the way things are

this week's soundtrack. take a deep breath.

it's december. it's advent, the second week, in fact according to the wreath on our kitchen table. every night as it is getting dark we light the candles and I sing whatever song pops into my head in the moment. we're not too rigid about it all here at mudflower. thank goodness there are two candles every night now, so we don't have to fuss about who will blow the single candle out. next week when there are three, I am sure the fuss will start back up. we are counting down the darkness, counting up to the light. I can't wait for solstice just so I can feel like spring is coming, even if it is really still a whole season away.

eric works a lot. I say that, and then I think about a regular american work schedule, and it really isn't that much at all. but it seems like a lot to us. he serves as an assistant teacher at the local woo woo school in a preschool classroom. he says it makes him appreciate our own children so very much. then he hurries across town to the natural food store where he stocks shelves and makes small talk all day. he loves that job. he says it is the perfect mash-up of physical labor and social engagement. there are days he leaves before cora wakes up and gets home after she is in bed. we visit him at the store for hugs and a snack. the kids found reindeer antlers on a headband that they purchased for eric to wear at work. he wears them with pride, much to the amusement of the old ladies that love to flirt with him. 

cora is starting preschool. she thought her attendance was contingent on her keeping her underwear dry all day. now that she has mastered bladder control with consistency, she has begged to go to school. she went last week with eric, and love love loved it. jamin kept asking warily, "but I dont have to go, do I?" so very different, these children of mine. so cora will attend preschool three mornings a week and this is a very good thing for all of us. such an easy decision that just sort of made itself, a huge relief for my overly-analytical brain. I think I get so stuck in feeling like I have no choices in my world (there isn't enough money, we don't have time for that, this is the way life is supposed to look) that I can't really see it when the universe offers me beautiful gifts. it's scarcity thinking and it is terribly dangerous, and apparently it is a lesson I have to learn over and over and over.

thanksgiving was good. this is what we look like after two big meals and lots of time with people who love us. I am so thankful right now especially for people willing to love on my children because there are lots of moments these days when I just can't do a proper job of it myself. I am learning, slowly slowly slowly, that what I may believe philosophically about parenting or education or life in general may exceed my own psychological and emotional stamina. and I am learning even more slowly to just be okay with that.

we had lots of company and a very full house for a while there, which is good for me in lots of ways. firstly, I love a full house, I love having people around, I love sitting at the kitchen table and playing games and eating popcorn and collecting stories. and I got to show off where we live a bunch, which forced me to really think about what I love about living here, why we stay even when I am haunted by so very much here, even when my feet are itchy with want of change, even when it rains and rains and rains and I realize that this is normal for this little neck of the woods. so I was a tourist in my own town, hiking waterfalls I haven't visited in years, popping into little shops downtown I didn't even know existed. it's good to have company, too, because eventually they all leave and I am so grateful by that time for the peace and slowness of my family and household that it feels lovely and not boring or impossible anymore to just be the four of us, to just live in the woods and that be enough.

our days are a never-ending tangle of narnia and pirates and whatever else jamin happens to think of in the moment. he is king peter chasing larryboy around the kitchen table and then jack from "the magic treehouse" fighting the white witch in the land of dinosaurs. cora can pretend to be a turtle in any situation, no matter the setting or the other characters. we are pirates, we are chess pieces, we are tree spirits and mermaids. it is beautiful and exhausting and silly all at once. jamin loves books on tape and cora loves the marble game mancala (she is actually very good at it). it is a chore to get jamin out of the house most days. I need more of a plan on a day-to-day basis because we all do best that way, but mostly I just want at least ten minutes every hour to myself to read a library book or just to think about something other than the demands of my children. feeding them is a full-time job. but there is something lovely in that, too, especially that they want to do so much for themselves in the kitchen these days. and their comfort foods make me proud: jamin begs for lentils (the red ones, not the brown ones), and they will do just about anything for split pea soup.

I love my yoga practice, that time when no one asks me any questions, when I am finally warm enough to feel like myself, learning the edges of what my body can really do. it makes me kinder and calmer and I feel like a dancer for the rest of the day: look at me, the grace I use to reach something down from a high shelf, the poise I have as I bend to tie my shoes without bending my knees. silly, I know, but I love it all the same. and sometimes silly is sanity.

this is the way things are. this is the season, the place, the people, the purpose I am supposed to learn right now. practicing for the christmas pagent yesterday made me feel it all, watching the same kids we've gone to church with all year take on a new role in the same old play, a little taller, a little clearer as they read their lines. my kids look that way to other people, too. "this is kinda boring," jamin-the-shepherd announced halfway through yesterday's practice, a comment his wide-eyed wonder of last year would have never allowed. it may be a kinda boring, but there is comfort in the sameness, too, beauty in the expected, and a gentleness that comes with being still.

wordless wedensday

stuck on bandaids

this week's soundtrack.

if cora had her way she would spend her life covered in bandaids. an injury is not required for a bandaid request, mind you. to cora, bandaids are not only a means to cover a cut or a bug bite, but also a distraction from whatever was causing her tears in the first place, as well as a fashion statement. and once a bandaid goes on, heaven forbid we should suggest she take it off at bath time or, even worse, it should fall off on its own.

