Disheveled

I'm a bit disheveled.

We traveled to my hometown for Thanksgiving to celebrate with family, but mostly so my husband could spend the following day floating his kayak down the Sheboygan River fishing for steelhead, as is his Black Friday tradition. I veg on the couch, watch the boys play with my old Pretty Ponies, wander the two blocks down to Lake Michigan to gather rocks and memories, and eat leftover stuffing from my mother's refrigerator.

I watered my roots some, too. Shared a beer with old friends -- really, really good friends I hadn't seen in far too long. Held the hand and kissed the cheeks of my dear C, hoping I'll see her when I head back next month; knowing that may not happen and making peace with it.

Overall, a nice visit. But...when We Gather Together, the germs follow suit. Let's just say the drive home was sketchy, with boys covered in towels, holding buckets on their laps. John tried to convince me my uneasy tummy was just nervousness about the kids.

But he knew I'd be the next casualty when he caught me scrubbing the toilet at 10pm. It's sadly ironic that it takes an impending kneel before the porcelain to get me to clean my bathroom.

I think we're on the mend now, after a miscalculated concession this morning to serve the 3 year old a bowl of cereal with blueberries followed by a dish of cheddar crackers. Perhaps the 24 hour thing is a bit of a misnomer.

But things are looking up.

As long as I don't look around.

Sheets and towels need to be laundered. Paperwork past due sits menacingly on the counter. Babies fling clean clothes from suitcases, decorating the livingroom with underwear and tiny socks. Food spoils in the crisper and the fruit bowl while our appetites lie low, and I brace, poised to shake off the confines of even the smallest obligations.

Photo credit: here

{Deeeeeep breath. Regain perspective.}

I see the waves breaking, and I'm not that good of a swimmer. It's easy to panic, to freeze. But I need to strip off the extra weight and ride this out. One day at a time, moment by moment.

I'm working on it.

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oh boy oh boy oh BOY am I thankful

I've always been a little boy crazy.

photo credit: Jim Pippitt

It seems to have worked out well for me.

And while things are pretty loud and a little stinky here most of the time, I am so thankful that I get to have these roles as Queen of Boyworld, Pilot of the Boystorm, Little Man Mama.

Yes, I serve as a shock absorber for electrical boy energy. Yes, I live vigilantly so as to prevent major head trauma during wrestling matches and hallway races. Yes, I know my way around a construction yard and all of the names of the trains on the Island of Sodor. And yes, I don't get a girl for those mother-daughter bonding moments that I admire from afar.

But this boy crazy mama is surrounded by the cutest little dudes on the planet, and I'm pretty sure I'll always have a date for the dance.

As long as we're dancing in the livingroom.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. This year, I've got extra thoughts and prayers for all of those who will be missing loved ones around the table.

* * *

And just because it's fun, I made a new button. If you're a mama crazy for some dreamy little guy, feel free to grab the button for your blog. And if you do, let me know and I'll add your link.

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tilt-o-whirl

I've discovered the dog has been sleeping on the bean bag in the playroom. I walk in, looking for a comfy spot to sit and write, and there's a coating of thick blond hair trapped in the grooves of the corduroy. Damn dog. He's never been allowed on the furniture. But I can't really blame him.

I shift and stir. Ideas pepper my mind, but there's a resistance floating around in there -- like I don't have the time, the energy to explore my thoughts, to delve to the depths of my experience. I don't know what I'm going to unearth if I just start writing, and I'm not sure I'm up for emotional boobytraps.

: :

C is dying. She could have days, weeks, months...we don't know. I called her and she sounded good - better than I expected. But she's dying. And she knows it. One of these days the Lord is going to take me, she said. Matter of fact - it's going to happen.

I put off calling, put off writing because I didn't know what to say. But this is not about me. Not about what I have to offer, to say. It's about doing what I can -- something, ANYTHING -- to make her day a little brighter. To let her know I'm thinking of her, praying for her, praying that God will wrap his arms around her, that she'll feel peace in her final days.

Live the right now, pray it, say it, tell it now. Because tomorrow may not present the same opportunities.

: :

There's a density to November. It's loaded full, layered. Fall is here in full force - the branches are pretty much bare, and the ankle-high carpet of yellows and oranges that I shuffled through a couple of weeks ago has gone brown, brittle. The nibble in the air whispers rumors of a bite, and the trees look like they're trying to scratch claw marks across the sky.

