sunshine on my shoulders

This weather feels like a drug to me, or more specifically, it is this autumn sun that is my vice. I’m pulled outside, away from chores like laundry and dishes, cooking dinner even, because I cannot resist that tang of fresh air, that low flying sun, shooting rays directly onto my face, tingling my skin. I can’t turn away. I know that it’s leaving, going, turning towards the gray of November that eventually becomes February, and the threat is more than I can bear.

I’m like a lunatic, kicking the kids out, away from books and art projects, homework even, insisting that they, too, must feel what I feel. They are glad for it, I think. Like a drug, the energy of this particular sun is taking over my everything and I’m eschewing responsibilities left and right.

It was one of these days, the sun slung low following its autumn arc. Bright and direct, it warmed the earth, releasing the musky smell of decaying leaves. It’s these days exactly where the sun makes all the difference – one step to the shadow and you feel the brisk air threatening its bite, but the sun entices you to pull off layers, strip bare to reveal skin, as careless as a teenager in summer. I think of it as storing up Vitamin D, like a squirrel hustles acorns.

The kids were home early, released from school to free up their teachers from conferences. Because of these conferences, Mark was home early, too, and after we returned home from meeting with teachers, I made it no option to the kids but to be out. Some days you just have to run for the hills, turn your back on those daily habits that slog you down. Some days, that sunshine promises freedom like a drug.

At the park, I told the kids I didn’t care so much what they wanted to do – swing, climb, run – but I was going to find the sun and sit in it until I couldn’t anymore. My eyes followed the stream of light to just one bench, a bit further away than I normally would be from the action, but the only one in the sun. I claimed it as mine. Grant grabbed his bike, snapped his helmet, and took off for the path. Renee and Griffin ran towards the slides, chasing and climbing and shouting in some fascinated game of imagination. Mark sat beside me for a few moments, but sensing I had few words to share, he chased his own energy back to puttering with the kids.

I sat in the sun.

Griffin ran back to me, breathless and glowing for a moment as he crossed into the path of the sun stream. He grabbed at the bench for balance, paused, looked at me.

“Mama,” he panted, “l love you,” he declared. He didn’t stick around long enough to hear my response, instead pushed off the bench once again to chase Renee. My words, “Griffin, I love you, too” were shouted into the streaming sunshine behind him, but they’re there. I knew that he’d catch them some time around.

Lulled into a different kind of peace, sitting there on that bench, I flipped my sunglasses up on top of my head, to really feel the sun on my face. I closed my eyes for a moment, not in rest, but more in adoration and gratitude. The kids were happy, and occupied. Their chatter faded from the forefront of my brain, now more like a holy chant swirling in my consciousness. The sun had already begun to move; I moved to angle my body again towards it and breathed deeply.

Even with my eyes closed, feeling the charge of sun on my face, I knew when to look up and wave to Grant on his bike, hearing the rhythmic racket of him pedaling on past. He waved, too, happy at his speed and balance, showing off with only one hand. I watched him longer than he watched me, as he and his bike cross the path of the sunshine. There he was, turned black in my vision, silhouetted by this lowering sun behind him. For a moment I was reminded of that iconic scene from ET where Elliot and ET are biking, high in the sky, across the face of the moon. Grant may as well be on that same journey, lifting off the ground in ways that defy my mind. The moment lingered, suspended, time immemorial.

Maybe this is what it means to be wholly present: to sit in this perfect moment, and see it for what it is. It was not a struggle for me to be awake to that moment, to watch Grant pedal harder, gaining momentum to push himself up that hill, then cascading back down again. To watch him find a freedom that exists nowhere else. I saw Grant’s perfect being lit up by that sun, for all he is, and all he will be. In this thinly veiled state, it’s almost as if I could hold the tiny body that was Grant as a baby, hear his tender mewing cry, and see, too, the young man he will be, lanky and muscular, a warrior of love in this hard world. I know, I know – it’s crazy. I’m just a mom on a bench in a park watching my kid ride his bike, but in that moment, staying right there, it was the whole world.

In time, the sun dipped past the edge of the tree-deckled horizon and the warmth left my face. A shiver ran down my spine, and I was in the shadows once again. Imminent concerns trickled back in, no longer able to push off figuring out what to feed the family for dinner. The prickly edges of familiar angst crept back into my body, tensing up already in anticipation of homework have-to’s and bedtime battles. I closed my eyes, trying to bring back the sensation of peace and warmth. All I felt was the empty breeze.