unfortunately for cora, because she prefers to wear bandaids recreationally and goes through boxes of them so quickly, her frugal (okay, we are just plain cheap on this one) parents often opt for lower priced bandages which means a decrease in quality as well. often cora can hang on to a bandaid long enough for a rash to develop from the adhesive, not to mention the sticky residue that only comes off with heavy scrubbing. this is especially ironic when she has been wearing the bandaid for no real medical purpose. then she ends up with a rash in a place where there was really nothing wrong to begin with.

we've been home for three weeks. I can't help but think about cora and her bandaids as I putter around my life. life at home has all these tinges of familiarity, but so much is so very different. I'm not working now, but I was when we left. a dear friend has moved just far enough to really be "away." I am homeschooling our kids, but most days I am really not even sure what that means. so I find myself applying bandaids willy-nilly, trying to feel better, to feel healed, to feel something. some of my bandaid choices are good ones, like bikram yoga. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life so I drive down the mountain to the yoga studio and spend an hour and a half staring ay my half-naked self in the mirror while I sweat it all out. if I can do yoga in 105-degree heat I can do the rest of my life, I tell myself. and I could write for days about all I am learning in that hot room. it is my prayer time, my alone time, my workout, and my community all rolled into one. it is a pretty good bandaid. sure beats feeling sorry for myself, another one of my bandaids. or excuse making. or sarcasm. all bandaids I use to tell myself that I deserve to feel crummy for a while and that I might as well wallow in it and let other people know how rotten I feel, too. and reading, how did reading become just another bandaid for me? the more I read the more I know I should just be writing it all down myself, that reading has become an excuse for not writing, an escape into someone else's story instead of capturing my own. and I am working extra hard to avoid the bandaid of busy-ness, being busy out of habit or to avoid dealing with anything meaningful. that is the hardest one of all for me because I want to be in constant motion, even though I know I am being called to something very different right now.
















but, just like cora, eventually I have to figure out what my bandaids (even the good ones) are covering up and how the healing process is really going. so I go into the garden and dig up potatoes eric planted for us last spring. I take the long way home so we can pass connestee falls and walk out on the overlook, just because it's on the way. I go to church even though it sometimes makes me feel even lonelier, so I can walk up front and have someone look me in the eye to remind me "this is his body, broken for you." we bake things, the kids and I, and use up more glue sticks than I ever thought possible because creating is part of healing, part of living, even when it makes big messes. these are the balms and salves that seem to serve me best. I don't even know what it is I am healing from, why I need all these bandaids in the first place, but not knowing seems to be part of the journey right now.

I want life to be big and loud and vibrant all the time, but this season seems to be focused on the quiet and still and gentle parts. the trick is learning how to tell the difference between still and boring, how to savor the quiet without needing to fill it. and I know to get the benefits from this gentler season of life I am going to have to learn to be gentle with myself, even if it means ripping off a few bandaids first.

like butter on hot biscuits

I made biscuits today for the first time in more than four months. turning on the oven made our little cottage so hot this summer, not to mention the lack of counterspace and time. so we made do with the dining hall biscuits all summer. but it does a gal's heart good to have her children say, "these aren't as good as mama's" every time they were served.

today is also the first time I've made biscuits since my aunt denise died. denise taught me to make biscuits in my grandmother's kitchen when I was about cora's age. she'd pull one of the kitchen chairs (that my grandfather made) over to the counter and let me stick my hands right into the bag of white lily self-rising flour. she would cut the shortening into the flour while I dusted a big circle on the counter top. when the dough was rolled out, we'd press circles together using those smurf glasses mcdonald's sold back so long ago. we never made less than two dozen biscuits. only when they were in the oven was I allowed to tiptoe in to wake up my daddy. the promise of hot biscuits was a sure way to rouse even the latest sleeper.

I loved watching my dad eat biscuits. the rest of us ate the with butter or a slice of cheddar cheese in the middle, but my dad would eat at least four, every one of the with different fixings. eggs and bacon, peanut butter, sausage gravy, jelly and butter, corned beef hash: whatever else was being served for breakfast went right inside. and iced sweet tea. all the grown-ups has a big glass of tea with breakfast when we stayed at my grandma's house. I think of her whenever I hear someone crunching ice.

of course the way I made biscuits today would make denise raise her eyebrows and shake her head. I put the flour and the shortening (vegan, organic, of course) in the food processor because I can't seem to avoid big lumps when I try to cut it in with a fork. and I don't use self-rising flour, let alone white lily. today we used almond milk instead of whole milk because that's what we had. but as soon as I had dusted that circle of flour onto the kitchen table, kids came running to make shapes out of dough using cookie cutters (no smurf glasses here). cora always eats at least two biscuits-worth of raw dough, and there's flour on the floor and dough rubbed into jamin's sweatshirt.







we were at my parents' house last weekend. I spent some time with my mom and sister going through scrapbooks my dad had brought up from his trip down to clean out denise's house. we found my grandmother's wedding rings and a cast iron corn gem pan. there were pictures of my dad as a toddler and my grandmother in a bathing suit (her dream was to be a rockette). my dad told stories of his mother dragging him and denise under her bed in a thunderstorm because one of the cows had gotten loose and was banging on the kitchen window. there were old pictures of my parents (which look strangely like eric and I) and baby pictures of me and my sister. a whole life, generations of life even, in cardboard boxes.



