step one: acceptance

i went for a run yesterday that turned into a walk. i just couldn't breathe. you see my heart has just been broken. it's the standard cliche but most of you know it's just how it feels. i'd been holding back full breathes for months. it was a difficult relationship, run by a person who's head was full of static and sad. who had medicine that he prescribed himself, that made him sadder. it was full of drama and worry for me. it was also very beautiful...because when he smiled and felt good the whole word lit up,but he was sure it was me who was the light. it was passionate and at times, i'd never felt more loved. but most of the time, i was in some measure of pain. i went for a run yesterday that turned into a walk. I just couldn't breathe. my heart was so heavy. so i let myself walk. then i let my guilt for walking go and i looked at things. i saw a broken robins egg, a nutshell that looked like an owl, and a dead baby bird. i saw wild strawberries, tiny as my pinky nail and bright like blood. i saw a creepy yard filled with stuffed animals perched on ladders and overgrown with vines. i saw two different incidences of single shoes. they did not belong to each other. they never would. they were both useful to another shoe, but not each other. but I belonged out there amongst the world. alone and in pain, and allowing it it to be there. and the whole time i felt my heart dripping down the inside of my ribcage, knowing we don't belong together, at least not right now...his medicine is toxic to me, to him, to my children. but it's hard to let him go. i hear footsteps out front and expect him to come bursting in my door 2 seconds later. i hear a car engine and almost hope he's come to beg for me back. but his silence is a relief...because i don't have a choice to make anymore. it has been made. and there is a peace to that.

oh hey there. i'm here.

It's been two years, one month and three days since my last confession...er, post. since then i have failed many things. BUT, i have succeeded in losing weight and also successfully gaining it back. yay, me! I have successfully moved 7 million times and been thru 2 relationships and some really bad dates, one with a murderer and another with a stalker. so there's that. i've also succeeded in chilling the fuck out. life is damn messy, people. like, really freaking brutal. and also quite lovely and delicate and filled with little things of awesome....it reminds me of those tiny daisies you see in a huge field of weeds. just there and fragile and perfect and so happy. just to be. faces to the sun. i'm really good at that now. like, man....i am real. if nothing else, i am raw, real, me to the core...and dude, it's not always pretty. it's not always strong. it sometimes cries. like, ugly cries. but i am successfully being me. and also, i say dude more. i'm not entirely sure why. i'm a mom. a real messy, chaotic mom. it's a damn miracle if my kids get their homework done. but for real? kindergarten and 2nd grade. i'm sorry, but what the effing eff? like i don't have enough to feel incompetent about, my 2nd grader can't turn his homework in because his totally awesome, real (read tired and forgetful) mom didn't sign off on his homework sheet. where's the love, teach? granted, his poor teacher probably has to rein my dreamer in, like, pretty much all the time. for all the things. she's probably all, come on, lady. do this one thing. and i'm all, come on, lady. give a mom a break. we do what we can. as we can. i am successful in recognizing that. i'm aware this is a rocky resurgence. bear with me. i'll get back in my groove.

It was suggested I use this site for something other than the nonsense of my day to day. How does one blog for income? I don't know. It never occurred to me. I have interests...I do stuff....but enough for an actual blog that more than you 4 people read? Meh....design? cleaning? bread? Herbs(not "herb" folks, calm down)....or I don't know, maybe I could venture into my past, or my failure at relationships. Truth is, I have very little expertise in a very long list of things I think I do. I talk a big game, I even try earnestly to be an expert....and then I deflate. I will have to ponder this awhile. I have funny mom stories, I have good food to eat and take too many pictures of...but I'm not Julia/Julia worthy, or even close to the many mama blogs I follow, that are truly hilarious. Know that I'm formulating, however slowly, a plan for world domination.

specks

our lives are made up of these tiny little moments, many of which are so heartbreakingly beautiful. i wonder, in our hurry to be somebody, to get something, or somewhere, how many we miss? i live a simple life, and i know i miss so many. when i catch those little things, hear the words from a song my child sings to himself and realize they are about love, witnessing an interaction between brothers that speaks to bonds that will remain, God speaking thru the tiny voices of children, sunshine glinting off the edge of a person's jaw, these small moments of beauty that become the fabric of your little world...without them your life becomes very threadbare indeed...and we feel naked, lost and vulnerable in the world. Because with out them we are, these little things become those little christmas lights of joy that light up an often dark and lonely world.

