These are some moments: full velocity, full of mess, full of grace
It's been a wild tumble of spring-turning-into-summer around here. I'm in the thick of a full, full summer semester. The deadline for my manuscript is looming in early fall. Everything is converging in a miraculous, glorious mess. There isn't enough time. I'm exploding with ideas. The Kickstarter rewards are still waiting for finishing touches that require more than a handful of free moments to complete.
Bean graduated from kindergarten last Friday afternoon with scratched knees, hair in his eyes, and big beautiful grins. Sprout is potty training and asking "why?" and exploring just how much dramatic effect a super cute pouty face can have on us. Our washing machine broke (I overloaded it.) I never manage to put all the laundry away: it sits on the back of the couch, or in laundry baskets and the boys have grown used to rummaging through them for fresh underwear or unmatched socks.
We're all doing the best we can: full velocity, full time. It's an epic, glorious, silly, catastrophic choreography every single day. Some days we barely make it out of the house. Yesterday a tractor trailer flipped on the our road just before where I needed to turn: it set me back by an hour; made me late to a meeting; and yet those long moments waiting in traffic with windows down were moments of gratitude and grace.
Morning comes early now: 4:30 a.m. and the birds are calling. A salt and pepper chicken has gotten broody. We're letting her sit on a nest full of eggs. Beside the coop another poplar fell last week. This spring has been all about thunderstorms and floods and windstorms that keep tearing things up. Our driveway is a mess of ruts. The garden is just barely dug. Dandelions are going to seed everywhere. Dishes wait in the sink.
Before night falls we walk out together to the chicken coop, T and I. Twilight hums with crickets, frogs, fireflies. The sky is already gathering stars. We wrap our arms around each other's waists: this is the first time, close, skin to skin all day. We kiss, we close the coop, we walk back, stumbling over the army of muddy boots, flip flops, sneakers tossed off at the tile by the front door. Later, as I sit at the kitchen table with the windows open, I hear our neighbor banging on a metal garbage can lid: bears, most likely. Last night, it was a luna moth that came, with enormous pale green wings, beating at the screens.
So this is life, now, this month. These are are my moments.
What are yours?
Not enough
I love you.Good morning baby. Go find Daddy, Mommy has to take a shower. Here is your t-shirt. Are you ready to go? Where are your rain pants? Forget it, just get in the car. Good bye. I love you. I love you. I’m sorry I was in such a rush. I’m running late for a meeting. Do you see the river? Let’s run to your classroom. Goodbye sweetie. Have an awesome day. I love you.
*
Hi my little guy! I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m going to get your tummy! Pppppptttt. Hi sweetheart. How was you’re day? Go wash your hands for dinner. Only one cookie. Wipe your face. Yes I’ll play alligator. Go brush your teeth. Please put on your pajamas. Put on your pajamas right this minute. One, two… Yes, I’ll read you that book. It’s you’re last day of kindergarten tomorrow, remember? I love you little guy. Here is your bear. I love you too.
when I listen to myself, this is what I say
// Here is what my heart is saying today:
Take the time. Get more sleep. Let exercise be a part of every day. Soak up time with my boys more. Focus on making this book incredible. Stop being so scared of the potential for failure. Just let the fear sit there next to me. I will not fail. Narrow my attention. Breathe.
Sleep deprivation + inspiration + some springtime glimpes
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I’m still humming with wonder at the work that I do now: that I have this chance to write, create, share, make. That this is my job, finally, truly. And that this book is emerging slowly from drafts and chapter outlines pinned across the wall in front of me.
Today though I’ve accumulated some serious sleep deprivation, and combined with conflicting deadlines for class, I pretty much just want to do this.
Instead, I think I’ll be trying this for a week or two. Are you reader’s of Patry’s blog? I just found her, and am soaking up her words with immense gratitude.
I’m also still thinking about this podcast by Jamie about supporting the artists and bloggers and creatives who inspire you.