we've been home now for five days. we are easing back into life here: seeing friends, going on hikes in our neighborhood, finding books and toys we'd forgotten we owned. there is still some settling in to do. I still have some soul-searching to do on what this next season of life might look like. I'm still coming to grips with the idea that god is calling me to be right here, to just be still for a while. fall is a tricky time for me anyway because I don't like to wear socks and I know winter is coming, but there is beauty to help us ease into the change. and here is a good place to be. here is standing in a kitchen full of furniture my dad made for us and using recipes that are just as full of good stories as they are good flavors. we are living a life someone will try to make sense of from the remnants in a cardboard box some day. we are telling the stories our children will tell. and now is the time to write the stories of peaceful familiarity and ritual and routine to match the stories they'll have of adventure and wandering. and if they think of me every time they eat hot biscuits, that's not too shabby either.

postcards from the edge

life is not a postcard. nothing ever looks as good in person as the picture on the back. and real stories don't fit into that little square, no matter how small you write. nobody sends postcards of the back parking lot of a chinese restaurant with two children playing in a drainage ditch and two adults sitting in front of the dumpsters, one crying hard enough to make her shoulders shake. there aren't postcards that say: "be glad you're not here, because here isn't what I thought it'd be like. here is just like everywhere else, only farther away." nobody sends postcards to say: "when I shrug and laugh that we don't know what we're doing with our lives, I forget about days like today. the days when it is hard to find a decent place to eat and the directions include unmarked roads we can't ever seem to find. days when we're all sick of each other and this whole crazy plan seems like a huge mistake. I forget that waiting for the next adventure often includes huge chunks of actual waiting." nobody sends postcards like that because it is too much like real life. and maybe that is the real lesson: life on the road is just as real. my children can be just as whiny. I can feel just as bogged down or just as overwhelmed as I would at home. who I am doesn't fundamentally change based on geographic location. if I don't like chinese food in north carolina, I still won't like it in maine. and I can be just as miserable about things that hardly even matter in our car as I can in our kitchen. and for now, this IS our real life. I kept telling the camp staff that this summer: "stop waiting for real life to start after college. this IS your real life!" and this is mine. on the road, in the car, in a state of flux I'm not sure I want to be in: all of this is just as real as the rest of it. even the fall-aparts in the middle of nowhere.

but there are reasons to be glad life is not a postcard. real stories can never fit in that square, no matter how small you write because real stories are big and need hand motions and funny voices and interruptions and digressions. and if folks don't send postcards of the back parking lots of chinese restaurants, they'll miss out on some pretty amazing moments. moments that need to be recorded, filed away, because those are the real stories of the journey.

souls of your travelin' shoes

this week's soundtrack....

I might have told our children that this song is about our family and they might have assumed I was telling the truth.

what does the manner family do on road trips? what a great question! here's a little sample.

we have indoor picnics for breakfast! this one was all the kids' own doing. I came out of the shower and they were eating apples and brussel sprouts on a towel on the floor.

(this was during our stay at epworth, a sister camp to the camp where we lived all summer. we are terrible about taking pictures on the important things, but staying here was such a great jump start to life  off the island. big open grassy fields, perfect for doing nothing in. so we did. we also went canoeing and then hiking along the creek. and we went caving! that was pretty exciting. kids were totally into it. jamin says it's the darkest dark he's ever seen. we saw a straw bale house and dreamed about running our own camp or school or something. so, that last part was mostly just me, but this lovely piece of property will be for sale very very soon. if you want to buy it for me, I promise to be a good steward of all its glorious worth.)

we wrestle in town squares!

this particular one was in middlebury, vermont, but matches like these have now occurred all over small new england towns. I am usually an observer. and by "usually" I mean "always."

we point at brewery signs!

best. beer. ever. this was right after we toured the brewery and had a flight and cora fell off of her bar stool. this sign is well-worth pointing at.

 we pick apples and eat donuts! and we had a great time doing both. made eric ready to rush home and plant more trees. I can be down with that. get ready, redbud!

we stop at adorable toy stores to spend our pocket money! 

standing next to this guy was a dream come true for jamin. our car (I should take a picture of iggy so you know what it is like for a family of four to live out of a honda fit for four months...) is a black hole for all the little pieces that come with "playmobil guys." this can be a problem when the firefighter drops his ax for the sixth time in four miles, but it is pretty great to eavesdrop on the pretend play in the backseat. 

we stop to pee on the side of the road and end up playing in a creek for half an hour!

new hampshire is my favorite so far. I was really prepared to love vermont, but new hampshire has just blown me away. 

today we are in maine, heading to Tir na nOg Farm where we'll be WWOOFing for a week or so. we left shelter island last saturday and headed to epworth for a few days. loved new paltz, loved epworth, loved being away from long island. after epworth we headed north through albany to have breakfast with a camp friend (hi, allison! why didn't we take a picture?), putzing our way towards burlington, vermont. we stayed in charlotte with eric's cousin cristin ond her sweetie way out in the middle of nowhere. it was lovely in every way. did a day in burlington, where we ate only at vegetarian restaurants (heavenly!), including supper with gedney (hooray!), then headed back east across vermont and new hampshire. this morning we are waking up in our lakeside hotel. kids have already had two baths (our favorite hotel luxury, since we only had a shower at camp) and are now playing "farm stand" on the floor, eating tomatoes and kale as part of the game. we're headed to a benefit breakfast for the local hospital a little later (recommended by our hotel manager), then on the road to pownal.

kids are doing very well. eric and I are, too. there is a good balance of enjoying our time and feeling the pull of going home. mostly we just take in all the cool stuff we're learning as things we'd like to try at mudflower. it is good to have such an inticing place to come home to. get ready, brevard. the manners are coming, ready to jump back in!

