This weekend…
May you feel some trepidation…
As you embark on new adventure,
May you experience joy as you try new things,
May you feel free as you create,
Or at the very least, may those things keep your children busy enough that you can spend a few moments on something that makes you feel happy!
Happy weekend friends!
How is it that I’ve only written two blog posts in three weeks?
This picture sums up the only defense I have. Do you see that glint in her eye? That mischief brewing just under the surface? That firecracker just about to ignite?
Yup. That must be it. This girl is just so very two right now and it would appear, one only has so many words to spend each day and mine are all spent by the time she goes to bed.
“Get off of there please”
“Oh Emily. PLEASE GO TO SLEEP”
“Don’t bite your brother”
Ya da, ya da, yada….
The anthem of every mother everywhere. By the time they are asleep I have energy only to crawl to the couch and enjoy someone elses words.
These rainy summer days have been full though. Very, very full. Filled with cardboard cities for trains…
Storm watches.
Reunions with the dearest of friends.
Filled with camping trips and quick visits to daddy at camp.Weddings and showers. A slightly bigger work contract (yahoo and YIKES). Visits with friends. Playing outside. Picking wildflowers. Hikes with cousins. picnics. Road-trips. Play dough. Trampolines. Bikes. Dirt. Finn McMissle. Swimming when the sun shines.
And did I mention the rain? La Nina I am not a fan.
But then again…one does need rain to make a rainbow…
And I’m left speechless yet again.
I know what your thinking. Nature photos…Melissa is about to lay a heavy on us. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I default to random flower shots when I am processing the deeper questions.
Not this time though.
This time I am just absolutely astounded with what is blooming on our property this time of year. Every ditch filled with lupins, every field and hillside covered in daisies, tiger lilies and wild roses at every turn. Amazing.
Just so beautiful. We love it here more every day.
Next time you see these photos, and they are treated with sepia or black and white? Mentally prepare…I’m about to lay it on thick ;-).
And just a little P.S…the kids dressed themselves. Emily came out and Joel said “Wow Emily nice booty shorts”, Emily said “I love my booty shorts”. I puked a little in my mouth…Lord help me raise a daughter well.
When it comes down to the wire, most of us end up in a four walled room, painted all white. If we are lucky we get an eggshell mattress and rolled over as needed. When we find ourselves in this place, we suddenly see plain and true where we invested our lives. The stories told at bedside, the people who are drawn to you, the photos framed around you. No matter what else you had in life, it all comes down to where you had your treasure invested.
This week I am just so grateful to find myself in a legacy. Adventure loving man and his wife who kept the cogs and wheels in place while he was part of fantastical tales. Thankful for thousands of belly laughs so deep and breathtaking we thought it might be the end of our red-faced grandfather. Thankful for the lessons in hard work and business (that time we got in such trouble for watching tv on a beautiful day). Thankful for the inspiration of seeing the best in each day, for each piece of pie being the ‘best he ever had’. Thankful he taught me to love a good story (grateful the stories were good as we heard them once or twice ;-)). Thankful to see a family come through strong despite (or because of) a slightly gypsy lifestyle… perhaps a bit like the one we are living. Thankful for strong hands that held on tight, sometimes too tight when he got to laughing. Thankful he still looked for the love of his life even fifteen years after she passed. Thankful for a gift he passed along of enormous integrity, unwavering character, unfailing optimism.
Grateful for 98 good years. For peaceful breath until it stopped. For extraordinary daughters at his side.
Love you Pappa G.
“He made me believe in monogamy” she said “I didn’t really think it could be done before him”. Her eyes trailed down to the table, blinking fast. Her hand found its way to her twelve-year-old daughters shoulder, holding on for dear life.
My hands were wrapped only around my diet Pepsi, my mind spinning on what she said. My nineteen years didn’t give that statement all the feet it deserved. I was at the point in life where I thought,
“He is your husband. Of course he did”
Now having watched one too many marriages kiss themselves goodbye. Too many women pack up and run. I realize how profound her statement really was.
She was saying:
He is the only man she wanted to influence her children,
This, a man worth sacrificing for, a life worth fighting for.
The man she had just watched die…he was more than worth what she had given up to bring herself to this place
He had made her more of herself not less.
She was talking about something that was way bigger than sex,
I think now though, it may have been the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.
Happy Anniversary husband…thanks for making me believe. Twelve years and every day you’ve made my life sweeter…
LOVE this website…what a fascinating experiment. This blog is collecting photos and summaries of what people would take with them out of their burning houses. This morning I submitted the above photo and my details. What would you take out of your burning house? Please comment! I’d love to hear!
Other things I’m loving these days:
What are you loving in June? What would you grab first from a burning house????
If you don’t look up to the sky, perhaps you wouldn’t see the two rainbows gracing it, making you all kinds of promises. Perhaps, if you stare only at your own feet and think only of your own happiness you will miss the moon nestled in cloud nest and loose perspective completely.
