Read this while I weep

Your Mother

My mother puts me
in her warm hands
and I smile.
I love her
more than the world.

She is the one
with the warm smile
always on her face.

She is the one
to smile deeply
until you
smile deeply too.

I hug her
and she hugs me back.
I feel as if
there was magic
in the air,
and there is;
it is the magic
of love.


Sophia wrote this for me last night while I ranted about my girls' messy messy room. Need I say more?

Thankful Thursday: blog deficit and everyone

I probably should be in the kitchen right now washing dishes, which are legion. After a morning of errands and snow flurries, all I want to do is get my little ones a warm meal and have some quiet time, reading and writing and sitting.

The 30 posts in 30 days experiment has been interesting. Between both blogs, I have been posting fairly consistently, but certainly not everyday! No pressure, though. One thing I have noticed is that I am definitely more concerned with worthwhile content than posting everyday. Perhaps my enthusiasm has waned or maybe I've just found a better way.

The past several months have been an interesting journey into authenticity...something I definitely want to explore on a deeper level. My writing outside of the blogosphere has evolved and pulled me in. Other artists and relationships have been an increasing inspiration. I am discovering more about myself and the fascinating connections within humanity as a whole, how we communicate, learn, grow together and from each other, how we all need each other.

One of the most beautiful quotes I have read on the topic lately is from Allison Mack's Blog:

“Compassion is the emotional glue that keeps you rooted in the universality of the human experience, as it connects you to your essence and to the essence of those around you. It is the act of opening your heart”

What a pressing role compassion plays in the expansion and maturing of the human soul. How deeply the connection and empathy we feel toward others effects us individually and as a whole, finding that our inward experiences are not so different, finding that whatever our earthly existence, the essence of our being relates deeply with the experience of others, even in our vast differences. This compassion, this connection, could change the world.

Neglected jobs and tea parties

Today is apparently a day for neglected jobs: cleaning trash cans, scrubbing the floor under large appliances, decluttering the top of my dryer.

The advent of Halloween and sticky gunk stuck to the sides and bottom of the trash cans is a sign that it is time. I only use a bag in the kitchen trash (the one all stickies are supposed to be tossed in), trying to be kind to our landfills. (or in attempt to off set the guilt of all the disposable diapers we've sent there over the past 91/2 years.) In spite of the yucky factor, it's a surprisingly rewarding task,creating an entirely new appreciation for the void and sparkling trash receptacles.

In the past, it's been customary to pull the big appliances out (washer, dryer, fridge, stove) in the last few weeks of my pregnancies. The hidden floors probably deserved to be scrubbed more often, but at least I was consistent. Since the whole nesting thing is a past chapter, I'm thinking a new routine will need to be established. I haven't figured that out yet, but the trash cans just put me in the mood, so maybe chewed and discarded gum is the trigger. At any rate, again, quite a rewarding job...can't see it, but you just know it's clean. That's nice.

The laundry room in our house is also the downstairs bathroom, and where I store cleaning supplies. The dryer has become one of the many collection spots. It collects spare change, combs and brushes, a variety of hair accessories, baseballs, empty detergent bottles awaiting rinse and recycle, nail clippers, plastic recorders, buttons and dust, among other items. The plan is to declutter this area and wipe it clean, but I've been side-tracked by a lovely tea-party hosted by my Sarah.

The dryer can wait...

Thankful Thursday: Bigelow's Vanilla Almond

I'm thankful for my next-door friend who decided not to wait until Christmas to deliver a box of Bigelow Tea's coveted Vanilla Almond. We've both grieved this line being pulled from local grocer's shelves, bought multiple boxes at a time wherever found, and shared our dwindling stock.

What is it about this tea that keeps us hunting it down? It is, as with all well- brewed tea, the aroma. Mmmmn. Maybe it is the fragrance of friendship, of late nights sitting up together, hot tea cupped in hands. Front porches, wicker seating, great conversation and tea.

I needed a good cuppa today. But more than that, I needed the smiling face, the "I couldn't make you wait 'til Christmas." Thank you, friend...that meant a lot to me today.

My un-done list.

Today I
didn't
make
the bed.

I
made the coolest fort.
ever.

Today I
didn't
fold
the last load
of laundry.

I
wrote something funny
with my son.

Today I
left dishes
in
the sink.

I
called
a far away
friend.

Today I
didn't blog.

I
sat on the couch
and laughed with Someone
and ate
peppermint bark.

Labels

I've always liked the time before dawn
because there's no one around to remind
me who I'm supposed to be,
so it's easier to remember who I am
~Brian Andreas

Don't we label ourselves, dear ones, with small labels? At any given moment, I am just as much Girl Washing Dishes as I am Girl Dancing With Baby. My ego revels in and clings to labels...labels like writer, artist, mother, wife. Deep down I know there is no difference...doing the dishes is just as sweet, just as good as writing poetry.

