Bergen Hawkeye
Anyone can slay a dragon . . . but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what it takes to be a real hero.
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stream of consciousness: thursday edition
It’s after midnight. I just had a conversation with my son. Apparently no one can get any routine sleep in this house. Life is just hard, ya’ll. It. Is. Hard. And I am tired. Tired of sleepless nights and tired of sad afternoons. I’m tired. Like the kind of literal tired as in – I don’t get enough sleep. And the kind of figurative tired as in – My heart hurts a lot of the day. And – can I say this? – I am tired of being tired. I am sick of being full of sorrow. I am all tired out of being all tired out. Today I cut…
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the only choice
Cuddling beside my boy, his shaggy hair between my fingers. It’s late and he wants to talk. I was going to offer a quick tuck in and then do some writing, some reading, some anything else in the magical quiet hours after children fall asleep. But he pressed his back against me, shoved his ever-growing, warm, newly size 6 feet against my cold feet and so I stayed. Held him closer. We whispered into the dark night about fishing lures and Harry Potter and times when he’s been afraid. “When I can’t find a family member, I get scared,” he confided. We talked about the time he was at the…
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And The Middle Shall Be First
Twas the month of December and the tree was chopped down. No one can find the nativity scene but the tree stand magically reappeared after a two year hiatus. Christmas music blared and we all scrambled through the tissue paper and completely untidy array of ornaments treasured and tarnished and piled high in a less than glamorous Rubbermaid bin. We name every tree we get. I can’t pretend to recall the names of all of those trees but I do remember the first tree I ever decorated the first year I ever spent the holiday as a wife. Herbert. Herbert was a ratty old scrub cedar plucked from his life on a hillside…
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Rain Day.
A Conversation Between Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh That I Think Perfectly Fits This Rainy Day. I like when you just do nothing. Oh. How do you just do nothing? It’s what you do when grown ups ask, “What are you going to do?” and you say “Nothing” and then you go and do that. _____
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The Interview: Bergen Hawkeye
So. This interview. Let’s get started. Let’s talk about birds first. Do you still enjoy watching them? Yes! What sorts of birds have you observed lately? Woodpeckers. Robins. Some terns. A few hummingbirds. Terns are seabirds. What kind of bird have you never seen but would love to? Pileated woodpecker. Golden eagle. White seahwak. Peregrine falcon. Golden crested woodpecker. Green woodpecker. I thought we saw a golden eagle this summer? No. We didn’t. What did we see? A bald eagle. Oh. Okay. Besides birds, what holds your interest lately? Fish! Obviously. What have you caught so far? Bass. Perch. Crappie. Bluegill. What do you want to catch? Pike. Perch. Carp.…
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Journal Entries
Well. I may never have to think of an idea to write another blog post again. I realized today that I have a treasure trove of ideas in three little wide-ruled notebooks sitting right in our kitchen cabinets, directly under the shelf that stores our pottery bowls. We’ve been doing journals in school on and off for a few years now. They’ve always been endearing to me – but this year they seem to be downright entertaining. I don’t know if it’s the kids’ older ages or their improved wit and writing skills or what. But I am just getting such a kick out of these entries. Sometimes they make me laugh. Sometimes…
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True Colors
Kids draw and color during their Sunday School classes. It’s perfectly normal behavior. A regular routine. At our church the completed coloring sheets are frequently featured on a thin bulletin board strip on the hall walls outside of their classrooms. Last week our friend sent us a text. It said something like this: I was walking down the hall at church. I noticed the kids’ drawings of Jonah on the walls. Most of the drawings looked like this – Jonah landing on the shore – recovering from his whale episode. But then I noticed another drawing that looked like this – After he saw our son’s name scrawled across the…
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Berg wishes he was a cat.
We kept one of PIlgrim’s kittens from her last litter. I’m a sucker for orange kittens – and this guy is super cute. Like all kittens that abode at our home, one has to wonder if they will ever be able to use their own limbs as they seem to be carried about hither and yon for the first many weeks of their adorable kitten lives. But it seems Abraham Lincoln is managing just fine. Yes. Abraham Lincoln. (Kevin keeps a running joke going strong where he calls the kitten any particular name of his choosing. Teddy Roosevelt. Kurt Russell. Genghis Khan. Ken Ham.) Anyway. The kitten is quickly becoming…
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I know, son.
Whilst in a store with my nine year old son …. “Bergen, can you please settle down? Maybe stop leaping down the aisle?” His blonde head pauses briefly in its movement. “Okay, Mom. I can try. But it isn’t in my nature.”
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you know, he’s right.
We were driving through a neighborhood. Intrigued by what we saw ahead, we slowed down and all of us gazed out the window. “Free” a sign read. It was propped against a table filled with a random assortment of this and that. Everything looked like what it was – junk. The kids were bursting at their seat belts. “Dad, can we stop?” they begged the man behind the wheel. “Guys – let me tell you about restraint.” Kevin began, an experienced father of many. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.” “Hmmmm,” came a little nine-year-old voice from the back seat. “Restraint,” Bergen commented. “That’s something I don’t…
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it’s the waiting.
Sometimes I fall upon previous posts I’ve written at just the right time to be able to preach to myself a little. It’s funny how life works out like that. (Sort of like my iPod shuffle -eh?) We have a little touch of the limbo happening at our house – a little waiting for some details to work out for Riley for college in the fall, a little waiting for some ebb and flow to work out with Noble Fox, a little waiting for some decisions to make as a family. I wrote this when my now nine-year-old gift-giving son was just a short-haired four-ish year old. And it was…
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gifts. all the big and the little ones.
Nine. He’s been our boy for nine of the speediest years I’ve ever lived. There are days when this boy cannot keep his bum in a seat for a single half hour math lesson. Days when he bumps, jumps and hops his way through every room of our house from rise to fall of the sun. Sometimes he doesn’t use the kind words to his sisters that I would prefer. But then there’s other times. Oh my word. The other times. The other times are just so overwhelming. The times that make my heart physically hurt, so profoundly that I fear it may burst. We were at our weekly Trader Joe’s…
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now starring …
Do you remember a boy named Bergen who was painfully shy in public? This kid who doesn’t even desire to read his poetry out loud to his classmates at the safety of his friend’s dining room table? Yes. That fella. Imagine this. Our co-op has been working on a simple play entitled How Birds Fly for the past term. At the beginning of the theatre class I asked all of the kids questions to gage their comfort level in being on stage for the performance. Every child except Bergen wanted a role – some wanted only minor speaking parts – but everyone wanted to participate on stage. I allowed the…
