Just Now 10.30.10

{the girls with stickers from Aunt Karen}

current time: 9:18 p.m.

in my mug: cuppa tea

in my belly: warm  brownies

in my ears: Matt Costa’s “Astair”

in the fridge: acorn squash and cauliflower

on the nightstand: my ipod and my Neflix copy of “The Illusionist” I’ve had now for over two months and watched probably fifteen times.

on the editor: photos from last fall, camera still out for repair, today’s photo taken with my point.

last watched: “Babe” with the girls, Karelyn doesn’t remember watching it when she was very little. “That’ll do, pig.  That’ll do”.

feeling good about: an evening curled up with my girls, brownies & milk, and a good movie.

feeling bummed about: it’s not gluten.  we’ve been completely gluten-free a week, and still the stomach woes.

last thing that made me laugh: my grandmother, sitting, talking at my kitchen table today.

Wordless Wednesday: Just Not My Words

 

 

Content With Short Bursts of Anxiety

How DID I fall into this happy place?  Was it the  8,000 baby steps I took?   Is it the coming together of 10,000 small moments that made me smile?  Is it the 4,000 horrible nights that I pushed myself through?  I just turned around and here it is.  There was no line.  No marker I crossed. No directional arrow that said “HAPPINESS ➙”

I have  been so content lately.  And I cannot pinpoint it to one direct thing.  It’s just that  sometimes I just stop and smile and just say it out loud,

“I am so happy”.

These small moments.  When I have connected with someone.  Or I have done something, written something, edited something that I am really proud of.  When the insects outside are doing a perfect trilling song.  When the clouds crossing the full moon just radiate beauty.  When my children about burst my heart with their kindness or their laughter.   When my family make me laugh so. very. hard.

This contentment has to do with a lot of people.  There are a lot of people to thank for it.  Some of them are as close as next door or down the road.  A few I found over the last couple years who were important from my past.  Some are friends from as far away as the other side of the country or the other side of the world.  Their voices, their written words bring me comfort, remind me I am never alone.

I will always be anxious.  Always.  I will always have those panicky, WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NOW moments.  Those OH MY GOD THERE IS NO WAY I CAN HANDLE THIS RIGHT NOW moments. I am always going to be fighting off certain amounts of self-doubt, of fear. Somedays I want to turn in my Parenting badge, resign and math homework can still bring me to tears, even at the 4th grade level.

But I will take it, this label.  Someone can affix it to me.  Like a warning label.

WARNING:  She is very content, but prone to short bursts of anxiety.

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we all just wore warning labels?  I like this label.  I like the way it looks on me.

on children…

It has been a rough last week.  Horrible cold and fever  took over both of my girls over the course of it.  We are still trying to figure out Emily’s stomach woes.  Blood test for Celiac and trying gluten-free this week on top of the already acknowledged lactose intolerance.  Today we did everything right and she went to bed with either a rash or hives on her middle.  It’s been frustrating.  But in all the household is feeling much better and somehow, someway I have escaped it, perhaps there is such a thing as miracles.

Today was a good day.  Tonight I saw this girl above skipping across the yard.  When she skips, it makes my heart sing.  It’s just a sign of pure happiness, and her happiness is my happiness.  When things are tough, when motherhood seems overwhelming and I don’t seem to be getting my way, I am reminded of this portion of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”, one of my favorite parts of my favorite spiritual guidebook, that any mother at any stage may appreciate:

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

for even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable”.

Just Now 10.22.10

 

current time: 8:33 p.m.

in my mug: Root Cabernet Sauvignon

in my belly: Homemade blueberry scones, not mine, but one of our credit union members makes the most amazing scones ever.

in my ears: “A New World” from the Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack. If you saw the theatre cut of this movie it was crap that didn’t make any sense, if you saw the director’s cut, it was pretty amazing.

in the fridge: one last piece of pumpkin cake my grandmother made that I’m trying not to eat.

on the nightstand: a glass of water and a handkerchief leftover from too many nights of sick girls in my bed.

on the editor: nothing, though there are plenty of photos to work up, it’s been a busy, rough week.

last watched: the short film above, it’s about 12 minutes long, but 12 minutes to surely make you smile.

feeling good about: a phone call I know is coming tonight, as it does every night and having someone ask me again, everyday, how my day was and mean it.

feeling bummed about: not having anyone I truly believe in to vote for and realizing that any type of humanitarian who would make real change will never make it in the system.

last thing that made me laugh: the girls at work, they always make me laugh, like climbing under the counter out of embarrassment so no one can see kind of laughing.

 

Wordless Wednesday: Be Gone Gloomy Days

180° South

There are those movies that change your life.  That after viewing you see things completely differently.   This is one of those documentaries.  My mother recommended this movie to me.  She said everyone should see this movie.  I didn’t realize until I was into it and saw Chris Malloy that  it was a Malloys film.  As in the same Malloys that film with Jack Johnson, that the soundtrack that is now downloaded and playing is from Brushfire Records.  As if all the surfing didn’t give it away point blank.

Regardless, here is what this film gave me.

A belief in living your dreams.  A belief in doing.  A belief in saying YES to life.  A belief that people can do good.  A belief in how beautiful this world is.  A belief in putting less stock in things and more in experiences.  A belief that one experience can change your life and what you choose to do with it as it did for the original crew in 1968.