Moment by moment, life's transient nature is unveiled in the revelation of my “selfs.” This is where I begin to move, unattached to any one particular story of “me.” Here it is, the most beautiful, joyful place I have ever been, and then I realize that every moment is the play, every experience is exactly what I need to grow through. I melt into the action of washing a spoon, feeling the slipperiness of the suds and dish cloth over the surface, shiny, clean. I look into the utensil and am aware suddenly of the wonder in this moment, the ecstatic joy of holding such beauty in my very hand...and my hand so gracefully holding the spoon, plunging it beneath the water, rinsing the soap away...only silvery reflection. I am the Washer Of Spoons, I am the spoon.

My 2-year-old runs into the kitchen calling for me, tugging on my pant leg. I swing her up, knowing that her smile and laughter will break through. The spoon moment is gone and I am transformed into Mother....Mother with Child. Shimmering spoon no longer exists, I am in a new moment...the next now.

Small labels are sweet, dear ones, embrace them, love them, but do not cling to them. At this moment, I am Girl Sitting At Table With Coffee. My ego says, Writer....I am Writer...desperately clinging. This is a label I am stubborn with. This is a label that keeps me from loving “Girl Doing Dishes.” At times, it even keeps me from loving “Mother Playing With Children” and “Mother Singing Lullabies.” It is the label that keeps me identifying with this personality everyone calls “Ruthie.” I love it, but just like the spoon, it must sink below the surface and surrender to the waves of the moment by moment transience of life.

(This is an excerpt from a book project I'm working on, the one that's writing me.)

One little Voice

It's been one week and already I'm finding this 30 posts in 30 days idea dragging a bit. I guess I deserve a little grace considering I'm actually doing double duty...60 posts in 30 days between the two blogs. I'm one of the countless minuscule voices in the blogosphere...nevertheless, a voice. Every voice counts, even if heard by few.

Children will teach you about yourself. They'll teach you that you are capable of deep compassion, and also that you are definitely not the nice, calm, competent, clear-thinking, highly evolved person you fancied yourself to be before you became a mother.
~Harriet Lerner, The Mother Dance

When we are listened to, it creates us,
makes us unfold and expand.
~Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write

There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
~Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

A Song by Sophie

Sophie wrote this song for me. At the top of the page she added her version of the musical notations, influenced I'm guessing from music class at school. I love this. Here are the words:

If you think so slow

and it's sunny and slow

you better be happy

where you are

and bow down

beneath the air

hold your breath

for a second or more

hope you enjoy

what God gives you

on this earth.

~Sophie~

(7 yrs.)

LOL

There's a new comic in our house. She's two.

Her: Knock Knock

Me: Who's there?

Her: Manana

Me: Banana who?

She covers her mouth with her hands and snickers.

Then we all laugh wildly.

It's a good one.

Halloween

Ruby did have a diaper on here, but by this point, clothes were optional.

An Ode to Laundry and other things I didn't figure in...

I dreamed about guitars and walks in the woods...and helping people. I dreamed about traveling to India or writing music and poetry. These were my grown-up dreams in college.

I loved college. I loved the soulful, beautiful people I met there. I loved the freedom of finding my passion in life. I loved my writing classes and my mentors. I loved being alone.

I did laundry in college...at the laundromat. Sometimes I used the campus laundromat. It was always full of fantastic people. Funny people, studying people, people folding jeans. I liked to sit on my dryer and just be with them all. Sometimes we'd go to an off-campus laundromat, toss our clothes in and run quick to the Baskin-Robbins next door for ice-cream.

I never dreamed about my future laundry. Laundry was not as dreamy as music and poetry...and certainly didn't have the altruistic pull of digging wells in third-world countries and feeding wide-eyed hungry children. My dreams were much more magnanimous than washing clothes.

A couple of years into college, my friends started pairing up. Some were getting engaged, some were getting married. I was reading Amy Carmichael books, contemplating a single life traveling to foreign countries to save the world, and writing. Do missionaries do laundry? A picture of humanitarian aid workers washing socks never entered my imagination...just dirt and sweat and pony-tails.

Then something entirely unsuspected happened. I fell crazy in love. Total misjudgment, I know. You just can't plan these things. One minute you're building your castle in the sky, next minute you're gazing into the blue eyes of your destiny. And you start dreaming together.

Ten years and four little blue-eyes later, dirt and sweat and pony tails are my reality. So is sock-washing. My dreams never really faded, they just evolved. In truth, they came in to focus. Writing and walking in the woods, seeing people loved and transformed...these are still at the core of my aspirations. Only now, I'm dressing a few of them in Halloween costumes and trying to remember to pre-treat the chocolate smudges before setting the wash cycle.

Not to say that there's never a tug-of-war between my dreams and the laundry, I feel it nearly everyday. I've just learned to love the challenge, to let it teach me. If the laundry is smothering my heart, I feel discontent trying to creep in. Patience with my children grows thin. Then I try to do exactly what I want my children to learn...shake my head, take a deep breath and have grace...on my growing self.

I'd choose the laundry again.