what matters most?
The way things go + some current crushes
Hi! I have so many things I want to share with you today. First, some crushes:
These luminous folder icons have completely revamped my desktop and seriously upped both my cool factor and organization.
These fabulous planers are also rocking my organizational world. I am so not an organized girl when it comes to creative projects. I see BIG PICTURE and details sometimes get sidelined. This in particular has really helped me to narrow my focus and get things done.
And I've been wanting to share this glorious camera bag that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago (I was the Shutter Sister's giveaway winner) and oh man... I can't even begin to tell you how lovely and awesome it is. It's big enough to fit my camera and everything else I schlep around, and pretty enough to make me look put together even when I'm not. (THANK YOU Maile!!)
These photos (swoon) and this blog.
Some news:
I was interviewed here and here this past week by two of the most amazing, inspiring women in the blogosphere.
Last night I put some new prints up in my little shop!
And at this moment: the weather is all over the map still. Rain, sun, wind, rain.
Everything is exuberantly green in the same way that kids color the grass in their pictures: GREEN EVERYWHERE. And while I love what green stands for (summertime picnics, gardening, bike rides, bonfires) I wish the apple blossoms could stay longer. In a single afternoon they exploded into full bloom with bees everywhere, each tree its own secret universe of pollen and petals, and then today, just a few days later, there are already as many petals on the grass as on the trees. So fleeting. So fleeting. Everything is this.
We hung out with the very first friend we made here last night. He was sitting on the porch across from our new apartment as we backed over the curb repeatedly with an enormous moving truck. I remember feeling utterly out of place among the scads of college kids with 7 month old Bean in tow and actual real furniture instead of futons, but M. walked over and said hello, and Bean thought he was the coolest person ever and we've been friends since. Now Bean is five and M. is moving to Austria for an unbelievably awesome job, and wow. Time. There it went.
There is no more of a tangible way to notice time's passing than to watch a child grow. This, and then this. SO FAST. I'm carrying on about this today because I get it this time. I get that these moments right now are the ones I'm going to look back on and say, oh, that was when it started. That's when we had no idea. (Sprout is still small-ish, but the next time I stop to think about it he'll likely be riding a bike. )
I've gotten the most wonderful emails from some of you about being at similar points of transition--and I so love them. I think it is incredibly helpful to tell each other these stories about how things begin. About the moments before beginning when all we're doing is imagining and waiting and things feel scary and at large (because they kind of are.)I want to hear more about these moments in your lives. What is beginning right now? What are you on the brink of?
An open doorway
At this very moment, I want you to share a dream that you want to see happen. If you could open a door and walk through it into any possibility, what would it be? One specific thing. Go!
Snowed in
Now I'm at a friend's house (she is a lifesaver) and the sun is shining and I'm popping in here to tell you that a guest post is up at Wishstudio that you absolutely must go read!
Springtime Rivalries
The hills are stained varying shades green now. Above the bay windows, swallows build messy nests. All day they swoop in with bits of things in their beaks, building. The lawn is shaggy with dandelions, like a thousand yellow suns scattered carelessly across the small cosmos of the grass. The boys roll about in it like puppies. Sprout delights in sticking each furry yellow blossom in his mouth and making silly faces. Bean asks for dandelion necklaces and drops handfuls of crumpled flowers at my feet. I kneel, looking for four-leaf clovers, and within seconds the boys are there tumbling into me, their bare feet stained green.
Spring feels like a thing for sure, but then T. checks the weather and discovers SNOW in the forecast.
“What? Come ON!” he says emphatically from his office.
From his location crouched at T.’s office door where he’s repairing the Lego pirate ship he’s constructed Bean says: “You don’t need to be so agitated, Daddy.”
I cannot THINK of the last time I used the word agitated.
But it’s such a good word, isn’t it? And him using it is a perfect snapshot where Bean is at now: five years old, suddenly mischievous, and entirely a boy who lives in the world in his head. He loves words like I do. And stories. We tell them all the way to school every day. Cliffhangers make him howl in reproach….and of course I love to end the story just at the juiciest part, to be picked up the next day.
My favorite time with him lately has been first thing in the morning when he comes into our room when T. is in the shower, and Sprout is still asleep, and I’m in bed still, dreams fluttering against my still-closed eyes like light-drunk moths.