untitled ramble

There has been a single goose alone in the middle of an emerald field near my house for a few days now. My heart throbs a little when I see him there, knowing he is at the end of his line. Not able to go further, to warmth, to rest. He's been left behind. And there he stands, its seems he's not even moved an inch, or even turned around,just standing. That goose has been on my mind and oddly, without much explanation, I feel like that. Alone, disconnected from where I'd like to be, whom I'd like to be with, or maybe, rather, who I'd like to be. Here's this creature, surrounded by beauty, but all alone. I wonder, if most of the time we do this to ourselves...put ourselves out in the middle of a place, where nobody else is, alone, then pity ourselves for it? I don't actually have an answer, just wanted to put somewhere, that this goose makes me ache, feel the pull of loneliness, perhaps imprints on me what I don't actually feel, by the pure heartbreaking beauty of it all.
Every day we have the choice to move forward, sideways or backwards...most days, forwards it is...but on odd days, when I see a lone goose, the heart goes a bit askew and heads the wrong direction. damn goose.

The Invisible Lives of Parents

I wonder often about the things in plain sight that I missed as a child. The stress in my father’s voice, the hurt in my mothers as they smiled and made our world right. The pain of a fractured marriage inflicted in front of us, that in our childhood daze, that bubble of self absorbtion, we missed, or maybe didn’t….is this what they call ancestral memory? Is it really just a blip stored in a small space in the brain that pops up…why smells and sounds can recall bad and good both? Why a flash of mom standing in our dads kitchen crying to herself, over an offhand remark about an advent calender suddenly surfaces. I think this was the first time I noticed my mother crying. I was already 7. They were already divorced. Surely she cried many, many times before that. Surely, my father, reading our bedtimes stories, blow drying our hair felt the angst of that break. I notice now, because I feel these thin lines of hurting.

I’m a mother now. I have pain, I have hurt, regret and resentments. All of us grown ups do. It comes with the territory of living in a world of fear and sadness. Don’t mistake me, there is beauty , too. Breathtaking, aching beauty to behold all the time. But as my children merrily play around me, tug on my pant legs, ask for bathroom help, need bathing and off to schooling….I smile and truly cherish them, hiding the turmoil in me. It does surface. They seem to not notice…this invisible life of parents. Invisible as a pink elephant. Not seen at all.

It seems now, so many years later, the pain callused over, I can feel and see what my family went thru. I seemed not to notice then. My marriage is not ending. We have the chips of bone that people get from flinging life at one another, sure. Our parents must have felt the yearnings of youth, their heads turning to look at a fresh face, the pull of temptation to get in the car and drive as far as the road would take them. They must have felt this as I do now from time to time. This means they also felt the intense joy of us kids, the blinding worry when we were hurt or sick, the sort of pained pride as we grew. I’m not sure where I’m going with this except that as I sit sometimes feeling like I will never get my life together at the age of 35, I wonder if this what it means to be invisible.

oh, back in high school

i feel like i should write. i see a blank page and nothing pressing my heart. ms staley, my high school creative writing teacher used to give us each a line from a poem or prose to stem from...i think i'll find one..i started to use the first poem that comes to me when i think of this...Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver, but felt the same stream of thought bubbling up that I've written so many times before over the years....page at random, please stand by..."I live and move here in my borrowed trappings;" from "Wintering" by Diana Kappel-Smith...

I live and move here in my borrowed trappings
straps cutting from that day long ago, bindings from another moment not as long ago
leave bruises
they are not my own cages i'm stuck in, though i do have my own i slip into from time to time
i take them from others
put that skin on my body, put that heart inside my own ribcage
these burdens of others, some intentionally laid, some i've taken on, however unwillingly
i live within
they shape my days and hours

well. a rocky stab at getting into the habit of writing more. of letting my mind go where it will.