She’s new to me, and I’m grateful for the discovery—especially since I’m working on making my own podcast this week to send out to backers. Alessandra, the goddess who created Gypsy Girl’s Guide did an interview with Jamie at the end of the podcast and shared the link on Twitter. The interview is truly inspiring for anyone with a wanderlust heart such as mine. (Also I adored hearing her accent! It’s something I miss when reading words: how much emotion and passion and story is contained in the tone and cadence of the spoken word.)
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Who are few creatives who are inspiring you right now? What do you love about their work?
+++ Also, if you're a twitter type, follow along. The inspiration I find there is plentiful every single day.
This boy I love
Trying to describe him now defies my ability to avoid cliches: every time I take the minute to look at him, really look at him, I'm stunned by the fact that he's six. That he is my first baby, and now he is this lanky boy, all gestures and adverbs, storm and sunshine, drama and antics.
He came into my room this afternoon in his looking for socks and his little knobby needs just about made me melt: the way they tilt in toward's each other just a little; the way one knee has a scab from when he fell off his bike last week. His hair was damp from playing outdoors in the rain, his eyes huge as always seemed to fill up his whole face.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have children what it's like to fall in love with your child over and over again, even when they annoy the crap out of you, as Bean routinely does. He's pushy and edgy and impatient; he's convinced he's at the very center of everyone's world; he has a hundred questions nearly ever minute; he is inordinately invested in being right. Yet every single day when I see him after I've been gone his presence fills me with a brightness.
He wraps his thin arms around my waist: "let's play alligator, Mama!" he begs.
Alligator, like almost every other game he invents, means tussling and wrestling on the floor.
And though I'm often preoccupied when I arrive, I oblige, wrapping my arms around his wriggling little torso, chomping the air with enormous imaginary teeth. And just like that, I'm in it. In this moment, in this love.
making it so
All weekend I’ve thought about your answers; pondered them, and wondered at their incredible honesty and longing.
There is such enormous power in putting into words the things you long for. I believe this with every single cell in my being. Things become, align, respond. Even when what we ask for is far grater than what we’re capable of manifesting ourselves: the universe moves too.
The thing that is hard, of course, is feeling it move.
We spend our whole life on an earth that spins.
Does that ever startle you? I used to be able to lie on a grassy hillside and feel the earth spin if I closed my eyes. Then I grew up and convinced myself I couldn’t any longer, and that is just exactly what we often do: we tell ourselves all the ways we can’t and won’t and shouldn’t.
It takes guts and nerve and passion and some kind of enormous trust to lean towards your longing. But mostly, it takes imagination.
We’re much more comfortable with considering what we believe is the impossible, than with actively dreaming it possible.
This is true:
This small black bear showed up next door to my in-law's house this morning. I loved it so much, I had to use it in a little piece of art. A good reminder: things show up, if you let them.
So let them.
What do you long for? Let your answer be an invitation to the universe.
Go ahead. Say it.
glimpses + books
Speaking of books, here are a few I cannot wait to get my hands on:
The Recent History Of Middle Sand Lake // Molly writes the blog field | work. Enough said, right? She has an eye with words. A way of noticing. Really can't wait to sink into this collection, like putting my feet in cool lake water.
Delancy // Molly's book A Homemade Life gave me the courage to be bold + simple with food. Butter + raddishes. Chocolate + baguettes. And just as naturally brilliant as these pairings are, so are her words with food. Simply cannot wait for this book about the birthing of the restaurant Delancy.
Contents May Have Shifted // Pam is my hero. My mentor. And the person who made me take my writing seriously. Enough Said.
The Selby Is In Your Place // Because truly, I can spend a whole afternoon perusing The Selby and always, always feel utterly inspired.
And Susannah's yet to be named book, because her words + images fill my soul.
What are you reading right now?