“Hi Mommy,” he’ll say, scooting in beside me. Then we rearrange our arms and legs just so, like a set of nesting bowls, so that I’m tucked entirely around him, my nose wedged into his cheek. He smells like sun and vanilla and sleep. His own sweet little boy fragrance that I know I’ll crave when he’s tall and lanky with pit stains and peach fuzz on his cheeks. But the real reason I love this time in particular is because he’s still sleepy and his busy little mind hasn’t kicked into overdrive yet (which is his modus operandi the rest of the day: “why? why? what? why? how?”) and he’s so tender then, and small. The rest of the time, well, there is a certain point—that starts at about age of three, maybe—where personality takes over, and personal stature no longer aptly describes the person that a child is. He might be small still, but he fills up a room.
And speaking of, can we about sibling rivalry, a wee bit?
Bean and Sprout are exactly four years apart, and while this works well for me (in the sense that I would have entirely lost the contents of my mind all over my life like a bag full of spilled raisins had I had them closer together) it creates a particular dynamic between the two of them, that is interesting, at the very least. Basically: Bean is either annoyed by Sprout’s endless curiosity and desire to touch and hold (read: destroy) anything Bean is constructing... or he is TRYING to annoy Sprout by grabbing him by taking things away from him, pouncing on him, or otherwise inhibiting Sprout's stalwart and determined attempts to go ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING unimpeded.
Truly. I expected competition. I am the middle sister. I am familiar with competition. But boys. They’re just so different. They’re not about head games. They’re about TACKLING and taking things and needling.
Lately it has gotten worse. Sprout has become his own darling remarkable little self of late, and this new development in his personality has somehow dramatically upped the annoying behaviors towards him from Bean. Which is not to say I don’t get it—because I do. Bean was an only for four years, and now suddenly he’s having to share the spotlight with a little PERSON who is utterly hilarious (his one goal all the time is to make us laugh) and ridiculously cute (he discovered TWIRLING today! A twirling baby is pretty much the cutest thing EVER) to compete with.
The thing is, I’m never quite sure what to DO in response to Bean’s little needling behaviors. Sometimes he’s flat out mean: he’ll squeeze Sprout’s hand hard, or intentionally drive a toy over his foot, and when we catch him he’s remorseful, but not really so very much. And it irks me. Especially because Sprout is just such a love. All he wants is to be next to his brother, and he’s so utterly trusting and playful.
What do you do? Ignore the tussles. Time outs? What? Given that they’re four years apart, Sprout can’t really have consequences even though sometimes that would be the logical thing—at least in Bean’s head. And saying “sorry” isn’t really an action of apology.
I’d love to hear your experiences with sibling rivalry, and about any ways you've found to parent around or through this gracefully.
the blue yonder
My last post sounded pretty dire, didn't it? I didn't mean for it to. It was the result of too many days back to back of intense writing until 2AM in combination with a massive to-do list and a heap of uncertainty that brought out my most fragile, anxious self. But the truth is: this is a really exciting time for us! We're poised on the brink of reinvention, and neither of us really know what that will look like, but it will most certainly will include adventure, and learning new things, and redefining what matters, and the prospect of this makes me joyful.
In so many ways we've done things backwards from our friends and peers. We had kids first and made this place home before we we were thirty. Now we've got these two awesome kids and a whole universe of possibility and zero money and a heap of adventures just waiting to be had. I"m not just saying this. I am really (finally) at a place of throwing my arms wide open to the universe, ready to leap into the wild blue yonder; full of hope and abundance.
It's been an interesting process getting to here. When we first found this house, I was terrified of making a Home. Terrified of putting down roots and having something stake a claim on my soul the way I knew this place would. I've always said: what else? What if? When? I've always wanted the option of going, of travel, of doing something different. I've always, at the end of the day been a girl with a wanderlust affliction.
Now that I know who my kids are, and what they're like as little people in the world....I can imagine living other places with them. We're a pretty cool family unit, the four of us. T and I (despite his laundry neglect) work as a team almost seamlessly, and I've never had any one in my life who is more of a champion of my writing or a bigger fan of my art than he is.... We don't require a lot when it's all said and done, and if there is one thing that's true, it's our shared love for learning new things.
So.
Maybe.
Maybe anything at all. Maybe we'll stay here. Maybe we'll head to somewhere else. T. is excited by the prospect of different work in a way I could never have imagined him to be. It's like a weight has been lifted from him: and he's full of determination and enthusiasm, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed. (Cross your fingers too, will you?) Have you ever reinvented yourself? Changed an outlook, a job, a lifestyle, a location.
