Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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the unpleasant unexpected.
Like all the grieving I have ever waded through, it’s the stages that take me by surprise. Some of my hard has looked like this: Giant to-another-state moves where our family left one sort of life to live another sort. Raising one child to an adult. Close friends moving away from our circle. The loss of my mother. The death of my marriage. It’s all been a path more jagged than straight. A good morning followed by a bad afternoon on the heels of a beautiful evening smashed up against a weepy week. Unpredictable and often unexpected. A storm on a calm sea. A rain shower on a sunny…
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farm, framily, feelings, photos
At the farm I didn’t write very much. I brought a couple of books to read, but I didn’t open them. I stayed up late every night, talking in the quiet hours with Emma and Sarah and Sally, with whomever stayed awake and was chatty. I didn’t rise exceptionally early because my kids are late sleepers and those of them who were not were capable of having a bowl of cereal downstairs with the other early risers. We saw rainbows more than once at the farm. Once, as the rain begin to chase us, we chased the rainbow’s end. It seemed so perfectly catchable. It…
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on birthdays and cleaning up messes and this good life we’re living
There’s been so much celebration this past week, so much MAY, so many events and parties and this and that that it is a miracle we’ve coasted from day to day through it all. This weekend we celebrated Grandson The First turning TWO. (I feel extra shout-y tonight. I’ll try to reign in my use of the capital letters, but I’m not making any promises ya’ll.) Maddox enjoyed his little friends (mostly) and his cake and the sunshine and playing outdoors. And we all enjoyed watching him. Otto played his first flag football game (which I believe I mentioned yesterday). He scored three touchdowns (I think) and…
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On Why I Can’t Wait To Drive 3,000 Miles Next Week
Part of the reason why I cannot wait for our departure on this Beyond Wildwood adventure is because the last month or so has found me and mine shockingly busy. Unusually so. Schedule stacked sort of busy. The kind of busy I have spent the majority of my parenting years actively avoiding and orchestrating our family’s life in an opposite direction. I know some of this shift is natural with the rising ages of my children. Also, with the sheer number of children in my house. (Not that the number seems big to me.) Not even every child currently has an activity or a sport or a hobby they…
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What a Weekend: Making My Survivor Dreams Come True
My weekend stole Monday too. It was such a full and crowded and busy and fun and exhausting weekend that it just creeped its way right into the first day of the week and I couldn’t tell Monday from Saturday somehow. (Also, is creeped a word? I’m not going to bother finding out.) Friday night and Saturday I spent being a bit of a nerd. A TV show nerd. Or fan. Or whatever word is the word I should use here. (Someone tell me the words I should be using so I sound cooler than I actually am.) Former Survivor castaways were in town for a fundraiser…
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sort of poetry
I need to rest and I need to be awake. I need to write but my words are coming slow. It’s Too Much and it’s Never Enough. This is a Terrifyingly Hard and Beautiful Life and it only makes sense about one third of the time. In the mornings, after the long nights of Not Enough Sleep, what eventually propels me from the lying prone position in my bed to the feet sliding over the side, hit the floor, is not hope so much as gravity. Not prospect of good but responsibility and The Only Next Thing To Do. And if my heart feels a…
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sunday reflections . . .
Once a year our church holds an outdoor service in May. It’s loud and sometimes it’s hot (although today it was chilly by turns) and the field is slam packed full of people on blankets and in camping chairs and you have to arrive early if you’d like a chance to park in the actual parking lot. And every year I am so glad I attend this particular service. People get baptized periodically all throughout the year at church but at this service there is usually a larger number of baptisms. For a person who really likes words, I don’t know why but I always get a bit tongue-tied…
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When Work Is Play and Play Is Work
This has been a week full of fun work events. First, there was our morning with Leon Logothetis from The Kindness Diaries. When I had my phone interview with Leon, at the end of our interview, right before hanging up and doing my embarrassing-to-my-daughter cheer, I told the English chap that I only had one last question. “Great,” he says. “Let’s hear it.” And then I asked, “Well, we have some friends here in our town who embody kindness, the sort of kindness that you travel across the world and promote. And these friends own a restaurant. They sell crepes. Leon, can my kids and I…
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I see you ……
I knew when I saw her, ran into her in the bank. I was leaving, she was entering. I knew then, that she was being brave. That waking up that morning, assembling a coordinating outfit, that was bravery. When I looked into her eyes, I saw the carefully placed eye liner. That was brave. Have you lived that kind of life yet? Where, to get out of bed, to put feet to the floor, to look in the mirror and apply shiny substances to your lips and dark trimmings to your eyes equals a legitimate act of bravery. Of hope. Not of Pretend – but of Promise. Not of…
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garden variety hope (that isn’t actually garden variety at all)
For what is most assuredly the first time in the past two years (and longer), I feel something quite foreign to my heart. Something I am terrified to touch, something that scares me and thrills me and makes me long to stick my head in the sand instead of look it square in the eyes. I think it’s called Hope. Hope. Your regular, garden-variety brand of Hope. Not just the hope I’ve clung to tenaciously with the most precarious of grasps, the only deep abiding actual hope option I want – that eternal and perfect hope in Jesus and heaven and no tears and all things made right and ultimate…
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Why The Success of Your Marriage Matters to My Kids
On Sunday we were honored to have brunch with a dear family and two sweet friends. Laughter was as abundant around our scratched farm table as was the delicious food. (Quiches and a Dutch Baby. Homemade whipped cream.) And it wasn’t just adults making adults laugh – the kids, ten in all – were engaged and charming and full of interesting talk too. I live in such a vibrant community full of families like this. Not a week goes by that we don’t break bread and share a table with another family. Usually more than once a week. People are in and out of our home and our door is…
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the writing on the wall
It’s painted on my bedroom door. The words of one of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry, from my favorite book by him – Hannah Coulter. You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions. I see the words when I go to sleep. And when I wake up. Otto Fox has them memorized and quotes them often to me. The whole bit is beautiful. Poetry. But the part that always pierces me begins right…
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roll the windows down. spring wants to come in.
I like spring. And I’m welcoming the sunshine with open arms and an open sunroof. Today I made a labor intensive meal and it was pretty delicious. In our science lesson today we talked about barometric pressure. (Well, the author of the book “talked” about barometric pressure because my brain hardly comprehends how barometric pressure operates or what it actually is.) Anyway, there was a part of the lesson that spoke about the physical effects weather can have on people and I’m telling you, from personal experience, weather does change me. That’s for certain. I love the promises of spring. Of blooming flowers and afternoons in the…
