when you feel too small in your imagination. When the world feels too serious and you lose perspective, I hope your own words echo my love back to you.
I want you to celebrate yourself at five, dressed in your big brother’s hand-me-down astronaut costume, directing play and relishing in the spotlight; commanding sight and tossing love noisily into the moment.
Love, Mom
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
living brave
January 13, 2016 § 4 Comments
As I approach exercises in Living Brave, I am reflecting on my core values and those individuals who guard my heart and honor my tenderness with safe havens of trust; beginning with home.
If living wholeheartedly means being vulnerable and present in genuine connectivity, then home is the place where we are invited each morning to show up in love and honor what is important to those most important to us. It is the place we first learn we are worthy regardless of our imperfection because we are loved unconditionally.
It is the place we are first brave.
In considering how I live bravely among my values and relationships in the context of home and family, it was quite simple to identify my intentions. Accountability, Compassion, Gratitude, Integrity, Joy, Learning, Love, Perseverance, Reliability, Respect, Sincerity, Trust.
Words like poetry that promise a sacred appreciation for and responsibility to my blessings. It is much harder to look to the places where my actions have not always aligned with my beliefs; where beautiful words spoke to broken promises.
Over the past few years, I struggled to mother against external expectations. I gauged myself against other’s examples of importance and fell into the danger of comparison. In these moments my children were held to an unfair example and I was bound to an impersonal standard that did not reflect my values.
On these occasions I discounted independence and curiosity for submissive conformity. Thankfully, my children remembered my early lessons and knew they were safe to challenge the contradiction in my expectations.
We do this for one another, offer save havens to fail so that we may try again.
This summer life contrived to offer me a second chance. In the chaos of living between houses, we carried the space of home in one another’s company. Our attention was intentional, like those early newborn days. Love and trust in moments of sleepy, disorientation. The entire world condensed in small moments.
More often now I find myself breathing into the difficult moments; softening against frustration to more purposefully cultivate days guided by a kinder attention.
I am more the mother I first chose to be; tender to those I have been entrusted great dreams and simple needs. I want to know that my children are armed for the world with confidence and kindness, that they move through the unknown certain of their worth and brave in uncertain adventures. That work begins with me.
courage, dear heart
January 12, 2016 § 4 Comments
It is a terrifying experience, to offer others the most vulnerable pieces of intimate uncertainty then walk nakedly among the mundane routine of our day. To move passionately through doubt, genuine in our fear and bold in our wants.
Exquisitely average in our exceptional individuality.
Writing does this, it invites me to dare greatly in the presence of strangers and friends. It centers my consciousness in an act of joy that allows me to unravel my thoughts and emotions around my words. Something greater than I and inseparable from self.
It begs me to be honest in my experiences despite the discomfort of complicated emotions and imperfect wisdom. Among my words I try to be vigilant in my truth and accountable in error so that my footprints align with my words. Sincerity in broken wanderings.
I have no lessons to teach, no neatly ordered steps for success or merchandise to market. My site is unembellished and I have not yet mastered the art of social media. Most days I have only the most humble curiosities and unfinished words. A small audience of family and friends in a larger company of strangers.
Courage, dear heart. – C.S. Lewis
Brené Brown says that courage is “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” This month I am re-reading her book Daring Greatly and taking careful notes on lessons in Living Brave. Challenging myself to embrace wholehearted living with greater consciousness and courage.
At the moment I am granting myself permission to claim my writing as a valuable part of my identity; to stop hiding my joy in an ambivalent anonymity that guards against criticism.
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.
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.
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