There's an atmospheric pressure that hangs this time of year, a squeeze of urgency to pack and cram - busy busy busy. People turn outward to satisfy inward cravings. It's all about the stuff stuff stuff. The feasting, gorging, hoarding. The tilt-o-whirl has started spinning and it won't stop until we step off in January, dizzy from the ride, disoriented and looking for stability, for a new start.


Photo credit: here

: :

November dredges. Stirs things up and sends them swirling 'round my head. Two years ago we lost M and P in a weeks time. A year later it was A, bookending the losses of K and then S. Cancer's a bitch, and it hit hard.

Now C.

Will this be another Thanksgiving of clinging to those at the table, still dressed in black, mourning as we gather for a feast?

But like my father says, Death. It's part of life. It is part of the deal, and I want to wake up each day with gratitude for simply having woken up.

: :

I hear them downstairs, blocks tumbling. My baby is turning one next week. They all remark how fast it's gone, but it felt like a year to me. I've gotten better at paying attention, letting each minute last sixty seconds.

It would be such a shame to miss it all.

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A Photo Essay: Real Life

I've alluded to it before.

Yeah...

...this pretty much sums things up.

* no actual children were harmed in the capturing of these images.

____________

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silhouettes

I climb down from the top bunk, placing my foot on each rung, stealing away from the quiet whispers, secrets from the day tucked under hand-me-down quilts and buried under pillows.

He shares his snapshots in these stolen moments. After the Goodnights, the Go to sleeps; before lids fall heavy. After X marks the spot (with a dot, dot, dot) and before the chest rises and falls to the steady rhythm of dreams.

He tells me his stories. What he pulls from his day, the truth that he gleans is only a shadow and it’s all I have. How would it measure against the color image? Would I recognize the day from his telling? The unfolding appears differently than it would to my eye. I wonder which silhouettes the other children take home, projecting them against quiet walls in dark bedrooms, lit dimly by the glow cast through a door ajar?

I’m grateful for these whispers, the songs sung in hushed tones, the inaudible prayers uttered from barely moving lips, heard only by the ears to which they were intended.

The nights are work. I bend over water, washing them clean; over naked skin, diapering, dressing them fresh and swaddling secure. We dim lights, sing lullabies, and pace with cradled arms. They call out – with thirst, for warmth, a craving for affection; the prolonged delay of my coming lost on them as I shift the baby to my hip, offering a cup, a hand, a touch. I’m coming. Another minute, and I’m coming.

I bend again, deeper, and the baby finally rests, slumbering safely in his crib; and I straighten and turn, finally returning as promised. One breathes the telltale rhythm, burrowed into pillows and under blankets, having lost the battle in wait, in vain. I straighten and tuck and kiss before climbing the rungs to the restless one tossing in the top bunk.

He rolls the day like a stone, turning it over, finding the treasures and the bugs; making sense from the chaotic order of his day. We lay in the quiet, and I inhale his scent, wrapping my arms around his slender frame, marveling at his metamorphosis. He turns, gazing up at the stars dangling above his pillow. I can make out his profile in the dark, and I listen intently to his stories; straining, sharpening my focus – his words are all I have to piece together his time away, his separate sphere where he clearly thrives and grows, where he creates a world all his own, to share or not.

At the most subtle of invitations, I enter; and I’m grateful for the telling. Grateful that the way he makes sense of the world is through stories, through words. It is a process I understand.

I could listen for hours, bits and pieces settling out from the reaches of his mind, pictures bubbling to the surface when he stills himself. But it’s time for sleep.

And it’s time for me to uncurl myself, to straighten from the bending, to ground my feet and stretch my arms skyward, to still myself and let my stories surface.

Because it is in the telling that I find it, projected on the wall where I can step back or look closely, examining the details and the whole.

* * *

Honored to have this post featured on Five Star Friday's Edition #79. Thank you!

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mental crud

I haven't been drawn here much lately. I've been feeling the pull towards my journal instead, and everything I write seems to be too long or convoluted to transcribe into a post.

It’s because I’ve detected quite a build-up of mental crud in recent days, and my normal strategies for clearing it out have not been working as effectively as usual.

I’m not depressed – not at all, actually. I've just been letting in too much stimuli. Distractions and information are ubiquitous, and my filters must be dismantled because currently there is a chaotic mass of swirling madness orbiting the inside of my head.