5 lists of 5

5 things I will miss about shelter island (people don't count):

1-dark and stormy: I can't even describe to you how much I enjoy this particular drink. and I can't believe I don't have a picture of one because I certainly consumed a lot of them this summer. yum.

2-roundabouts: no stop lights on shelter island. just traffic circles. and that makes life very good.

3-sunsets: so at mudflower because we live so high up and have so many trees around we hardly ever catch a good sunset at home. here I could sit at my kitchen table and watch the sun reflecting on the water as it set. after camp was over we had a family meeting and decided to take a walk on the beach every night after supper, so for our last month we caught the sunset nearly every night. it's a good thing.

 4-full service gas station: you don't pump your own gas on shelter island, and in my book, that is a pretty fabulous concept. I will miss this ever so much.

5-real pizza: every stereotype you know about new york pizza is true, or at least it is at bella vita on shelter island. it is way delicious, they throw the dough up in the air, and once when I didn't have enough cash to cover my pie, the guy said, "fugeddaboudit". no joke.

5 things we squeezed into our last week, thank goodness

1-mashomack: this lovely nature preserve makes up a third of shelter island. we finally made a trip their our last week. great hiking, complete with off-road strollers. cora was in heaven.

2-shell beach: best beach on the island, hands down. when I was here back in my college days, I accidentally buried the back of the camp van in a sand dune (whoops!) and hadn't been back since. this time I just made sure eric was driving and all was good.










3-joe young: finally had coffee with this kid. wish it had been earlier in the summer so I could have done it much more often.

4-turtle sighting: cora has been talking about finding a turtle all summer. as we got closer and closer to our departure date and the weather kept getting cooler,the rest of us had all but given up. but the day before we left, she found one, sure enough. pure bliss on this girl's face.

5-this gathering: I worked all summer to get this group of people together to take this very photo. totally worth the wait.

5 things photos can't capture

1-the deer craziness: they're everywhere. right next to our cottage, on the tetherball court, on the beach. it's kind of weird.

2-the grocery store parking lot: I just can't describe what it is like to pull into the grocery store and park next to a porsche on one side and a lexus suv on the other and then realize as you walk across the parking lot that yours is the only honda in sight. if iggy wasn't so well-adjusted, he might have gotten a complex this summer.

3-the way jamin has blossomed here: our boy loved camp in a way that surprised and humbled me all at once. he sang songs (with hand motions!) on stage, he made sure we all dressed up for fancy friday, he is a camp champ, all the way.

4-kid-hop eric: my husband has mad skillz. on friday nights during the skit show he would totally bust a secret agent 23 skidoo song out like it was nothing. somehow I never captured photographic evidence of this talent, but I am sure a photo could have never done it justice anyway.

5-vespers: vespers is our evening worship at camp. I can't ever capture the energy and enthusiasm and essence of this time. one of my favorite parts of every day.

5 things I won't miss one bit

1-rodents in my house: mice, chipmunks, and squirrels sharing my living space? won't miss ya one bit, guys.

2-having to go off island for tempeh or bronners: yeah, I am totally ready for some hippie convenience.

3-sunset beach stop sign: there is a seasonal stop sign in front of a bar just down the road from camp, marking a crosswalk where people can walk from the restaurant to the beach. mostly it is a place for people to stand in the road and air kiss each other hoping the paparazzi is catching it all on film. or at least that is the way it feels from my car, anyway.

4-new york prices: I am ready to think in north carolina dollars again. eric says especially for beer.

5-if I'm going to have one list that only has four items, this is a good one to do it on, right?

5 reasons I'm really glad we came

1-we met some fabulous people: fabulous people, I hope by now you know who you are. thank you.

2-my concept of "home" just keeps expanding, and I really like that.

3-we learned a lot about what we are good at and what we are doing right: we are good at connecting people and building community and being silly and helping other people do all of those things, too.

4-we missed a really rainy summer in brevard :)

5-this song.

"Now the distance is done and the search has begun 
I've come to see where my beginnings have gone"


I can't wait to see what happens next!

9/11 from here

this time last year my mom asked me to write about my memories of september 11, 2001. thought I'd share it here as well.

On September 11, 2001 I had ringworm on my boob.  I had gone swimming at elk falls over the weekend with jeremy and amanda and heather, an odd mix of friends, but we had a really good time together.  I jumped off a really tall rock (the only girl on the trip to do it), and I have some super silly pictures from that day.  but in all that wild mountain water I picked up a parasite and I got up early on tuesday morning to hit the imfirmary before class.  after a quick diagnosis and a tube of jock-itch cream, I headed down to get something to eat before class.  the televisions in the student union were all showing the same thing, planes and buildings and flames, and I was there at just the right moment to watch people realize that it wasn't some clip from an action movie (which was what I thought initially) and flock over for a closer look.  I stayed long enough to get an idea of what was happening then headed outside to get away from the quickly growing crowd.  I walked out across the mall, and a group was just forming a circle to pray.  I grabbed a hand, thinking of bethy and greg and being so very aware that I was in new york less than a month before, wondering what this event was really all about and what it really meant to me as a person in north carolina, to my friends so much closer geographically, and to all of us, a generation to know so little about war in our own lives.  I stood and held hands with people I didn't know, praying without being sure what for, feeling sad without a clear direction for that sadness. 