These are things that happen
These are things that happen when I circle back into this present that is mine: sunburn on unaccustomed cheeks; blisters on my palms after an afternoon in leather gloves raking lawn debris; the unexpected delirium of forsythia and daffodils; bumblebees; wet marks on my knees from kneeling to look among the clover.
I cannot help myself: I slip into a neighbor’s yard and pluck a handful of daffodils, carrying them in a closed warm fist up the drive, pulling the boys behind me in the red wagon with the other. I grin secretively the whole way. I smile rinsing dishes; but am near to tears when the red-winged blackbird swoops low across my path. These ordinary things stun me. The way my life folds back around me, and this is where I am: in the thick of spring, at the end of a dirt road, with a restless cat, two boys, and a writing deadline waiting for the evening.
All day the sky was blue; all day it was just me and them; two changeable constants. Mood swings, bare bellied tickles, cookies and milk, sand at the backdoor. Five loads of laundry; sun dappled sheets; jumping on the bed; exercise.
It will be this way all week: just me and them the sky. T is out of town on a business trip so it will be us, making the best of allergies and hilarity; less urgency, but no less full throttle: “look mommy, look! Did you see, did you see?” So this is what I’ve been missing.
hello, sunday
Hello rain and wind and skies torn like shreds of cotton. Hello blue and green, poplar pollen and birch catkins. Hello little boys playing with friends in the sandbox. Hello deadlines.
Oh yes. Deadlines. On them like honey butter on toast today. Still, I wanted to drop in + share a few things I've stumbled into this week that I simply love:
♥ Skinny Love cover by the amazingly talented 14 year old Birdy.
Noise Trade. (More awesome music.)
Over my shoulder by Gracia + Louise.
Little Indian Girl ~ a must read for any mama with a quirky/different/special kid. Oh how I love the way Alegra writes.
What have you found this week that you love? Share please. I need rewards for pushing through the mountains of work that lie between now and next weekend.
Right now
Between now and the end of the semester is a complex choreography of dividing every hour into fractions. There is persistence, determination, and an unavoidable lack of sleep.
Between now and the end of the semester there is a book deadline: the revised chapter titles; and another chapter. I dream in type. I dream the Scrivner interface. I dream sentences, and when I wake feel myself swimming towards the now of this book, this chapter, this day, with everything I have.
Between now and the end of the semester spring will bloom for certain, the buds on the lilacs tell me so. The grass will sing syren songs. The peepers will show up. The air will warm. And I will be indoors hunched with terrible posture at my desk, making things happen.
And right now: there are so many things I should be working on that I don't know how to start. Every project feels like a glass ball. Which one do I toss into the air first? What do you do when you reach a point like this? How do you take the first step toward the rest?
My Tuesday Muse
This boy and I get to spend Tuesday mornings together, and how I love this time. He is my muse, this little one. He reaches for the world, grinning, offering joy, laughter, and his face upturned for kisses, cheeks jammy, eyes sparkling. How I love him.
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Also--My guest post is up over at 3six5 today. Go take a peak. It's such a cool blog--and just got nominated for a Webby!
on my path
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations--
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
~ Mary Oliver
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Thank you, thank you for your words! I'm soaking them up as I plunge into an intense week with tight deadlines for school, facing things I don't know how to do and time constraints I don't know how to meet. I'm so excited to share this book. To make it good, and true, and beautiful. I love that it has illustrations, and can't wait to share some peaks at my process with you, just as soon as I come up to breathe again.
Today I sit at my kitchen table by a vase of iris and roses (thank you my sweet sister!) and watch fat wet snow fall hard. I keep coming up against the boundaries of what I'm capable of in code (Action Script 3.0), and keep fumbling until I get beyond them. This process takes hours, with hardly anything to show, and I'd be frustrated except that none of it really matters, save for how I'm learning, always and again from what I cannot yet do. From every misstep, I learn the location of solid ground; from every failed attempt, wrong turn, or narrow miss, I find my path more clearly.