Also: A Field Guide To Now is becoming it's own adventure. It's SO CLOSE. Please help to make the funding happen (remember, it's all or nothing). I have a question for you about the book: what would you be drawn to more? A straight-up illustrated essay collection, or a book that also offers some little invitations to you about ways to be an explorer in the moments of your life, right now as it is? It would be so helpful to hear your thoughts about this!
Vanishing point
Everything couldn't be more uncertain, more tenuous, more questionable than they are right now. T. is thinking about quitting his job. It's been too many months of nothing. Shoestring hardly defines it any more. Is there a vanishing point?
Trying to push through and get this proposal sent today.
A million things converging. Exhaustion, for one. Worry. The way everything is heartbreakingly beautiful right now: wet and green and new. Snow still on the mountains; the red flush on the hills of the maple buds; swallows building nests above the bay windows; a clear, wide, empty sky; the piercing call of a circling hawk.
(Also, if you haven't, please go be a backer... it's getting close. )
a different kind of validation:
"Oh," T. said yesterday as we were both stumbling over the HEAPS of laundry on the floor upstairs, "I guess you actually really DO a lot of laundry." YES. Yes I do. (And it's been a point of contention, I might add.)
But this week: not so much. In fact not at all actually. And it SHOWS. Our house looks like a bomb was detonated somewhere in the vicinity. Housework has dropped off the very bottom of the to-do list, to be returned to sometime when this proposal is done, and life returns to normal speed.
By then I may have a hunchback (I have discovered I have terrible desk posture) and my family might have been devoured by mutant laundry heaps. Alas. (Or T. could just do the laundry. Perhaps he will?) (A confession: I love every single minute of this bleary-eyed, up till 2am, creative, messy process.)
Today i need...
Today I need you to remind me that the many hours and the messy house and the hunched shoulders and the dark circles under my eyes will all be worth it. (It will, right?)
Because I'm at that point with the proposal. THISCLOSE.
I have a headache. It's been raining all day. The birches look dramatic with their new chartreuse leaves blowing against a cement sky. Crows keep flying past with bits of things in their beaks. I've had too much coffee. And all my dreams were about my book.
+++
(If you haven't,please become a backer, ...even for the very smallest of amounts...)
worthy vs. frivolous
I am so interested that many of you also face this tug-of-war over worthy vs. frivolous, and I am wondering where we came by such notions? What voices define these words in our heads? Parents? Teachers? Friends? Books? I'm also curious about what comes to mind specifically for you when you think of these two words. What things in your life do you, without much thought or intention, deem frivolous or worthy?
frivolous (adj.) 1) of little weight or importance; not worth notice; slight. 2) silly
worthy (adj) 1. having worth, merit or value 2. honorable or admirable 3. deserving, or having sufficient worth
In then next minute write down five things that immediately come to mind as frivolous and then five more that you think of as worthy.
I'll share mine tomorrow too...
(right now, bed is calling. It was SUCH a long day. Did I tell you that my Mac died a horrible death this week? JUST as I am on deadline with everything? Ouch. Still recovering. Long story. Perhaps tomorrow?)
Out of context
It was a kind of out of body, out of context experience that put me back in touch with myself in a way I didn't expect... starting with driving the 3 hours alone in the car, no radio, just me and my thoughts. I haven't spent three hours alone with my thoughts in a long, long time (when was the last time you did that?) and then spending a night alone in a shady paint-peeling hotel (that looked way better in the pictures. Last update: 1984.) Then getting pampered: a beautiful haircut + highlights, and someone to show me how to pull together a look that reflects my inner AWESOME more than a hoodie and jeans and flipflops which are my daily default. (By the way: Clinton Kelly is even sweeter and funnier in person than on T.V. and he's a genius at what he does. Truly.)
And instead of letting myself continue to feel silly (which was my first feeling) or embarrassed (a close second) I decided to let go of all negative feelings and soak up every moment of two days all about me. It was revealing: I don't give myself a lot of down time in my life, and I need to more often. Also: I have a hang up about things being frivolous vs. worthy that seems to permeate all aspects of my life...
Is fashion superficial and frivolous? Maybe it is. Or maybe not. (What do you think?)
One thing I learned: it feels good to know you look good. And to know that who you are on the inside is accurately reflected on the outside for the world.
Discovery #1: My inner supermodel loves bohemian + a little edgy + athletic. (Pretty flowy tunics + leather + a men's white tank.) Also, I don't think I ever gave skinny jeans the appropriate credit they deserve (FYI: they are made to STRETCH. So nice.)