 

I left my place in the circle to go to class, not even thinking that class might be cancelled.  lots of people weren't there, and my professor just sat, didn't get up to lecture, didn't make motions to start discussion, just sat.  he talked some about what we were all thinking about, even as ambiguous as it all was at that point.  he finally said, "all I really want to do is go hold my kids, so that's what I'm going to do."  he left to pull his kids out of school, which I think of often now that I am a parent.  I can't even remember his name, but I think of him whenever I am worried to the point of needing to just be with people I love most, especially eric and jamin and cora, to know that those people are safe and with me and close enough to touch.

 

my next class had an exam scheduled, and I went, assuming it would be cancelled.  as the day went on we knew more about what official people thought was happening, what we thought was happening next, but even that really meant little.  it was a beautiful day, just a hint of fall and blue blue mountain skies.  when I got to my next class (I don't remember that professor's name either), my professor assured us we would be taking our exam today.  we couldn't let the bad guys win, he said.  life had to go on.  it was a social psychology class, rather fitting, I guess, to have an exam in the midst of social trauma, just to prove a point if nothing else.  more than half the class wasn't there, but the rest of us focused in and took our test.

 

I don't remember many of the specifics about the rest of the day.  I remember being at work at media services when the news decided to stop showing the actual crash.  the most vivid image from television that I have was all the paper blowing out of the buildings, just massive amounts of paper everywhere, no end in sight.  for some reason that image has stuck with me more than people running and screaming, more than the plane crashing.  when I think of 9/11 I just see all that paper flying everywhere.  I remember later calling you and dad, trying for hours to get up with bethy and greg and lauren, lines being busy over and over again.  bethy said she could see smoke from where she was, just an hour away from the city.  someone's brother had had a job interview in on of the towers just the day before.  we had a staff meeting to make sure we were checking in with our residents, that we were available for counseling if needed, that counseling was available to us if needed.  it was a strange time for me.  my senior year had just started, I had just gotten back from new york, I was reeling from all that had happened that summer, good and not so good, dealing with lots of hurt that I didn't know where to put.  now the whole world was falling apart.

 

I remember all the bumper stickers about american pride popping up, flags everywhere for about two weeks.  I wasn't much of a news follower, so lots of my information came just from general discussion or general assumption.  I got real tired real quick of the "put a boot in their ass, it's the american way" mentality.  it was a time that I was already really exploring what it meant to be a christian in america, and this point in history was an especailly poigniant time to explore that perspective.  it was pretty disappointing to see how vindictive people who were supposed to be "turning the other cheek" could be, especially our leaders. 

 

those are my clearest snapshots.  not sure if that is what you were looking for, but it was kind of neat to think about that specific period with enough distance not to be too rattled by it.  thanks for the assignment. 

where my feet are

here's a post from this time last year. funny to be in a similar place in my head. but wherever I may be, here I am.

I held a hummingbird in my hands today.  I was volunteering at jamin's school, hippie woo woo school we call it, where children run amuck and talk about catching "peace fever" and use feeling words with each other like tiny psychiatrists ("how did you feel when she pushed you?" teachers prompt gently).  we were playing in the gym, children running freely, chasing tennis balls and each other, girls playing "baby" with each other and boys making siren noises.  the gym has big sliding doors on all sides; it houses the gymnastics equipment for a girls sleepover camp all summer, then transforms into a romper room in the fall for these free-spirited sprites.  the room itself is chilly on these autumn mornings, and I stood huddled near one of the doors in a triangle of sun while I watched the carefully orchestrated free-for-all.

when we'd first come in for playtime there was a dead hummingbird in the middle of the floor.  nights now are too cold for tiny cold-blooded creatures, especially those who should have headed south a week or so ago.  it made me feel guilty that our feeder at home is still hanging up, inticing the flutter of wings with free, easy-to-find nectar, tricking the birds into thinking flowers still might be blooming so there might be reason to stay.  I (and 17 children) watched as a teacher gently swept the bird into a dustpan and take her out of the gym to be handled later in the day.  children were quick to settle back into activity with far less questioning than I'd anticipated.

later during playtime another hummingbird appeared on the floor.  a teacher called me over and pointed it out.

"there must be a nest in the rafters," she said.  "I just saw it fall straight down with a plop.  but this one is still alive, I'm pretty sure."

it was indeed.  "do you want me to pick it up?" I asked, unsure of what parent volunteers were actually expected to do in situations like these.  

