some glimpses from the week

Posted on | December 20, 2011 | 7 Comments

Here are a couple Instagram snapshots from the week. Since my semester ended on Fiday, I’ve been soaking up time with my boys. Doing silly, delightful things like making marshmallows from scratch + lovely salt dough ornaments + playing with catch with the dog + reading stories to the boys.

Tonight night we are having a solstice gathering at our house. Potluck + lots of good friends + a big bonfire. I’m hoping to take a few pictures to share. I’m so looking forward to it, in spite that currently my house looks entirely less than presentable and I have yet to make anything other than said marshmallows (which are entirely questionable) to offer my guests. Sigh. Somehow it will all likely come together.

What are you doing for solstice?

{PS: thanks to everyone who supported Bethany! She is a light + an inspiration.}

A call to action + a call to wonder: A Guest Post

Posted on | December 15, 2011 | 3 Comments

Hello friends!
I have a guest post to share with you by a true kindred spirit who believes, as I do, that instead of ending the life of adventure you may have once had, children can actually enhance it. Anyone who has ever dreamed of traveling Europe…but then had kids and gave up the dream (at least temporarily) needs the book that Bethany Basset is writing. And she needs you’re help over on Kickstarter, where the deadline is closing in and some big-time dreams are on the line. Go back her project! Re-tweet this story. Share the love. Spread the word. I’m saying this selfishly. I want her book, so that in another two years from now T, Bean, Sprout and I can descend on Europe like I’ve always dreamed we will… and not only survive, but have an amazing time.

Following is a guest post written by Bethany. Enjoy!

We are in Venice, a land of fairy-tale opulence—gondoliers and palaces, masks and museums—but we stop for the honeysuckle. My barefoot Texas days come flooding back in muscle memory as I show the girls how to ease out the stamen and catch the tiniest drop of nectar on our tongues. It tastes like July. Natalie and Sophie are enthralled; drinking from flowers is a purer magic to them than St. Mark’s Basilica would be, so we linger off the tourist path to pick summer, and this is it: motherhood, nostalgia, travel, joy, LIFE.

My mind delights in the details, so if I were to organize our yearly road trips around Europe, I would map out an agenda for every minute. I’d research the top recommended things to do in every city and the best routes to get there, and we would be such efficient travelers that we’d never even see the honeysuckle. We would never tumble out of the car beside an unnamed waterfall in Wales or splash the heat away at a neighborhood creek in Munich or collect wildflowers on a sleepy mountainside in Austria. We would end up with pristine vacation photos and impressive souvenirs, but we would miss out on so many of the spontaneous moments we now treasure as family memories.

And so I step back to make room for wonder. Perfectionism has always chipped away at my capacity for marvel, but my girls have more than enough to go around. They don’t need a brochure to show them how to appreciate a new city, the curve of an unfamiliar leaf, the way each mile of landscape shapes the sky. They simply greet life as it comes with their full array of senses and a penchant for adventure, and I—the perfectionist, the planner, the mother-student—gain far more than souvenirs in return.

I am currently raising funds through Kickstarter to spend the next five months writing a book based on our unconventional trips to help families reconcile the dream of European travel with the challenges of parenthood. Life is too short, too deep with possibility to keep deferring adventure until the children are older or the 401K is filled, and I’m thrilled to work on a project I believe so sincerely in. However, I can’t do it on my own, and with only eight days left to raise the funds, I’m asking for your help.

First, would you back my project? Even if you don’t have young children or have never dreamed of Paris, would you help make it possible for me to write a book I believe in with all my heart? A simple $10 pledge will help in meeting the goal while pre-ordering a copy of the book, so I’m asking—earnestly and gratefully—for you to give what you can.

Second, would you spread the word? Every new person who hears about this book increases the likelihood that my project will succeed, so would you share this post or the link to my Kickstarter site with everyone in your social networking circles?

Whether traveling or writing a book, the most convenient option is to do it alone. However, the richness of shared adventure trumps convenience. Always. Thank you in advance and from the bottom of my hopeful heart for being a part of this one with us.

Starting the day:

Posted on | December 15, 2011 | 3 Comments

My dreams are the kind that make no sense upon telling: dancing porcupines, crazy riots, precocious children, and a pervasive feeling that I was never entirely in control. It’s a little how I feel when I wake too, the wind blowing until it rocks the bird feeders off kilter, the air so warm it could be a Chinook save for the fact that it’s now, a week before Christmas. Where is the snow?