A week later, now, and November has settled in, unpacked its bags, here to stay. Its bleak gray and heavy tones have brought the sky close enough that I feel like I can touch it, but unlike last week I’m not sure that I want to. My shoulders ache from the tight clench of warding off the shivers. That drug that was the sun is a wisp of a memory. I am grateful for the memory, for my instinct to prioritize that glory. It is much harder to be wholly present, equally thankful, for the darkness. Shadows are easy to find; the sun is low and I’m folded into the creases of the earth.

 

 

 

home: a lesson on perspective

Most people pass our house, the first time ’round.  It sneaks up on you,  this small white house in the middle of the hill on a busy road.  I’ve been told that the road wasn’t so busy, years ago.  I’ve been told that they used to sled down that hill, down the middle of that road.  That was a long time ago.

We’ve lived in this house for eight years now.   Eight years ago, it was just Mark and me and a dog and a cat.  We knew we’d have a family, someday.  We even figured this is where it would start.

We bought this house from an older woman named Helen.  Helen was a widow who lived alone here in this house on a hill.  No matter which way you come, there are stairs to contend with here.  Drive in the garage, and you have to climb up the basement stairs to get to the living space.  Stay out front and you have to climb the stairs with the sidewalk to get to the front door.  These stairs were wearisome for Helen, and along with the upkeep of the house and grounds, she decided it was time to move along.  I wonder what it was like for Helen, packing up and leaving this house.  Do you know that her husband and his brother built it, concrete block upon block more than sixty years ago?  Do you know that she raised three kids in this house?

That is the piece of the story that I’m looking at now, the part where Helen raises three kids here.  Because what I can also tell you is that just after signing the papers and sealing the deal to make this house our own, I scoffed at the idea that anyone could raise three kids in this house! That was fifty, sixty years ago! My, how they did things differently! I simply could not see any way that a family of five could share this space here and now in the early 21st century.

Here I am, eight years later, raising three kids in this house, in 2014.  I am tasting my very words.

If Spring and Summer push me out of the house and into the outdoors, then Fall and Winter draw me back in.  Don’t get me wrong: we are a family who knows how to bundle up  As long as the sun is shining (and sometimes even when it’s not) we throw on the extras and head out to play.  It can take an extra dose of motivation, but it is almost never wasted.  We reap the benefits of fresh air in pink cheeks and cloud-breath.  Because here is the reality: this house is small.  Certainly for three always-growing children who need to run and climb and kick balls.

Our cozy cape cod is beginning to feel like your favorite sweater that no longer fits.

It’s easy to see only the lack, to voice the complaints and ungratefulness.  I can drive in most any direction and see much more than what I have, and nothing can rob joy like comparison.  I would by lying to tell you that I am sweetly content in my space all the time, because I’m a real, human person, and gratefulness is work.  Perspective is work.  And when the three kids are each throwing super balls around the one main space we have for living, or they have, again, monopolized the furniture by turning it into a fort, or when there are bathroom emergencies with only one bathroom, it can be hard to find the right perspective.

“The very close quarters are hard to get used to, love weighs the hull down with its weight.” indigo girls

Love is our anchor here.  I’d be foolish not to admit the close quarters, to call it like I see it.  Because the quarters are close, and they are hard to get used to.  But it’s this love that I come back to, again and again, when my frustration festers.  When I put on my glasses and see through that lens of love, then I can remember what I know to be true.  Yes, there are probably more slip and falls, more bumps and bruises, because we’re all running in each others space.  But: we are in each others space.  I am witness to the spun stories of kid imagination because they are told at the helm of this ship, where the kitchen meets the family room.  If this was a different house, if these kids were playing in some far flung play space, I wouldn’t get to hold the treasure of these stories.  It means that we play in collaboration much more, because you can’t build a tower or a fort or a robot alone when you have other kids breathing in at it, too.  It means that we take turns choosing what music we’ll listen to, and we say sorry an whole lot.  I think it’s making us in to the kind of people I want to be, and to be with.