Discovery #2: brown mascara with blue eyes. GENIUS people. I had no idea.
Discovery # 3: the key to rocking any look is BELIEVING you look incredible. Because then you do. Pretty much a rule for life in general, don't you think?
Tomorrow: back to things. Including finishing the proposal for my book. And work. And running. (I've missed it big time the past few weeks.) But maybe also: just a little more time for me. (Don't you just love Anne Lamott?) Curious: What is something you have a hang-up about?
Go out and see
notice stories trying to fly.
+++ What is your story today?
Small perfect things
Sounds: the exquisite laughter and glee of the under six set at discovering plastic colored eggs strewn about our friend's back yard; the peepers trilling, bumble bees, bellies fat, new from sleeping in the mud buzzing around beside our picnic blanket; the evening wind rushing up the valley.
Sights: pink hair bows and Easter dresses on our friend's little girls; Bean in his favorite plaid button down, baskets brimming with colored eggs, kids on the swing sets their hair flying back, watermelon smiles, new buds on the trees, the return of the indigo buntings by the pond,
Moments: playing in the sandbox after dinner, playing guitar + laughing with friends up from Boston after dinner; a walk to the pond, barefoot across the squishy grass; looking out the window at Bean and T sitting side by side on a rock eating peanut butter and jelly from jars with spoons (their version of picnic heaven)
Sensations: wearing messy braids, 80 degree sunshine, bare feet on mud; rubbing sunscreen onto little boy cheeks, running hard 3 miles, sunburn (everyone was pink last night).
Food: prosciutto + cantaloupe, grilled lamb + tadziki, coconut cupcakes, iced lattes, Circus Boy, valpolicella, dark chocolate.
April begins
At 5:43 a.m. I wound the window open so that there were two inches of screen exposed between me and the things of the early morning world: the smell of mud and moisture, and also the song of robins, and the other birds I do not know the names of;
and together my boys and I lay in bed, my eyelids still heavy, closed, the little one sitting with his pacifier lopsided in his mouth, the bigger one tucked into the crook of my arm, and T, there, completing my outline, and we listened to the day come softly.
Out the window the clouds were pretending to be mountains, there, across the gulch, beyond the pond, where the world ends, among the maples with their new red buds now flush with pollen, the fog was there below the sky with shoulders hunched, the sun hesitant and milky.
Today, oranges for breakfast, and also a promise on the radio that has everyone watching the thermometer with skeptical glee; balmy sweet undeniable spring on the cuff of all this mud, finally.
So it’s April.
+++ I wanted to tell you how much I loved reading all your random things. So much fun. Thanks for sharing them!
And I wanted to tell you that yesterday was the half way mark for days left for funding for my book project…To celebrate I've posted a new update and a drawing that has to do with the little painting above and something else entirely delicious over at kickstarter... so go take a peak and become a backer if you haven't already.
FYI: I’ve had a couple people email me asking how the Kickstarter funding works—so I thought I should clear things up quickly: If you become a backer you are only pledging an amount. You will not be charged at all—unless the entire funding goal is successful…and then you’d be charged in May. More about the whole crowdfunding process and how I feel about it over at Magpie Girl.
Today: lots of things including sunshine (or so is promised), a much needed run, and writing. Always that.
What's on your plate today?
Then & now and yes
Yes
It could happen any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen. Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could you know. That’s why we wake and look out–no guarantees in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening. ~ William Stafford
(Found this poem here today.)
+++
Do you ever go back and read your own archives? I do. It's a little like opening a time capsule seeing Bean small, and me, whatever way I was then.
Today I looked back for the very first self portrait I ever took, at the beginning of Self Portrait Tuesday (before it became Self Portrait Challenge)...
I 'met' so many incredible gorgeous bloggers through those weekly challenges.
The funny thing about blogging is you don't get to SEE the people you read unless they are generous with you, unless they share this too, their faces, their work-worn hands, torn jeans, sunglasses, knees, braids, laughs. And I like seeing these things... and sharing them... which is why I'm doing these Sunday portraits...and I hope you will too.
Another thing from going back through my archives is seeing how memes used to fly around the blogsphere all the time. Now, not so much. I can't put my finger on it, but I do think something has changed in the way that people blog and share (or maybe it's just me?) I've read some interesting posts about this recently. About how there is less community or intimacy or something...and more business now. Maybe? Do you feel this? Sometimes I do. And so in the spirit of sharing more:
4 random things about me right now:
* In the morning when I first wake up I feel myself dangling like a marionette somewhere just beyond my body. It's almost painful to be pounced on, or touched much in this state, and the arrival of small boys in my bedroom (with their inevitable elbows and knees) is always a bittersweet thing (I love the way they smell when they first wake up.)