I slept in (7a.m.) and missed breakfast with the kids and T, and now the house is in that helter-skelter tummult of everyone rushing to get out the door. I move through the motions of making Bean’s lunch like a heavy-handed robot. My fingers are made of clay. Sprout refuses to put on pants. I put cream cheese and jelly on an English muffin. Bean keeps walking from one end of the house to the other trying to locate his hat and gloves and jacket, each separately although he’s left them all in nearly the same place. The floor is mud stained.

In the small ravine where a winter stream runs beyond the meadow where our kitchen garden gets planted, the wind sounds like a freight train. Chickadees fly sideways; smoke comes back down the chimney. Where did all this wind come from anyway?

I have today to finish preparing presentation, to tie up the loose ends on several other signficant projects all due tomorrow. I’m making coffee. Pulling on rain boots for a walk with Clover. Ducking my head into the wind.

Ready, set, go!

How to fall in love with your life: the wisdom of little boys

Posted on | December 13, 2011 | 13 Comments

Bean is watching my every subtle move. We are in the middle of a game of “alligator” and Sprout, perched on the couch cushions above us launches himself suddenly through the air, chubby thighs bare, and lands between his brother and me, straddling my chest, laughter erupting.

Alligator is a game that Bean invented. It requires certain might and restraint and all the physicality that little boys crave. The rules are simple: I catch him and wrap in my arms and legs, my fierce alligator jaws devouring his lithe little body, and then I hold him tight regardless of any plea, or request, or peel of giggles as he tries to wriggle free.

Sometimes I follow the rules. I am a fierce and steadfast gator, remaining unswayed until just exactly the right moment when the wiry-mulled little boy I’ve trapped is clever enough to outwit me, or strong enough to slip between clenched biceps. Other times I add a twist: I pretend to be asleep and snore, and he slips out easily, much to his delight and my pretend chagrin. And then there are the times, when it takes everything I have not do not to devour him whole: soft cheeks and sandy hair that smells like honey and milk.

Today he’s already made his first escape, and has immediately clambered on top of my ribcage for more. His weight familiar. I’ve always carried him; always held the heft of him close; always been the cradle for his small knees and elbows and belly. And thisI think, is part of what I do that makes it possible to sustain this full velocity life. Of doing the work of my heart in all the ways that I must: writer and mama, strategist and artist, graduate student and runner, all in unequal measures as the day demands. No matter what the day holds, it will always finds us like this, limbs colliding in this certain and unequivocal choreography of love.

I watch him watch me, imagining what he must think of me.
My own childhood was far less physical. There was no puppy piling, no running through the house, no yelling. I remember often being told to be quite, to find the boundaries of my ebullient self and rein them in. I praised for my intellect, never for my ability to make people laugh; and other than sitting on my father’s lap to listen to a book read aloud, or hugging my parent’s goodnight, or holding hands when walking along a busy street, love was never spelled limb against limb, twirling in giddiness, kissing like blowfish, or howling like the pack of wild hyaenas always on the loose and restless in my soul.

Which is why his answer delights me deeply when I ask:

“If you were to describe me to someone who has never met me, what would you tell them?”

He tilts his head to the side and looks at my face.

And then he says, “That you’re strong…. that you’re funny*….and that you stay up late.”

Then he adds, “And that you wrestle with me.” As if this is the most important thing of all.

It’s such a gift to catch the tiniest of glimpses into how he sees me.
It’s a gift, always, when you can get a glimpse of how anyone sees you. It broadens your view of yourself; increases your imagination of what you think is possible, and makes you lean into your potential differently. Give yourself this gift today: go ask someone how they would describe you to a stranger. Bask in their reply.

xoxo!
Me.

*FUNNY made the list! Funny. You have no idea how over the moon that makes me.

Another walk + A little creative challenge for your Friday:

Posted on | December 9, 2011 | 7 Comments

Hi friends!
I promise I won’t keep doing video posts. But it is kind of fun, I have to say! In this video I share a few in-the-moment ramblings, and the gorgeous views from the woods behind my house.

And I tossed in a little creative challenge just for the fun of it. I’d love to hear what you discover.