I’ve had this other realization, too, about this space. I’ve been noticing the house in photographs, and I like what I see.  When I take pictures of our life in this house, just the ordinary pieces things like the kids reading together, or a photo of a tower and its proud architect, our small space is there, as the backdrop.  In fact, this background  of a a house is starting to seem like it’s very own character in these pictures.  I can  see the book shelves that line the walls, with the curly cue black brackets.  My eye is drawn to the hard lines of tables and chairs, and soft spaces of sofas and pillows.  The arch above the hallway, the wood floor, the baskets that hold toys and books – each creates artful composition in this family space.  As I’ve noticed these vignettes, I realize that I actually love this space.  Seen in this small scale, I get this creeping warmth that makes me feel cozy and at home here.   Sometimes, it’s good to take a different angle, see the whole scene differently, through a smaller square, focusing in on the details.  This is the home we’ve created.

And then, just as equally, the opposite is true.  Sometimes, it’s good to pull back that lens, and take in the wide angle panorama.  This happened to me, too, this Fall, when we were all outside playing.  The kids wanted to run up and down the hill, and I took a break from whatever yard work I had been doing to sit sort of mid-point on our hill and watch them.  From all the way up here, I could hardly notice the busy road, which we often complain about.  The weed-grass that can be utterly gross and frustrating just looked green enough to be a yard, any yard.  The house is smaller, still.  The trees tower so, so high over head and the sky and clouds above that, giving such a spacious and eternal feel to the whole thing.  And with that perspective, it’s easy to feel just like the kids running on the hill, ready to lean in to the free fall and wait for liftoff.  In those moments, I want to be no where else, live no where else.

How could you raise three kids in this house? This is how.

coming awake (this is my prayer)

I haven’t been honest with you. It’s been difficult to be here, in this space, trying to write as though my life is the same as it’s always been. Because it’s not. I need to come clean with you (it’s the only way that I can find my way back to my voice again). What I need to tell you is this: Louisa died. She was only four months old. It was unexpected, and the absolute definition of tragic. She was, is, part of my tribe.

This has changed everything for me.

These months since, I’ve been carrying this deep awareness of time. It’s like I can see the hourglass tipping, watching as each grain of sand moves from the top to the bottom.   I have only so many grains of sand, and once it’s gone I can’t ever get it back. I’m afraid of the scarcity; I’m fearful about waste.   I want to know how to hold those moments, how to understand them and appreciate them. How can I recognize each grain of sand for the gift that it is, before it is gone, slipped right out of reach, never to be had again?

Is it not enough, this blessed sip of life?

I am afraid of missing this life. I’m afraid I’m not holding it tightly enough, or loosely enough, or not having enough fun and wonder and glory, or having too much fun and not doing enough of the hard things. I fear the scarcity of the moments, that they will run out without warning, and that I’ll have regrets. I fear the risks involved to live the life I want to live, the life that will make my soul take liftoff. Because the only way to get liftoff is to get off the ground.

I don’t want to miss the adventure of my very life because my eyes are on the horizon scouting out the next one.

Here is my adventure: this prayer of exhale, the glory of rainy days and hide and seek games. The smallness of step stools at the kitchen counter, where arms reach and lengthen to stir the pot of soup. Mine is the adventure of darkness creeping over campfires, the perfume of wood smoke in our hair and our on our skin, the words spoken breathed as benediction to this life of smoldering love.

I’m coming awake to it all (this is my prayer).

It looks like this: awake my eyes are open wide to the wonders of it all – I’ve tasted the fresh harvest of the backyard garden, the carrots pulled from the dark of the earth, to be surprised by their length and girth even – faith fulfilled in the palm of a two-year-old’s hand. I’ve watched the sunset, night after night, rhythms to count on, vivid and wild colors fading to concrete darkness and then later, the promise of a new day. I’m coming awake alongside the dirt and the mud, the creek beds and rocks. I’m watching flower petals, spent and used up, riding the current of the creek as the gurgling bubbles tinkle soft lullabies. My prayer is in each step of the hike, each careful foot fall of climbing through fields of ancient boulders. Each inhale is an invitation for me see, each breath out a quiet thanks for it all.