If the only reputation you care about is your facebook profile…
and sex is the closest thing to transcendence you have encountered…
and drunk is the closest you can get to renewing your mind…
When you live in a world without hope and no purpose in your life, perhaps then, you would think it is ok, to light the world on fire and watch the rest of us go up in smoke.
I’ve got this dull ache in my chest for your marriage. Mine too. I want them to be GOOD. I want your marriage to be your safe harbour. I want you to trust it. I want you both to find freedom in each other, not bondage. I want your face to light up in the presence of the other. I want you to co-create the safest place on earth for your children. I want you to believe in it and in each other. I want you truly believe that your spouse is the best person you know. I want you to believe that there is not, and never was, a better person for you than the one you lay down beside at night. I want you to be happy, I want you to be fulfilled. I want you to be your best self in your marriage and I want you to help bring that out in the other.
I’ve got a dull ache in my chest for marriage in general these days. It is worth fighting for friends…
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
— Helen Adams Keller
We’ve moved to the woods and my brain is still adjusting to the fact that I will see creatures on a regular basis. It’s the assumed risk you take living out here. To us though, detaching from the earth is riskier than embracing it.
That said…
The neighbor dog “Sam” had a sleep over last night. By chance Joel and I happened to be sitting on the deck as he emerged from the woods where he usually jumped out and scared me out of my skin as I pushed children on swings. He couldn’t make it through our new fence. He tried hard. He dug a little. He thought about jumping. He is not a small dog. He couldn’t do it. Joel and I went and put the kids to bed and met back on the deck for a late dinner about an hour later and Sam the dog was on his twentieth trip around the perimeter of our fence trying to find a way to me (don’t worry I went and visited him). It made me feel good to know even with all his trying and knowledge of our house that he could not get in. And this morning, when I watched him chase a bear down my driveway, it made me feel even better (MAN…a BEAR CAN MOOOOOVVVEEE). We also had a coyote sighting this week. The fence is my friend.
Other indicators that we are becoming thoroughly ‘countrified’ include the following list. You might be spending too much time in the woods if (in the style of Foxworthy):
You dress up your kids to go to town in their dress shoes (but those are gum boots)
Your husband takes you to a fancy golf club for brunch BUT there is fencing on the roof of your sport utility (because you don’t want to have to drive to town TWICE in one day).
Post brunch, three-quarters of your family goes rolling down the hills of said golf course until they almost get hit by a golf ball.
Your husbands chainsaw is worth more than your vehicle.
You have a peaceful bubble bath post bedtime on mother’s day and hear four different kids of motors running outside your window. One of which is a snow mobile. No we don’t have any snow.
You are in Mexico and say to your cousin “You sure you aren’t going on a date? We can go on our own? You are seriously East Coast Contemporary and we are completely West Coast White Trash”
Anyways, We’re really noticed while hosting youth groups up here how urbanized and out of touch with nature the kids in our community are. Its sad and a bit scary. Why would you protect a wilderness that frightens you? Why would you fight for an environment that you don’t understand?
And so Personal Mission number 8 billion 72:
Make sure my children understand and love nature they way my parents taught me to.
Maybe I’m the only super nerd/hippie in the making, but then again, maybe I’m not. I made a nature journal for our family to keep track of the things we identify this year. I have a page for birds we identify, animals we see, plants we learn the names for, bugs we capture and look at. I thought other people might want to use it? I don’t know. If you do you can download it here.
Happy trails friends.
Books we like:
National Audobon Society Guides (many at the used book stores!)
A great resource from “A Holy Experience” Nature Resources (monthly teaching units)
Joining Gypsy Mama with a five-minute unedited writing prompt…
BACKWARDS
I get it all backwards and mixed up.
Sometimes I shine the outside of that cup so shiny it is hard to look at. Sometimes leave the inside so grungy it is hard to live in this old skin.
Sometimes I spend more time on the things that pass away and fade instead of investing in the immortals I am surrounded by.
Sometimes (and usually at the most important moments), my tongue seizes up inside my mouth. I can’t for the life of me give an adequate response. When moments are the least important, when it would be prudent to bite my tongue, it wags like a disobedient dog.
Often times, I get lazy and grass grows under my feet because I’ve stood in the same place for too long. If you stop moving forward; growing, stretching, reaching you start moving backwards. Nothing is static.
Other days, on a morning like this I move the right direction. Up too early, knowing that to navigate this day with dignity I have to start the day right. Open journal, open bible, I pull rocking chair to window sill and soon little boy makes his way under the blanket I am wrapped in. We watch the sun pitch itself into the sky and see the trees stretch into shadows. We watch the clouds settle in a solid sheet over the valley. Today having no words was just right and holding on tight to beauty was the only lesson that we needed.
Perhaps, I’m really not so backwards after all.
one thing blog 