Utter failings and exquisite truths
It hit me today while I was running that I don’t tell stories here nearly as much as I used to and I miss it, and I can see that you must miss it because the comments dwindle when I post sporadically and tersely with just a few scraps of observation from my day. And the truth is, your comments mean the world to me: not their quantity so much as their depth. I love what you have to say. I love how you see your worlds, and how you see mine. And the truth is, my readers here have saved my life many times over, and I mean that with no hyperbole at all.
When I started this blog six years ago it was my only creative outlet: I’d just move to a new town with my husband and six month old Bean, and I had no friends living within five hundred miles of me, not to mention no friends anywhere with children. This blog was my lifeline. I laugh now when I tell people, but I truly got at least 90% of all my parenting advice for raising Bean from the people who shared their lives through their blogs, and who shared my life by commenting here.
And gradually, I found my voice here, through telling stories about my kids, my muddy dirt roads, my heart full of wanderlust, my hunger for doing more and seeing more and being more; because you were listening.
I dreamed the idea for my book here; I shared the news of Sprout’s arrival here; I spilled the messiness and heartache of tenuous times here and man, I am so, so grateful for the inspiration, insight, and pure awesome that you bring to my life.
All this to say: I want to share more here, not less. I want to keep having this space be a place that I go to find my center: to find my words and hear your words. And it’s sort of slipped off the map a little in the past months because holy hell, grad school is no small thing.
I’m in the midst of cool project for school this week; an interactive documentary, to be exact. (Though if you ask me what an interactive documentary is, I’ll have to say wait and see—because I haven’t found a single example of what it is I’m trying to do. It requires action script code, and video editing, and interviewing, and graphic design and interaction design and animation. See?)
At it’s core is a series of video interviews with local artists who are all utterly brilliant, and intimidating, and awesome. They’re the kind of people I want as mentors. The kind of artists who have made it big time in their fields. The kind of artists who make me proud and terrified to call myself an artist.
I can’t wait to share it, but it I’ve still got a couple of weeks of work; and a lot of learning to do.
Right now it’s pushing me beyond every single boundary I have.
I’m interviewing people I never met; I’m designing a browser interface that accounts for emergent interactions; I’m learning to make lines do what I want them to do in Illustrator. This all but petrifies me.
But mostly the interviewing people I haven’t met part.
I’m good once I get to know someone, but those first awkward moments are a heat flash away from pure agony. Add to that the fact that I’m shooting video (a thing I am learning to do on the fly, as I go) and oh lord. Deep breaths.
Today I interviewed Maura Campbell who is fierce and fiery and passionate about her craft. My batteries died in my HD Flip just before the end; and then further embarrassment ensued because I couldn’t figure out how to open the damn thing. (Thank god for smart phones. I had the how-to googled in under a minute.)
Really. This happened.
And even though I was mortified, I was thrilled, because here’s the thing: I knew, even in the moment, that the battery malfunction I was having was just another way of falling down.
And learning to fall is necessary in learning to fly, or leap, or risk anything. Because it’s the people fall and recover that become rockstars and superheroes. It’s the ones who fall and get up time and again that discover how to make their dreams fly.
And if there’s one thing that has really gelled for me this winter it’s been this:
Falling is ok. Failing is part of the process. Doing both with frightening frequency means I’m pushing beyond my comfort zones, and that I’m learning. Big time.
Also that bravery doesn’t come from waiting for the perfect opportunity or knowing everything in advance, or getting it right the first time. Bravery comes from googling how the hell to open your video camera and replace batteries in the middle of an interview, and then recovering composure.
And at the end of the interview when we were standing in her paper strewn office, and she was telling me about how writing is requires being utterly selfish with one’s time, I asked her the question I always want to ask every creative person that I come into contact with: How do you balance this with the rest of your life? How do you do this and children?
And in not so few words her answer was this: you do the only thing that you can. When her kids were small, she wrote, fervently, in the center of the living room as her kids, four of them, twirled around her. When they were bigger, she retreated to her bedroom, leaving them with the warning: interrupt only with blood, or fire.