I don’t want to climb mountains…too afraid of heights.  I want to learn to surf though those waves seem just a little bit scary.

But I want to stop thinking myself out of the things I want to do.  One life.  One chance.  What if we just said yes.

We have one life.  We have one planet.  What we choose to do with both of those things is our choice.

I cannot make a big enough recommendation.  I was blown away.  So many wise and wonderful things were said, so much beauty.

More info is here.

a place to be.

My girl is sick.  And so it is, in those dark, quiet moments that I feel my greatest strength and purpose.  The feeling of doubts and shortfalls dissipate as I settle into my one true role as mother.  It’s the warmness of her body, the spent look on her face, the sag around her eyes.  It’s the labored breaths, the intermittent coughs, the croaky whisper when she pleads, mommy.  Every miniscule part of her existence needs me in those moments and anything I could have been debating in my mind about work, photography, the state of the house, the state of the world disappears in her need.  In those late night moments it is just me, my girl and some lullabies playing from when she was a baby.  The rest of the world could crumble and fall away and just leave her nestled into me, my hands stroking her hair, touching her cheeks, leaning over to kiss her nose, rub her feet where I know to look for fever first with her.  Anything I aspire to be, any doubts in my mind disappear as I whisper the only thing I can tell her for sure “I’m here and I love you“.  Because this more than anything was what I know I was meant to do with this life.  This is where I feel so confidently that I know that it was meant to be.   If I could do nothing else in this life but be here for my children when they need me most, then anything else is just a bonus.

Wordless Wednesday: To The Sea

moving on.

they tell you it happens.  that at some point you will hit that wall.  that you will reach that point where suddenly and awkwardly you freeze, afraid of change.  i’ve hit the wall. last night i didn’t just hit the wall, i ran headfirst into it and knocked myself out on the ground still for awhile.  in fact i was so frozen in fear of where i was heading that i didn’t do much of anything.  then i did what i do best in moments like those.  i put movies on for the girls and sat down and wrote.  and wrote.  and wrote. wrote until 12:30 in the morning.  some of it made sense, some of it did not.  some of it moved me to tears, some of it was exposition which will probably get canned later.

it so happens that in the process of self-exploration and willingness to get to the next level there is a spot you have to get through, called doubt, self-loathing and reluctance to change.

everything about me right now falls into those categories.

i’m working out harder than ever getting myself healthy, but my muscles are screaming at me.  at the same time i feel them and i know they are there and i feel strong.  but somehow those last littly squishy bits which of course i may have to accept are going to be with me forever seem to nag at me and always get the last word.   so my body and mind it seems are struggling a bit with keeping up and we aren’t even going to talk about the casserole of macaroni and cheese I made last night and ate. by myself. stuck.

i’m shooting photos, i’m editing, i’m writing, i’m doing all these things that are supposed to lead me to where i want to be, but i am having a harder time breaking through to the other side of doing something with this creative energy.  it seems every time i want to put something out there, the doubt of the worthwhileness of it sneaks in and i fall into the blasted pattern of the fear of failure.  and at the same time i fear i’ve taken on too much at once and though i love having a second blog, it almost feels like too much work most days.  but again i don’t want to be that person that starts and then gives up, quits, never goes anywhere with anything.

a closed off section of stairs at the gardens, unused

so i made the decision last night to harness all this lovely negative energy.  i wrote about my past.  it is something i have never been able to do up until this point.  i’ve written around it.  i’ve written fuming entries about my ex-husband, i’ve written about the desperation of being a single mother, but i’ve never written about the fear, the depression, and that dark, dark place i went to during the end of that marriage.

and it surprised me.

i got through it.  i cried a bit, but only after i went back and read it again.  and i remembered it so vividly. and to me writing down a small portion of that part of my life, seeing myself the way i was and accepting,  not blaming or hating that person i was gave me a little bit of perspective.  i accepted who i was.  with all my faults and wrong decisions.  with all the dark scary feelings i never spoke a word of to anyone. i told myself it was okay.

and i can do that again.  because i know what holding on to a place and being afraid to grow and reach feels like.  i remember it.  and though right now my circumstances are better and the change i’m seeking now doesn’t have such dire consequences as the one past, it teaches me the same lesson.  to push past the doubt, push past the not feeling good enough, push past the not feeling deserving, and come out the other side.

i am still in a mood this morning.  i hated the dog nosing me to get up.  i hated the girls trying to get me out of bed before i was ready.  i hated coming down to find all the things left undone yesterday. i hated the fact that i wasn’t waking up in a cottage in the woods on the edge of the coast in New England, walking out the door in my bare feet, my nightgown and a sweater wrapped around me, wood under my feet and a cup of tea in my hand.  because that is where i wrote myself to sleep last night.  and maybe that is where i will wake up one day.

for now i decided to write this.  and then at the girl’s suggestion we are going back to the gardens today.  we are going to take the long loop around the meadow, walk under the giants in the wood, climb the treehouses and then maybe rest by the chime tower.  i’m throwing the hair up, slipping on a soft cotton t-shirt and slipping on the worn, comfortable jeans that are at least a size too big.  i’ve always found the best place to grow, the best place to heal, the best place to just BE is in a place such as this and perhaps there under the trees, walking through the meadow, sitting listening to the chimes, i will grow past this fear of moving on and learn to walk gracefully into it.