I think this is one of the dangers of information accessibility. Facebook, twitter, even hopping online to check the news -- one link leads to another to another; there is so much happening all over the world - some of it important and a lot of it nothing more than a complete time-suck. For me, the outlet pulls me out of the present, it blurs my focus, bombarding me with information to be processed and filed away. It takes up mental space that I want to fill with other things; space that needs to be open in order to absorb the present.

But it isn't just The Internets. I walked through a bookstore today and almost felt stressed out at the presentation of literature, information, entertainment, news, guidance that I will never, ever get a chance to read.

And how about hobbies? I'd love to be knitting for this winter, but it lands lower on the list than writing and reading, which I struggle to find time for as it is. I've all but given up on painting, and I'm still deciding whether cooking needs to be relegated from Hobbies to Obligations.

I know what I want, what I need, to do. I need to flush it all out. To detox. To free myself from the accumulation of mental crud. Maybe then I'll be able to write here, to write coherently, again. But re-grounding has been harder than usual -- I've fallen out of practice over the last weeks, and I think some of the goo has calcified, now requiring a chisel.

But I'll get there, because like the bumper sticker, I'd Rather Be Here Now. I'll clear my mind and refocus on the present. I'll clear the crud and create some open space to absorb the little gifts of each moment that can so easily be missed, slipping off without a chance to be noticed or appreciated because I'm too distracted thinking about everything but

this.very.moment.I.am.living.

Because when I let headlines and tweets and status updates, to-do lists and the weight of obligations hijack my focus, then what am I missing? What would I notice, would I soak in if I looked and listened and felt mindfully; aware of myself and my space and my company (usually my children) rather than cruising through the day on autopilot? What would inspire me? What would I learn if I stayed in the moment - listening, watching, participating?

I know that when I remain present I am a happier mother, a better person than when I let the distractions echo through my brain. I know that when I stay present, when I see each moment for what it is, life passes at just the right pace. I don't want to look back and say where did the time go? what happened this last year or month or week? I want to soak it in, to enjoy it.

So I’m working on it. I’m gonna clear out the crud.

* * *

all artwork by Eli, 2009

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another trip around the sun

Today is the first of November, and it's always been one of my favorite days. Know why?

Because it's the day before my BIRTHDAY.

I've always loved having a birthday right around Halloween. Everyone gets excited and hopped up on sugar, so when my birthday rolls around people are still in party-mode.

We're not doing anything big this year; John threw me a big party when I turned 30 two years ago, so I think I have three more years to go before I get another one. It's funny; 30 was obviously a big birthday, and turning 31 just felt like wrapping up 30. But 32? Meh. Nothing major. It sounds a lot older to me though. Like I'm actually in my thirties as opposed to turning 30, which I apparently celebrated two years in a row.

But I like these mellow birthdays, too. There's a sweetness to it. I'll have some time alone, some time with the boys, and a date night with my sweet handsome hubby. (We haven't been out on a date since we celebrated our anniversarytwo months ago!)

I always see my birthday as my own personal New Year. The night before and the day of, I find myself waxing nostalgic about the past year, or birthdays of yesteryear, and looking forward to the year to come.

When I playback the reel and watch the years whip by, it's pretty much a blur of happiness. But in that happy wind there are a few memories my brain must have snagged, a few that stand out as pops of color against it all.

: : Four years old - dancing with my little friends to my big sister's Beach Boys record in the livingroom. Help me Rhonda, Help -- Gitter outta my heart!

: : Twelve years old - my first boy-girl party. The whole sixth grade in my parents basement. A couple of eighth grade boys crashed the party, and I was in heaven. Also? The snack table was set up below the laundry chute, and my little sister's underwear ended up in the potato chips.

: : Eighteen - my best girl friends decorated my locker, made a giant scene about me all day, and came over that night for cake, hugs, and presents. I miss those girls. And I know with certainty that even if I don't hear from them each year, they all remember my birthday (as I do theirs).

: : Thirtyone - thirtyseven weeks pregnant with my third child. Time with my boys, the little ones and the big one, too. No big parties, but lots of love. Homemade cakes and cards and bright pink Smartwool kneesocks. They know me well.

Anway, tonight I'm feeling pretty good about my life - where I'm going and where I've been. And as always, I hope that this next trip around the sun will be the best one yet.

* * *

eta: linking to You Capture because I like these pictures of the windblown leaves stuck in the trees too much not to share them.

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