"whatever you feel comfortable with," was all the help I got in figuring it out.

so I did.  I picked up a hummingbird, those mysterious animals that buzz like big insects, the only birds capable of backwards flight.  we'd watched the flit around our feeders all summer, jamin and cora annoucing their simetaneous arrivals and depatures from the breakfast table every morning: "hummingbird! it flew away."  holding this one in my hand felt nothing like I'd expected (not that I'd ever thought much about what holding a hummingbird would feel like).  this tiny body felt more like a marshmallow than an animal, and those wings that were always just a blur before were still enough to make me nervous.

somewhere this week I read the reminder that "your ministry is where your feet are."  I need reminders like this every so often, especially when I get bogged down with being still, with not being able to do enough to save the world, with being boring in my (not so very) old age.  last week I started three new parenting classes, an overwhelming mix of people insistent that they don't need any help with their parenting, a family with kids so out of control we cannot provide them with childcare, and even one family that required a report to dss.  weeks like that make me hug my own kids extra hard, give an extra shout out of thanks for all the support systems I have.  weeks like that also remind me that my ministry is where my feet are, in more ways than one.  there is need right here, right where I already live, and of course that is part of my ministry where my feet are, in a very literal sense.  but more than that, there will alway be need, there will always be families who need a boost, kids who need to feel safe, people who need to find their tribe.  and since my feet will always be wherever it is I am, that is another way to minister where my feet are.  ministry will just follow wherever I happen to be just because that is the way it works.  compassionate hearts find needs to fill even when they don't really want to.

so today my ministry was to a hummingbird.  I carried that little marshmallow body outside to a warm picnic bench and no sooner had I placed it down gently than the whir of wings started and off flew my little friend.  that is the kind of results I am most fond of: immediate and highly visible.  there is power in that reminder, power that every little bit helps, power in being in the right place at the right time with a willingness to listen to what needs to be done.

we can stay here and I can teach parenting classes.  I can quit my job and homeschool my children.  we can move to hawaii and work in a group home.  we can join an organic farm in vermont and raise children and garlic and potatoes.  it is all ministry.  it is all exactly right.  we will keep listening and loving and learning and that will all be exactly enough.  wherever our feet may be.

seven year plunge

here's this week's soundtrack.  now go rent "benny and joon" to enjoy the original in all it's glory.

my very dearest rico suave,

I can remember when seven years seemed like a long time away.

I can remember, before the adventures at summer camp, before the WWOOFing and the splat. before redbud springs, before the mudflower csa. before zero gravity, before we had our hearts broken by the foster care system (over and over and over). before brevard, even. before families together and a home birth in montford. before the long trek to canada and home again. before iggy. before the HEAP. before new dawn midwifery. before weaverville and candler and black mountain.  before whitewater cove, before professional parenting, even before the halloween parties at oak park. I can remember when seven years seemed like a lot of time to fill.

but, my, have we filled it. I can't count the number of kids we've had in and out of our homes. I can barely count the number of homes we've had. I have watched you parent kids who never had a dad of their own, and I have watched you learn to be a dad to our own kids. I have seen you make a garden out of an empty lot, I've seen you grow vegetables from old tires, tree stumps, and even in the canadian tundra. I have watched you make meals, really delicious ones at that, from a pantry I was sure was empty. you've led me on backpacking trips, cross-country trips, and grocery store trips (it can be an intimidating place!). we've made friends and grown community and learned over and over that not everyone sees life quite the same way we do.

and, man I love how you see life. I love that you are so good with money. I love that you're willing to live on next-to-nothing so that we can raise our kids together. I love that you find creative ways to keep us debt-free and never wanting for much. I love that you are willing to take on whatever adventure we manage to dream up, that you are willing to indulge my wanderlust. I love that you are willing to remind me just how important home is, too, and even where it is when I need that reminder. I love that you love our kids. I love that you love other people. I love that the way you love is so different than mine, because I learn so much that way. I love the way our story goes, all the different pieces and places and players. I love hearing you tell it to people who have no idea how crazy we really are. I love how proud you are of the life we are living.

and how proud you are of me. I wish I could see me through your eyes all the time. thank you for pushing me (or pulling me) into what you know I can do, what I should do, what I want to do. I am a better person because I am married to you. thank you for spending so much of your time, so much of your life with me. I love your perspective, your patience, your persistence. you provide balance to our relationship and to our family. to our community. to my life.

seven years ago you asked me to take the plunge with you. seven years ago we decided we could do life better together than we could apart. seven years ago we started living the story we'll be proud to tell our kids one day. as we celebrate our seventh plunge, I could not be happier with the life we have created, with the adventure we are living. I love you all the way, pinto. and I wanna keep on plunging every day of our lives.

yours for the ups and downs and all the in-betweens,

slick

ps- you are soooooooo hott. for real.

the long way home

every blogpost needs a sound track. and we all need a little more tom waits in our lives. if you can't handle tom, feel free to cue up the norah jones cover as you read along. we're just more of a tom waits kind of family around here, whatever that means.

camp is over. the last of the staff is leaving tomorrow. jamin and cora keep asking me when are we going to do arts and crafts and why don't I push them on the swings like their counselor does. they spend most of their time playing camp, "teaching" me songs I couldn't get out of my head all summer because there was always some group somewhere singing them at the tops of their lungs. thankfully the dining hall is still serving meals for retreat groups or jamin might really go into shock.




this isn't home. quinipet, for all its wonders and beachfront property, ain't got nothin' on redbud springs. and people from long island don't even know what bluegrass music really is. and we have a lot of living left to do in brevard. but once we figured out where home really is, we knew we could take the long way to get there.

so I am taking a year's leave of absence from the family place. that's the only real decision that we've made. as far as short term plans, we're leaving here for new hampshire next week to visit some redbud family and celebrate our seventh anniversary as a happily married couple. eric flies home for a wedding in brevard, then makes the trip back up with our very best friend allyson. we're here on shelter island until the end of september. we need this time.

we are walking on the beach every night after supper. we're watching as many sunsets as we can. we are posing for pictures in front of yachts far bigger than our house. we are homeschooling and staying in the flow and listening so hard it hurts sometimes. we need this time, this pace, this rhythm. at least for right now.