Oh, I know I’ll have regrets.  I’ll mess it up.  Things will be hard.  I’ll fall, and hurt; I’ll watch others fall and hurt.  There will be worry.  And maybe it’s naive of me to think that it all adds up, balances out.  That the risks equal the reward.  That the climb equals the view.  But maybe it’s not.

The kids have this new fascination with the screen saver on the computer. It scrambles through the photos, and they stand all three in a line watching as they flash by. Grant is especially good at calling out, with specific detail, a narration of these photos. It’s kind of like watching a highlight reel of the last year or so. What I realized, though, is that these highlights look like life. Regular old life. We take pictures of things that nobody would have thought to take pictures of 20 years ago. We take pictures of cooking dinner, of swinging on the swings, of reading books on the couch. Photos are ubiquitous now, because we carry our cameras in our pockets. I think we know –  we know – that when we aim the lens, we are focusing on that very moment, calling it out for what it is. These very small, very ordinary moments form the highlight reel of the adventure of a lifetime.

I’m coming awake to it all (this is my prayer).

The glory is there, calls me in, bends me low in a whisper of thanks on the soccer field, the early evening slant of light catching the blades of grass, igniting the bodies that lengthen, reaching outward, burning up until they, too, show only glory revealed. The clouds, fluffy and weightless, part only enough to let heaven touch earth and in that moment all is free of care. I’m in it, my own arms and legs lost to the glory of stretching and running after them, giggling and chasing. And then I’m watching the scene, no longer in it, but next to it, writing it on my brain, closing my eyes tight to recall every detail: the scent of the freshly mowed grass, the shriek of Renee’s laughter, the warmth of the sun on my bare skin. I memorize their faces, the glow of their eyes, the sweat slicking their hair back from their faces. Oh, what a life.

And we laughed, and we cried and thought oh, what a life.

 

the creek

I can barely see my toes inching out underneath my gaze full of baby limbs and breath.  It’s not all that different from the bulgy baby belly that I wore last year, but this summer I wear this babe, who wraps his arms around my body, on the outside.  I may not be able to see my toes exactly, but when they finally reach the creek water, I know it instantly.  It shocks my feet into feeling, and my initial reaction is to pull up, step back to the pebbles on the bank.  But I go forward again. The rubber of my flips flops cools. I brace for it.  Of course, that second time doesn’t jar so much and I pause my feet longer in the water.  The arches of my feet relax and I release my breath, allowing myself to feel the relief in this hot day.

I am at the creek that runs behind my mother’s house, the house where I grew up.  It meanders it’s way through the nature conservancy that I was lucky enough to have in my backyard.  These pebbled crusted mud banks were my playground. This chilled water was my sea; the banks on the other side my faraway lands.  Today, as so often I am inclined to do in this squelching summer heat, I gather up the Little Ones, push forward with nothing but the promise of reprieve calling us creekward.

The beauty is not lost on them.  They find wonder in all the smallness, and are awestruck with all the bigness.  The cold water is just another part of the creek’s deliciousness for them.  They dash in and out without hesitation.  I wonder when it is that I stopped being so numb to it, became timid at it’s edge.  I take note to remember this tenacity that I see in them.

Our collection grows: piles of sticks in various sizes, in differing stages of decomposition.  Rocks with smooth weightiness, pebbles with jagged edges that remind me of teeth.  Always a piece of glass or two, a jolting artifact that seems uncharacteristically out of place, reminding us of the world that seeps in on either side.  Our treasure hunt stretches out as indefinitely as our time playing here.  Has it been fifteen minutes? Or two hours?  Under this tree canopy, I am uncertain of time’s harsh constraints.

The sun streaks gloriously through the trees, leaving mottled shadow pictures on the surface of the water that dance as both the creek and the trees move in rhythm.  I hang back, witness the confident steps of independence from the Eldest. He proves his meddle and charges his sister onward into the unpredictable current away from the safety of the edge.  He tells me strongly “I’m not worried about the creek, Mama.”  In his world of anxiety and impotence, I am thankful for a place that, though not under his domain, is somewhere he can experience mastery and peace.  And it becomes my peace, too.

The Middlest, in all her gatherer glory, is chasing after a rock deep under the surface of the water.  Those shadow pictures dance and deceive, and all it is is one faulty step too many toward the edge of our sand bar. She looses her bearing and the mud sucks her down.  She is on her belly, swimming more fully than she had intended, gulping that brisk water.  She comes up wailing, though no worse for the wear, and we praise her brilliance, her pluck, her strength.  The rock is lost.  Her hiccuping tears wane, and later she again treads out to that very spot.  She wears her insecurity visibly, but with her bravery, too.