ode to my firstborn

my boy turned 5 today. i also coincedentally saw a picture of him at 9 months. it still looks like him...he'll always look that way.the big round head, skinny legs, serious eyes about to break into a mischevious grin. this child, my Cole. today is for him. this kid grabbed me by the heart, i mean, every single valve and vein. i could not imagine this feeling i had when i set eyes on him. it was this incredulous moment of how could this beautiful creature come from joe and i? as he grew (and continued to be a crummy sleeper, i might add), his capacity for love and gentleness amazed me. his smile made every sleepless night bearable. it still does. only now, his smile gets him out of the tantrums he's learning to throw, the verbal jabs he tries to make, but knows are wrong, so he whispers them. this kid to whom I am the sun, the moon, the stars....his sense of humor is remarkably sharp and sweet, and he's stubborn as a post set in concrete. but this kid can love. this kid can show compassion and generosity and empathy. he humbles me so often in his spirit of "take this, i love it, but take it because you'll love it too." i love you, my son. i am so achingly proud of the little spirit you are. i take joy in your uniqueness, and revel in each new thing you learn and teach me. you are my firstborn, you taught me love. happy birthday, buggy.

a brief love note

this is about joe. i talk about my kids. i talk about my chickens. i talk about my food. a lot about my food. i should talk about my joe, my beloved, my compass. he pisses me off a lot. but mostly he just keeps me headed in the right direction. the first time i saw him, i knew he was military. his demeanor, his posture, his lack of smile. then i got to know him...and his eyes, his sparkly, mischevious eyes bore straight into my heart. frankly, he scared the crap out of me, but i couldnt' get enough. he won.
the man wrote me bad poetry that melted me. he took me to paris. he gave me two little boys, and brought with him his two older, wonderful children. he gave me his heart and i gave him mine. he has honor and nobility and is generous to others, with his time, and sometimes forgets to save some for me, but it's usually okay because i know he is lifting up someone who needs it more than i do....because I have him and God. i'm a lucky woman and for all our rocky moments, months, years, he's still the one i want next to me every night, who i want walking in the door every evening, and whom i want to bring me coffee every morning.

she felt like the fresh prince

Lynard Skynard told her to turn it up...so she did. Sweet Home Alabama rattled the speakers on her dilapidated, but much loved Volvo wagon, Velma. She got that rare feeling today that one only gets in early summer, though, summer was late this year. It had been a long, dark, wet Spring and everyone was getting punchy. It was July 3 and the sun finally shone.

She rolled the window down a little further, to inhale this feeling. The air vibrated with love and goodwill, excited people with campers and barbeques jammed the highway and it was okay with her. Her hair looked good, the music was loud. The girl, though not so much a girl anymore, felt young and beautiful. When this feeling hits, all the hard stuff just kind of seemed unimportant. And all of these thing, gathered behind her ribs in a bursty glee. It was good to be her.

a life like mine

yesterday, today looked grim. i had a sick kid. complete with puke...on bedclothes, clothes, carpets, couches....yesterday, i did load after load of laundry, carried a bleach bottle in a holster, snuggled little buddies and got prepared for another day like it, but maybe with me or my other son puking, also. But today, Mother's Day, I woke up, not having been awaken in the night to cries of horror at being covered in dinner, revisited, but somewhat refreshed....pit pat pit pat...baby one, piles in....taptaptaptap...baby two scurries to the other side, snuggles into his usual spot. thump, thump...daddy's already up, coffee is brewing, tv is cued for cartoons. Baby One gets antsy, up to watch a little curious george. Baby Two, my tiny Bean, burrows deeper, eyes still heavy and half dozes on my chest for awhile. This kid is almost 30 pounds but I won't move him for the world. His blond flyaway hair tickles my nose but feels like angels kisses and smells like sleep and last nights bath. this is what i was meant to do, i think. i'm the "joyful mother of little children." i'm best here, with my arms around a small child, who needs to hear my heart beat.
There was no more sick today. There was much needed sunshine, both kids in underwear only, playing in the sprinkler while i puttered in the garden, preparing for the pea growth spurt, labeling newly planted starts, my thoughtful husband taking care of our every need. the rain started dropping in big slow drops seconds after the chops got pulled off the grill for supper...
the kids are in the bath now, dad is taking care of it all for me. just leaned on the door frame, watching the birds skitter around the yard between drops, while eating a sweetly huge strawberry, glass of wine in the other hand. i could get used to a life like mine. i think i will.