I don't really know what we are doing beyond that, and that feels pretty okay right now. I am learning what we are good at, how to balance that between the four of us. how to hold hands and jump, how to appreciate the view from here. and now that we know where it is, it feels good to take the long way home.

project 137

so I am doing this...thing.

there is this blogger lady that I love named patti digh. she is fabulous. I read her book "life is a verb" this spring as we were prepping to come to new york, and it got me all centered and happy and inspired about our trip. so I started following her blog and that makes me pretty happy and inspired, too. I ended up using lots of quotes and themes and thoughts from her work in my devotionals with the staff this summer.

so she leads these projects, kind of like an online class, but really more an experiment in community and inspiration with lots of writing reflections. right up my alley. and it just so happened that this particular project starts today, the last day of camp. the first day of the rest of my life. what a time to be intentional, to be inspired, to be focused, to be surrounded by folks doing the same hard thinking and soul searching that I like best.

here's a link to project 137. and here is my first photo assignment. the assignment was to take a photo of myself that expresses the love I feel for myself. so here I am, plunging right on in.

what I hope you learned at camp this summer

part of my job this summer is leading staff devotionals once a week. at the beginning of the summer, I wasn't sure exactly how this would go, if people would show up, if I had anything relevant to say. so eric helped me make a brag-worthy snack spread every week, and I would rush through bedtime routine with the kids to make it up to the welcome center on time. the snacks certainly helped, and word of mouth soon had people asking me to lead the same devotional twice on thursdays so counselors could come during their breaks. this week was the last week of overnight camp and what I thought would be my last devotional. it turned out to be a doozy. here's what we talked about, after a meditation from hermann hesse and a couple minutes of silence...

To a Leaf Wilting

Every blossom wants to become fruit.
Every morning turns into evening without regret.
Nothing on earth is eternal except change, except taking leave.

The most splendid summer yearns to fade into fall.
Oh, autumn leaf, be still and yielding when the wind wants to seize you.

Do not resist, be a player in the game.
Surrender to the change in motion.
Let yourself be broken, seized, and blown to the next home.


~Hermann Hesse


five things I hope you learned at camp this summer:

1- you are totally fabulous.

maybe you reached a goal for yourself this summer. maybe you tried something new. maybe you did something you never thought you'd do, and it turned out okay. maybe you met someone who taught you big things about yourself. maybe you realized you're really good at something you'd never bothered to try before. whatever it is, I hope you know how totally fabulous you really are. that you can do big things, small things, important things, and silly things, and you can do all those things even better than you thought.

2- your life is pretty stinkin' great.

I hope this summer taught you more about your life, mostly how great it really is. you are living an incredible story, and this summer is just one part of it. I hope this summer helped you realize something amazing about your future, helped you decide what direction to go next. or maybe this summer helped you put together the pieces of your past so that your future makes more sense. or maybe you just have good stories to tell about the adventures you had or the people you met while you were here. whatever it is, I hope you know how how great your life really is.

3- god is bigger than you thought.

being in a beautiful place like quinipet surrounded by passionate, loving people should give you a pretty big idea of god's nature. I hope you saw god in those around you this summer. I hope you learned how god's love is big enough for all of us, from the devout to the doubtful and everyone in between.  I hope you saw how god is always working on the bigger picture, even when we disagree with the means god might use to get there.

4- make this place your home.  wherever you are, make it these things:

 H-happy.  frederick buechner says, "the place where god calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." god wants you to be happy.  sometimes that means making the best of where you are, and sometimes it means getting the heck out of where you are into something better. learn to know the difference. learn to find your happy.
 O-open. be open to being yourself. to whatever is next. to allowing those around you to speak their truth. open your heart, open your mind. create space where others feel safe to open up as well.
 M-meaningful. use your home-space to find out what matters most to you. tune in. whether it is perfecting your chocolate chip cookie recipe so you can feed the masses a little bit of happiness or taking off to africa to fight for women's right to health care, find the meaning in your life.  then do what matters. make sure home is where you can rest up to do good work.
 E-engergize. be sure you have a place where you can rest, recharge your batteries. space that is sacred enough to fill your metaphorical cup. space to take a break, but also space that gets you pumped up, fired up, revved up to do big things. listen to mozart, then listen to macklemore. then do what you need to do to energize yourself to take on the world.

5-say yes. to whatever it is god calls you to, to whatever adventure is dropped in your lap, to each and every chance you have to love on those around you. say yes.

