Story
One can bear anything if one can put it in a story. - Isak Dinesen
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what a Saturday night looks like …. sometimes
Once upon a time I told the kids we were watching Maleficent at our next Family Movie Night. It seemed like a pretty easy promise to make and to keep. (What is not easy, on the other hand, is pronouncing the movie Maleficent. Why is it so hard?) Movie Night rolls in. I have Mosely check Netflix. Maleficnnt is not available. Fine. We check iTunes. Malefichtyy is available. For purchasing. For $19.99. No thanks. I text Amanda. “Where did you guys get your copy of Maelficnntyihk? Do you own it?” “The library,” she responds. Like a true planner. A person prepared. Fine. “Guys – let’s just go to a Redbox…
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on fear and back roads and what once was scary but now is not
This past weekend I was driving in the dark down some Virginia backroads. The dark in rural Virginia feels way more dark than the dark in South Carolina. There aren’t street lights or lamps or houses very close to the road. Neighborhoods aren’t dotting the path and the night seems more dark somehow. Driving the rural roads this weekend reminded me of driving those same familiar roads twenty years earlier. And twenty-five years earlier. And I could remember with painful clarity a feeling I used to have when driving those roads home from work – alone – late at night – on my way back to the farm. Or driving…
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the maple weekend: a comedy of errors
Oh goodness, our weekend was plum full of good intentions. (I’m a feelin’ like story telling’, so settle in friends) What We Planned: Drive to Virginia. (The Motherland. The Oasis.) Meet my brother. (That wiley New Zealand one.) Visit the Maple Festival together in Highland County. What Actually Happened: We got to Virginia. That part worked out pretty much just as planned. Check. On Saturday morning the kids and I loaded up and prepared for the two hour drive up the mountain, anxiously anticipating All Things Maple. Maple donuts. Maple cotton candy. Maple syrup. Maple pancakes. Maple BBQ. Maple candy. Maple sugar. Maple cream. Maple skies. Maple roads. Maple friendships.…
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an education of sorts
I am learning to come to terms with the fact that my life is both beautiful and hard. I am learning to live content in the presence of both grief and joy. This is a tension not unfamiliar to me. When my mother passed away I received my first taste of the bitter and the beautiful in one life-altering mouthful. Season after season, the birth of two new children, life’s highs and lows, brought me face to face with both missing my mother and loving my life. Being grateful and being sad. Simultaneously. Constantly. A new steady. And now. After all that practice. I have new lessons to learn. A…
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The Half Marathon. That I ran. Yes. I did.
Up until a few days ago I had never run farther than six and a half miles at one time. And that was only once. I still don’t know how to exactly think of myself as a runner. Remember my first 5K? I have zero explanation for how this happened but at some point in the past five months or so Amanda and hannaH said they were planning to run a half marathon. We were eating dinner. I smiled at them. They talked about the women who were signing up to run it with them. I smiled some more. Made some joke wondering why they hadn’t invited me into…
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contrary truth
You want to know something true but so contrary? You can have a day that feels as if the very air of the universe is aligning and giving you good gifts. Friends can send you the sweetest texts and your grocery bill can be paid by a complete stranger. You can hold the good gifts in both of your hands and count them two by two. You can laugh a little and smile some too. You can stare into the gloriously golden faces of the stellar humans who call you “mom”. And you can feel grateful. Grateful can ooze out of your lips and off your tongue and through the…
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so much water . . . .
I have a friend whose Instagram handle is “treading water”. I smiled when I saw it the first time. She has four young children and I understood the sentiment all too well. As I was pushing the pictures up on my phone this week and saw her name pop up, I thought of that title once more. Treading water. Yes. It’s a little less funny to me right now though. That’s precisely what I feel as if I am doing. Treading water. I mean, barely. Treading water but just hardly keeping my head up above the current and swallowing an awful lot of water and gasping for quite a bit of…
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All the Words We Don’t Say
In one of the many books I keep stacked beside my bed, the author talks about the value of talking through a problem. The value of naming a sadness. Which has me thinking. About that. About other places I’ve read similar ideas and thoughts. About processing and talking and sharing and explaining and All The Words We Say. The idea being that somehow talking about and giving verbal space for a sadness and a grief gives it both a reality and a vulnerability. A place to heal and a place to pass away from in the direction of moving on. Does that make sense? It really does to me. Why…
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practice. (unwelcome though it is)
Of course at the very instant that you choose a word, the worlds are going to collide and the earth is going to tremble and you’re going to get a chance to immediately test out your shiny new resolve. Did you really mean what you said? Were those just pretty words all lined up in a tidy row? Maybe I will start tomorrow. Today is just too hard. Let me have life just toss you a couple of curve balls and a few packaged disappointments and a frustrating situation and a hopeless feeling afternoon and some lunch bag left to spoil in the back of your car and a…
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it’s not a new year’s resolution kind of fix.
I don’t really feel like writing. I didn’t really feel like celebrating this Christmas or this New Year’s. There’s an awful lot I don’t really feel like doing. It’s kind of stacking up around me just as I am inundated with new calendars and fresh resolutions and shared quotes about potential and a clean slate. My toilet is overflowing with – well, toilet water – and that’s no metaphor although it absolutely could be. My sink is overflowing with dirty dishes because the dishwasher is broken and that’s alright of course as people have washed dishes for – like, centuries – without the aid of a square water machine. But…
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the traditions and the heavy lifting of holidays and the sliver of light I hope you find
This is a season of tradition. And tradition matters in the culture of a family. It’s the fabric and the face of a family. It’s what we do. It’s the stuff we do that makes us who we are. It’s the story we tell. “Every year we make monster cookies.” “Every year we see the lights and eat donuts.” And it’s what makes us feel like family. It’s the stuff that says Keigley or Johnson or insert-your-own-name. It’s the ties that bind. And it’s okay when circumstances shift or a family decides to begin a new tradition or to let an old one fade. But it’s hard too.…
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Five Finds Friday (six)
I finally finished that article. Take that, procrastination. Piper keeps announcing how many days are left until Christmas and that’s making me feel a little antsy or unprepared or something because, maybe it’s the weather, but it doesn’t feel all that Christmas-y to me yet. Although we did tour some Christmas trees downtown this week and that helped us all to get in the festive mood I think. It’s Friday though now, friends – and that means ….. FUNNY It’s a great age when your kids are genuinely funny people. Not potty humor funny or toddler mispronounced words funny or teenager kind of ridiculous funny but just straight up seriously…
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Five Finds Friday (five)
FUNNY The kids have really been enjoying taking photos lately. And I keep finding gems like this on my phone: FASHIONABLE I know I am partial to this model – but you guys, isn’t she the cutest? She’s modeling this terrific and surprisingly bouncy scarf made by my talented friend at Phoebeflock. And it’s a perfect stocking stuffer, hand crafted and one of a kind. FLAVORFUL For our weekly family movie night we like to eat pizza. Except when we don’t. And then we like to have homemade Chinese food. The last time we fixed our Chinese (ish) dishes we realized we were all out of our favorite…