movements of small things

i was driving today, in the rain, and the hills are so green...it looks like a child's cowlicked hair, full of movement and whorls...the deciduous, laced and weaving between the evergreens,unruly and standing straight up in the air. the sheep, white against the fields, with their breed marks,standing red on their woolly backs, a true scarlet letter. they all looked so droopy out there, not sure if it was the rain, or their impending pregnancies, or just because they are sheep, but they still looked beautiful to me. although i love the sun, there is little as striking as an oregon spring with it's dark, ominous skies, and the emerald world below it...speckled with animals, flowers, it throbs with life and freshness, and sparkles if the tiniest sliver of sunshine hits it. we do, I believe, live in God's country.

the gentleness of nothing

there are days when nothing comes gently. and there are days when there is a gentle nothingness...not the sad nothingness...but the quiet of it, which is really quite something. i struggled today with ego and pride, and then it hit me that decisions that were made were made with a higher purpose than mine. And things have a way of edging into place, quietly and gently sometimes, as if nothing at all has changed, but it has...the same way your children grow, gently and quietly, hidden by tantrums and sand in their crevices, cheerios in the light fixtures, but then, suddenly they are bigger....this is how life is, so often, the loud parts distract us from the small snuggling in of things...life's way of pretending to yawn whilst it drops it's arm around our shoulders at the movies...suddenly it's there, the weight of it all heavy and warm and certain.

long day pondering

i think perhaps this blog is misnamed...of course, maybe not. i started it when some friends and i really did have martini playdates...now it's mainly just me, tootling around my yard, surrounded by grubby and adorable, inquisitive blond boys, sometimes holding a vodka tonic, more often, a diet coke, or water with lemon. i'm watching my chickens grow. watching my growing children watching them and the world with wonder. every day my youngest demonstrates a new word, a new daredevil act, or best yet, a new act of love and gentleness. every day my older son, surprises me with insight, and yesterday decided no more kisses. i do anyway, a little because it sends him into gales of burbly giggles, but mostly, because i need to. i need him to need me still, even as i let him learn who he is. and i need that soft baby skin to yield to my mommyness. he's too 4, too fast. i watch the seasons change, feel me change...back and forth and back again. participate in my life as fully as i can. i do know it's a short one. the biggest heartbreak, but joy, also, of life is it's fleeting quality. i am sad to see sadness all around me, when we could be lifting our faces to the sun, breathing and going a new direction. i think about children and food and sustainability and love....and how to make these loves of mine last and feel cherished. how to use these powers for good. i'll get back to you on that...

Urban Farmer

this time of year my thoughts and actions turn to the garden. every year i dream of feeding my family from my garden, with our own chickens and even bees (though, allergic to stings). I flip thru dog earred books and seed catalogs, my nails and the dry spots on my fingers are stained with soil. i bake bread, i bake pies, i stock up on canning supplies early....and then we have to move. this year, i'm gonna finally do it successfully. i've got good soil. i've got no plans to move (can't anyway), i've got a chicken coop in the planning stage and feelers out for hens. i have indoor starts planted. garden bed is turned and ready to be supplemented with farm poo. these things, not the things i think i want, are what really make me happy. feeding my family, watching my sons play in the dirt, finding worms and making "yucky pie". the real me comes out in spring, and again in the fall. the seasons for growth and for hunkering down and nurturing. nothing excites me more than a sprout..than a vegetable or fruit growing on the vine i planted.
i just watched a bubble bee peek in my window, zoom past the cat, tempting him madly and zip off...even on these stormy days, spring is trying to emerge. it's trying to be here.

woodsmoke and rain

a combination of smells...i love woodsmoke, rain and pine trees. i went for a walk tonight. the smoke and foggy rain hovered in the branches of the trees in the low hills, perched but moving and alive. there was something very comforting about it. reassuring me i'm still here, still in my beloved Willamette Valley, still where it rains to comfort me and take care of the green. walking in out of it, drenched to the bone..to a warm house, still smelling like stewing beef burgundy, and warm bread, greeted by a wiggly dog and a relaxed husband, was pretty darn great.

mortar fire.

oh these little injuries. so many tiny fragments of shrapnel. tiny and sharp, moving slowly just under the skin. so slow you don't even know they are moving, or even there, until one hits your heart, just a tiny prick is enough to take you down.