(i started at 2:42 for time and political correctness's sake, but you should really watch the whole thing.)

wherever you are, what ever summer adventure you have had, I hope this all proves true for you as well.

ghosts of myself

I'm pretty sure this place is haunted.

when I was a camper in middle-of-nowhere georgia growing up, we told ourselves all sorts of stories to convince ourselves that camp was magical. there was a certain hill behind the tabernacle that we were sure we could fly off of if we got a fast enough running start. there was a lake monster, of course, and if the wampajaw didn't get you when you fell out of your canoe the leeches would. I didn't need stories to know that camp was magical, though. the suspension of reality for an entire week was magical enough.

being back at camp at a place where I was never a camper, only a counselor, is haunting in a very different way. I knew that coming back to a place I haven't been in ten years would bring up a lot of ghosts.  I was counting on phantasmic encounters of things I'd long tried to erase from my head, visions of people I'd long forgotten, memories of a time in life that was hard to muddle through.  I wasn't prepared for those ghosts I keep bumping into to be ghosts of myself.

last weekend friends from my first time here at camp came to visit. these are the sort of friends everyone hopes to have in their lives, the kind of cliche "pick up where you left off" people that know things about you that you have long since forgotten. what amazes me about these sort of friends (and this crew in particular) is that no matter how long it has been or how cloudy my memory of my time with them, they know the essence of me better than I could ever describe it myself. that part of me that hasn't changed as I've moved all over the place and married someone I didn't even know when I knew these friends. they know me in a way that doesn't change after having children or going through life's wringer.  they see me through eyes that not only ignore my well-earned gray hairs, but also my broken ideas of who I thought I was or even who I think I am. there is no "think" with these folks, just heart connection. and catch up time is not a timeline of events, but rather a swim out to the dock where we confess the big stuff (the heartbreaks, the disappointments, the silly remembrances), while lying on our backs and letting the sun dry our skin.

seeing my ghost-self and seeing myself through the eyes of those who loved me best ten years ago makes it so very clear to me that my life is a magical beautiful blessed adventure. it shows me that I'm doing more than fine, that I'm better off now than I ever dreamed of all those years ago. that all the brokenness, all the wondering, all the uncertainty and leaps of faith and therapy and wandering, all of that makes being my present self all the sweeter.





so now when I see that ghost-like girl out of the corner of my eye, I remind her that it doesn't last forever. that the not-knowing is sometimes just part of the adventure. that she is doing better than she thinks she is. and I thank her for muddling through, for doing the best she knows how, for reminding me just how far we've come.




if I have to be plagued by ghosts, I can't think of a more beautiful way for it to happen.

month 60

tribe love, from all corners of the world

jamin,

when I think about it in months, it doesn't seem that long.  I guess because I can remember month one (sort of, through the haze of your newness) and I remember month 25 when you finally started getting some hair.  sixty months just seem like little tick marks of victories, a nice tempo for you becoming yourself a little bit at a time.  but five whole years?  that is where I get a little wobbly-feeling.  I remember things about being five.  that means we are doing things now that you will tell your family about later.  we are living stories you will tell to someone you are falling in love with, to your own children as you try to entertain them on long trips, to your therapist as you reflect on how amazing your childhood really was.

pirate shirt, pirate puzzle, pirate face.

and what a story we are living.  watching you this summer has been by far the best part of this adventure for me.  I can hardly believe I was so worried about you in the months before we left brevard, so concerned that living far away might be too much for you, that you might find camp overwhelming, that getting you plugged into daycamp would be a daily challenge.  you love life here.  you love day camp: the silly songs, your enthusiastic counselors, your new friends.  you love camp life: you beg to eat every meal in the dining hall, you wish we had campfires every night, you think the skits the kids do every friday are hilarious.  you have fully embraced this entire experience with a sense of adventure I didn't know you had.  it has been an important lesson for me to learn, and I am working hard not to box you in or shelter you too much, but instead to follow your lead in a lot of ways and assume you'll be just fine. I think it is a lesson I'll be learning your whole life, so I am glad I am getting good practice in now.

five is a pretty great age, I think.  you can do a good bit on your own, but you still really like holding hands.  you are old enough that we can snuggle and read chapter books (books I've been waiting my whole life to share with you) for an hour at a time, easy.  learning is something you find exciting and entertaining, a trait that makes me feel much more settled about home schooling.  you love "homework books" and have no trouble completing an entire workbook in a single session.  we made some sight word cards together and I find you practicing them on your own sometimes.  when we are walking together or riding in the car you'll say "somebody give me some numbers!" which is an open invitation to quiz you on some addition or subtraction.  you get them right fairly consistently, even when cora strings four or five numbers together.  it is cute to watch you concentrating on however you see numbers in your head.  I often wonder what the number line looks like to you inside your noggin.

we celebrated your birthday at your pace, which was pretty fantastic.  you woke and let papa and me snuggle you and tell you the story of the day you were born.  you love that story and your favorite part is when papa says "if we're having a baby today, I'd better go mow the grass!"  we piled all your packages and cards around you, and then we could barely see you under them all.  your tribe comes correct, something I hope holds true for your entire life.  you are surrounded by people who love and value almost as much as we do, people that are not afraid to show that love when we need it most.  after  you opened all your loot, we sent papa and cora out to fetch bagels while you and I read and colored and played pirates at home.  we had mac and cheese for lunch, then met a new daycamp friend at the tuck shop for ice cream.  we headed over to lauren and ralph's for a cookout.  you were so excited to have a hotdog.  we could tell after about two bites that it was not as wonderful as you had envisioned, so you struggled through a few more bites, then left the rest for papa.  we fed you cherry pie to keep you going while we waited for the shelter island fireworks display.  it was hazy and almost rainy, but not everyone gets fireworks on his birthday.  you made it about ten minutes into the show before saying, "I'm tired.  let's go home."  you were asleep within six minutes.

cora took this one.

you are loved.  you are treasured and enjoyed.  you are part of a wonderful story, an adventure story at that, and I hope all of that is what sticks when you look back on being five.  keep surprising me, j-mo.  you are my best thing.

love one hundred and eighty million,

mama