So busy this week, back to school, back to being in a hundred places at once. Still, it’s summer and I’m trying to be in it. At the dinner table watching our boys run out across the grass holding hands to look for sticks for roasting marshmallows, T says: “Oh love, I want this to last forever.”

I nod, knowing exactly what he means. Them, as they are with shaggy summer hair, scraped knees, berry stains on their fingers. And us. Our lives full to the brim right now, but in good way.

Things I want to remember:

// Dinner tonight: flatbread baked on a stone on the grill along with summer peaches + a hint of vanilla, chicken with olive oil + thyme, and a salad of summer’s brightest: new plump blueberries, arugula from the garden, baby lettuces in a mustard maple balsamic vinaigrette.

// The way morning gallops in, with my boy’s on it’s back. They’re wearing capes and wielding swords. It’s before 7am. They are whirring with elbows and energy and laughter.

// The laundry whirring in a quiet house while the babysitter takes the boys on a bug-catching walk. They bring back crickets in a plastic egg box with holes poked in the top. It stays on my counter over night: some wells filled with water, others with grass. In the morning the insects are all alive still, and I make a plea for their release.

// Impending angst about my book deadline. So much to make a book. So many words. Picking the right ones seems feels daunting some days.

// Returning from an afternoon run just as thunder breaks the sky open. Then sitting in a circle of pages, blue post it notes scattered about like the petals of some sacred offering to the writing gods while the thunder rolls about like a bowling ball above me in the sky. Rain falls through the open windows onto the sills bringing the scent of earth and green.

What have you been up to?

The past few days have been my very own Alice in Wonderland gone awry: coding and building a website from the ground up–using all new (to me) tools has made my brain ache and my body long for movement. It’s still in it’s demo phase, but I’m excited to share it. Go take a peak around.

Outside it keeps snowing: gorgeous dreamy flakes and our Christmas will be white, white, white. In the tree out the dining room window a red cardinal waits, wondering when I’ll put the bird feeders out. Things have been on hold around here as the semester came to a symphonic end. Everything colliding with many unexpected technical failures: the learning curve is steep when you’re a novice.

Of course, I love every minute: I’m like that. But honestly, this last week was really hard. I really started to miss all the things that define the day to day of my life: wrestling on the floor with my boys; exercise; painting my toenails; making out; going out with friends; decorating for the holidays. Everything was temporarily abandoned as I hunched at the table and produced create a website; two essays; and three art projects.

Now: I’m a free girl for a few days–but I have some serious (and super exciting!) book business that must be attended to, and how! Cannot wait to share–but can’t yet. Just grin with me & keep your fingers crossed. And thank you, thank you for your patience with getting rewards and all the rest. I haven’t forgotten. Oh no, not at all. It’s just: I never do things half way. It’s going to be awesome. Oh yes.

Today we are heading out to cut a tree and tonight our neighbors have a Christmas nativity that they’ve been putting on with the neighborhood kids in their barn for twenty years. It’s magical: warmth and caroling and kids with halos and angel wings and donkeys and lamas and lambs all acting out the story of the birth of Jesus. I love it. It’s one of my favorite things about the holiday actually: this simple, old fashioned celebration that speaks to the heart and the truth of this holiday. Peace and goodwill and community. And also cookies and sledding after.

Speaking of… we’re having some friends for some cookie decorating fun tomorrow and I’m wondering: what is your absolute favorite holiday cookie recipe?

All about friends. The best of friends. (Miss you Jess.) Long walks to fields dappled with light; clouds above, laughter, the kind of honesty that comes from knowing someone for more than a decade; good wine and pasta with fresh corn, and chard, basil and tomatoes from the garden; the promise of Sunday bacon and a few more hours to watch my kids play with some of my favorite people in the whole world. (Also love that seeing my family through someone elses lens…)

Hello! I spent the morning in the garden weeding + harvesting: dirt under my finger nails; gold finches watching me from the rhubarb. Then I discovered these: wild blackberries along the garden fence and in the field beyond. I sacrificed my pretty knees for these (now scraped and scratched–there is nothing quite like a blackberry bramble’s thorns.) But oh, so utterly worth it. How I love these morsels of wild sweet. They don’t even taste a hint like the fat bland ones from the store. I cannot get enough. My boys stand in front of me their mouths open wide like baby birds. They can’t get enough either. Their tongues turn purple and they giggle as I plunk the berries in. Ripe with sunshine; ripe with joy.
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Today I spoke with the people from the program and we’re in a holding pattern for another week to ten days (I’m counting on the latter.) So I’m smiling and letting go of expectations and looking forward to whatever comes. Everything is possible.

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Some things to share:

Sweet as a loon
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This photo looks just like where I grew up.
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Shona’s little tree imp reminds me of myself when I was small…

I am totally smitten over this blog (especially the dreamy writing.)

And this quote (I found it here):

“Our wishes foretell the capacities within ourselves; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours, in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is already possible into dreamt-for reality.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I hope you have a glorious weekend! xoxo!

Wild crazy wonderful changes.

Your comments on my last post really filled me up. I want you to know that. Each one brought new perspective, encouragement, thoughtfulness.

I especially loved this from V Grrrl, because it reaffirmed exactly what I believe:

I think a healthy family is one where everyone’s needs are balanced against each others, where family members recognize that everyone works together for the family as a whole, and that sacrifice and compromise are part of that process.

T and I and our boys all made a promise to each other about this upcoming year. It’s going to be an all hands on deck kind of year, and all four of us are in. We’re all going to try our hardest to do it the first time, follow through, pick up the slack, pick up the messes as we make them, remember to take walks, exercise, eat chocolate, laugh.

It’s going to be such an adventure. I can’t wait.

T and I have basically become adults together. We met when he was just turning 21, and in the decade that I’ve known him he’s either been a student or working in the stock market and I cannot even begin to describe the relief and disorientation I feel at imagining him doing work that matters in the world; work that he loves; work for a salary. It will be a learning curve for us both to discover ourselves anew in these new roles. I imagine it will be all about patience and patience and patience. Also humor. And chocolate.

For the next month I’m working my way through the manuscript for A Field Guide To Now. It’s exciting to finally be in it. Things are coming together. Art, words, ideas. I’m excited by the direction and beginning to trust the process now that I’ve had a few days strung together of consistent project time. (That last photo is a sneak peak at a piece of art that will go into a postcard.)

I’m curious:
What are your plans for August?
What food are you crushing on right now?
What tunes are you loving?

Also: If you could hear just one thing that you need to hear right now, what would it be?

xoxo!