i'm feeling sort of battered by the days lately. it's sort of self serving, but i do feel a bit picked on. i've got wavering faith. wavering loyalties. wavering everything. the only sure thing is that these kids need me every day. test me every day. but they also love me every day. one is currently screaming in time out, the other is needing constant reminders of the rules, and honestly i want to chuck them both in their rooms and leave them there for awhile.

on the other hand, other things about me have been completely disregarded. it's fine, really. one becomes invisible after awhile. no matter how red the hair is. these little injuries.

packages, tied up with string.

i've spent a large part of my life trying to (cliche here) "find myself". i've tried country, rock and roll, jazz....literally and metaphorically. i've tried city and country, and urban farming. i've tried vegetarian, vegan and protein only. i've tried wild and free and reserved housewife (not as good at that last one). what i'm starting to figure out is that i'm all of those things. it's not an easy way to be. it confuses people. me, mostly. but i'm starting to settle in to this disconnection or lack of loyalty to one way. i know i'm a mother for sure. i know i'm a cook and a nurturer, also, certainly. i know i like wine and coffee and bread. always. i like orange, and retro furniture. i like gardens and clean floors. spring smells and first sunshine always make me want to be rebellious and unencumbered, if only for a little while. the smell of fall makes me want to bake pie and simmer stew.
i've realized insecurities make me act irresponsibly. make me act like someone who is not all of the above. we, as women, as people, should probably knock that crap off and just learn to love ourselves. i've learned i think i can do everything myself. and while i can't, i sure can do a lot myself. but not everything. well, i'm running out of things to say. driving today, i had a lot to write, but a lot of daily life and jumbles of stuff happened between then and now. jumble happens.

the silence is shattered by a pissed off chicken...

you know how it goes. same old story. kids in bed, dinner mess cleaned up, husband and buddy hanging out at the end of the driveway, chewin' the fat. it's quiet, and you know what's coming. a nearby, clearly wronged chicken cuts loose with a string of poultry profanity. i mean, really. i have children here, listening!

this day was fantastic. really great....i love thursdays..joe gets up early to go to men's breakfast..which means i get the bed for a whole hour to myself (ideally)until Cole tromps down the stairs and snuggles in next to me....for a bit, until Liam, who isn't brave enough yet, thankfully, to descend the stairs groggy, calls for me...then the madness starts. but i love it too, because i wake to the smell of hot coffee, and the house is starting to warm up. but today was especially stellar because a good friend came to visit. it's always fun with her. funny things are funnier with her around. catching the grill on fire, attempting to cook bacon...normally this type of thing would have made me nervous...instead, we stood around debating what to do as my grill flamed--parts that typically are not supposed to flame. finally, laughing hysterically, we called joe to make sure we'd done right (unhooked gas, closed lid, threw some flour on it(which ignited, thusly igniting more laughter from us). the attempt to keep the bacon smell out of my house backfired quite profoundly. and i loved it. made a cake from scratch, dinner was in the crockpot, so i walked resolutely past the laundry to play with my kids in the sunshine. it was just the kind of day you never remember you love so much until it happens. and now, alone in my breakfast nook, smelling an overripe lemon, thinking about doing my taxes...last years....i'm thinking, no, let's keep it up. let's just enjoy these simple pleasures, smells, sounds or lack of sounds, forever friends, kid messes, and every imperfection that makes us perfect. lets just camp there, and be still.

pretty long roar, huh?

sitting with my 4 year old son. he's drinking a homemade smoothie. he looks like the purple pie man, with his blackberry handlebar mustache. he practicing his roars....and his dad's, and his little brother's....all in various pitches and lengths. this kid amuses me. he talks darn near constantly. not sure where he gets that. ahem. his heart and his capacity for expressing love are wonderous to me. his little brother...X-Games athlete in the making. fearless...but the same tender, expressive love. i feel so blessed and i hope they keep this quality.

sitting in this funky little fixer upper today, i feel content. this house is like me...solid foundation...cosmetically challenged, some rough edges and plumbing problems...but charming and warm and inviting. it's a house that likes to hug, and likes to be loved back. it feels happiest when full of laughter and good smells. it's nice to feel this way...after a spell of unrest, of uncertainty, of disconnect. it's nice to sit here, listening to the sounds of my kids playing, a vase of spring buds on my table, next to a window looking out onto the back deck, while a roast chicken bursts lemoney, peppery goodness out of the oven. it's good to be back.