And that’s what makes her brilliant.
It has nothing to do with balance, with being a ‘perfect’ mother, or with having the right time and the right place to begin. It has to do simply with persisting. . With daring to dive every day towards what you love to do most. Always.
And it was such an awesome interview because I got to be reminded of that.
closer now
Hunger brings them close, but I don't see them at first; I'm at the sink filling a water jug for the chickens, watching the water spill across the dirty dishes left for later and then I glance.
The sunlight moves, and in the shadows they're there. Six deer, maybe more. They move like quiet trees, they move like shadows. Their fur is dappled with the sun. They cannot know that inside, on the windowsill the branches I've brought in are blooming now. Forsythia, yellow and urgent with what's to come.
Outside I walk across hard packed snow, the mud turned back to ice; my breath rising in clouds, my nostrils flaring in the cold. 14 degrees and it's nearing the end of March.
This is when I forget everything (dandelions, the smell of lilacs, the song of the peepers): just before it happens
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Some inspiration I've been finding:
This gorgeous painting (and all of her paintings really).
My Heart Wanders. Don't you just want to pick this book up and thumb through it?
This poem. You simply must go read it.
And these words. So true.
Where are you finding inspiration? What are your days like now in early spring?
My favorite part
Sprout still sleeps like a baby: his arms thrown up above his head, pacifier in his mouth, legs askew. His hair is almost damp and soft, so soft; his fingers curled into his palms.
Bean sleeps with long legs pulled up to his chest, on his side, curled with a hand under his cheek. He's kicked his covers off the way he always does, and I replace them, tugging them softly up around his chin.
It's this that is my favorite part: the way the day ends and I have them.
That they're mine; these two boys.
And even when I'm gone pulling long hours and making dreams come true, they're ready whenever I return to yell "Mommy!" as I come through the door; to throw themselves at my waist, sticky-handed and too loud, the house a tumult of their messes.
(Being their mother is one of the best things in the world.)
Things that delight me
Spring riding today: blue squares all the way. Easy turns. Wide grins.
Buying a new moleskine. The reporter kind with plain white pages. I the way the pages feel flimsy and effortless; the way ink shows through & the way words tumble after each other to be put down there in my messy handwriting.
A secret I can't wait to share really, really soon.
The way the light lasts longer and longer every day.
Mapping out my schedule for summer and blocking off whole days for writing, no excuses. (Or perhaps I have the best excuse.)
What are six things you're delighted by today?
The Unnamed
I keep thinking of the people, unnamed who wake up in the morning, leave their houses and return to the Fukushima plant wearing frail protective gear and thicker prayers to protect their bodies soaking up more radiation than is reasonable, sustainable, possible.
Do they say goodbye in the morning? Do they kiss the kids and women and men that they love? Do they wail uncontrollably in their cars driving towards the reactor, or are they convinced, confident and cool?
What does it feel like to be a civilian volunteered up for this enormous task: insurmountable and devastating both now, and in years from now when their white blood cells drop or tumors spread, when their hands quaver and their minds grow dim? What does it feel like to go unnamed so long, to return day after day, failing, hopeful, frantic, resigned?
I keep picturing them standing in their kitchens in the morning eating bowls of steaming broth, but their kitchens have likely been destroyed. Their homes, neighborhoods, all of it. So where do they go at night? And where do the others go, also unnamed, the thousands without shelter, food, heat?
My hands flurry across the keyboard until they end with the sentence above and then they stall. I start, stop, delete, start again.
I can't think of words that fill the gap in my chest; the ache; the way my heart is filled with everything: hope, promise, prayer, sadness, wonder.
Outside snowflakes are falling from a clear sunny sky, like crystals, weightless and glittering. The sun has risen, and the sap is rising, and the earth, tilted a little farther on its axis, is turning here towards spring.