* I got an email in my inbox on Friday telling me that I'm the Albany, NY winner for this. (I entered only because of the NYC shopping spree.) This is hilariously perfect (and a little embarrassing.) I am a good candidate: I only wear jeans. I am baffled by makeup. I have no idea what to do with layers. Or knee high boots. And I need a haircut. (I thought twice about posting this because it's just so... not me...and yet I'm totally giddy about it.)
* I just got this book and this one in the mail today. I wish I could get books in the mail every day!
* I lose sunglasses always, and yet I can never seem to figure out where they go when they're gone. It's not like they fall off my head...or I leave them on the roof of my car (though I have, and watched them get smashed.) They just disappear. Hence the sunglasses self portrait to celebrate a new cheap pair.
+++ Your turn. 4 things. Also, be brave this week and take a self portrait... you can hide behind your shades. Post your photos here, or in the Self Portrait Sunday Flickr pool.
And when I blink
And when I blink
inside the slender twigs of trees, the memory of leaf, the silent code of blossoms bursting; and there is also this: the way the robin flies to here,
to these still stark woods, her plumage rust, her song the everything
that lifts my heart
and when I hear her call from the kitchen window I cannot help but run
to the back door, where I find the grass still hard with morning frost, and hesitate
and then she warbles sweet and high in the crook of a birch,
and again I learn
how little it is that I know.
+++ Some tunes for the end of March, just for you. <3 Also: I've opened a little shop. Adding a few things to it daily. Prints mostly. Some originals too (soon.) +++ I can't believe it's going to be April so soon. Are you ready? What is one thing you want April to manifest?
Right now:
Through the thin wall: his palm hits the glass of his desktop. And again in frustration. “Why, why? These damn program trades." On Pandora: “You are my sweetest downfall…” ("Samson" ~ Regina Spektor, from Begin To Hope)
Under the stools at the kitchen counter: Sprout picking up crumbs off the floor, babbling to himself.
On the floor: the sun makes broken squares of gold where it falls, and the shadow of the forsythia in the window is lace across the floorboards.
And I am here, trying to hold these things together. Trying, with a thousand hopes, a hundred bigger fears; sand at the backdoor from Bean’s boots; bits of bark around the wood stove; things everywhere, always underfoot.
Monday glimpses
The house was surrounded by fog today and the ambiguous weather of almost spring. We went for a walk; picked pussy-willows with dew-damp fuzz and rubbed them against our cheeks. Soft. Softer. The sky and the hills blended, things became smudged: now, tomorrow, what we hope for, whatever else we are beyond this day. Things became silhouettes of themselves: telephone poles, pigeons perched on wires, rooftops, the details blurred with moisture. The trees wore necklaces of water drops. Bean splashed in every puddle. I splashed in every puddle. Sprout wanted to get his hands in things: in the mud, in the wet grass, in the sky. He kept reaching up, clapping. The sky was white on white.
Down by the pond all four of us watched rocks break through the last thin slips of ice floating at the surface. Ice that looked like cellophane. It’s a favorite thing, always, for anyone near water: to throw rocks. To pick up a hunk of quartz and let it fly. Sprout squealed with delight. DH was reluctant to share his best rocks with Bean who teetered thisclose to the edge, among the stubble of last years cattails, his slender arms snaking out away from his body awkwardly with each triumphant toss.
So this was today: fog, and writing, and small boys under foot (an unusual Monday. Bean’s school was closed for in-service.) It was a day of corn tortillas with beans and melted cheese, and making paper tails (which we all gleefully wore) and fighting off a slew of tail attacking pirates with wooden swords and lots of shrieking. Miraculously, it was also a day of semi productivity. A few paragraphs written, edited, the boys occupied with large squares of newsprint and six dozen crayons (now strewn everywhere imaginable.)
So what if things are up in the air; in the end they always are, and this, this is my life. Boys. Writing. Sneaking kisses in the foyer while pulling on coats. Collecting blue and brown eggs from under the warm feathered bodies of hens. And taking a walk, all of us, to the pond and back, stopping a hundred times to look at the world. To be astounded by the water rushing everywhere, the puddles, the catkins, the mud.
It’s easy to forget today. It’s easy to think in terms of what didn’t get done (that list is always so long.)
What are five small things from your day?