At some point I nestle myself and the Littlest onto the pebbles, and he hungrily grasps at my shirt, my neck until I can satisfy him.  It may just be the oxytocin as I pull him in to my bosom, but I feel overwhelmed by the beauty of this moment.  I listen to the chickadee whistle out “cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger.” I follow the path of a white butterfly as it darts from this side of the creek to the other, lighting on the tall grass, stopping to rest on a branch before traveling back again.  The squeals from upstream as my mother and her dog chase the Little Ones in great big splashes turns the edges of my mouth up in their harmony. I suck in the earthy mud smell deep into my nose, down into my throat.  The warm breeze tickles at my skin, and I feel enveloped as it seeps around my body and into my creases.  Even the far off sound of the highway seems magical in this moment, a hum almost like distant chanting.

The sun is falling behind the trees now, and the cold of the water is finally settling into our bones.  Without the sun’s warmth, the teeth have been set chattering, and we reluctantly rinse the creek dirt from our hands, our feet. We hold hands, and with great remembrances already, slodge our way down the worn path back to the house.  My brain gets a little stuck, because I can’t quite seem to tease out this miracle of time: these are my Little Ones, telling their story, but it is such a familiar one I can’t understand that it isn’t mine.

thankful tuesday: sleep edition

Today I’m linking up with Micha Boyett of Mama:Monk fame to share in the work of spreading gratitude.  Won’t you join us? 

My sanity is oh-so-terribly linked with my sleep.  I’m one grouchy mama when I’m in that daze of sleep deprivation.  Three kids in to this whole gig, and I’ve learned how to function on so much less sleep than I was used to before.  When the Littlest was born, the usual chit chat always turned to sleep: “So, you must be tired?” Let me tell you, I’ve been tired for going on five years now.  That’s nothing new; it just comes with the territory.  My kids are not the greatest sleepers.  They are yet to understand the grace of a good ol’ nap.

But.  These past few months have really darkened the circles under my eyes.  It’s just been a combination of factors, not the least which is my own inability to sleep when I should be sleeping, or the Littlest who just loves to be held.  Or the Four year old who worries, lots.  Or the two year old who wants to run, run, run forever.  You get the picture.

So it is with the greatest gratitude, the highest praises of thanksgiving that I can say for two nights in a row, now, I have slept at least four hours straight.  That’s right, folks.  And I feel like a new woman.  I am thankful that for four days in a row the bigger Little Ones have successfully shared a room (this has been a long time comin’).  I am thankful that because of this, the “baby” room has been freed up, and the Littlest slept in his crib for the first time, two nights ago.  It could be complete and absolute coincidence (though I think not) but as soon as he was rocked and nursed to sleep in a dark and quiet room, and then snoring peacefully in this room all to himself, that he had the best night’s sleep he has had yet.  Let me tell you: for this I am thankful.  (Just this past weekend he had been up every two hours). I am thankful for Mark, who so faithfully parents through the night with me.  He changes every diaper that needs tending in the middle of the night, and is often the one to deescalate crises of heart.  And because of this, and for so many other reasons, I am thankful that he is sleeping by my side at night, now, too.

Because I am more rested than I have been, I have more patience with my Little Ones.  I have more energy to be fully engaged in the tasks of parenting.  I have new eyes to see these blessings here, before me.  I am thankful for the chance to read and write a bit.  Because I haven’t spent all morning draining my coffee cup and watching the clock until I can get horizontal again, I am able to do the things that need to be done while the Little Ones are taking their rest: I am thankful for the black bean soup simmering on the stove for dinner.  I am thankful for folding laundry in quiet.  I am thankful for each Little One: the Eldest reading his books in his bed; the Middlest snoozing in mine, my grown-up covers tucked gently under her tiny chin.  For the Littlest who has found comfort in his own space in his own crib.  Thankful for my lonely arms, empty for only a moment.  Thankful, knowing that they will be full again, always.

Today, I am thankful for rest. 

Now, head over to Mama:Monk and count your blessings with us!