So grateful they have each other.
The Heart of It
The world in chaos and it always comes back to this. This is where our hearts beat and hope lives. Protected by love until that’s all we have left. It’s you, darling, and it always will be.
Details
A series of details. Tiny braids, tiny hands, tiny (but mighty!) toes, and my beautiful girl. 💛
Alchemy
Making magic out of dirt.
Billowing
Getting our hands dirty.
Summer in Sight
Racing to the end of school like...
~10 days of online school instruction left, my peeps. 🙏🏻👊🏻
Motherhood
To mothers & motherhood. The biggest source of earthly growth & love I know. 💛
Showing Up
My soul is dusty.
In the chaos, the exhaustion, the holding all things together—I either fell apart myself, or was placed on a shelf until further notice. Not out of spite or neglect; by necessity. There isn’t time, there isn’t space, there isn’t energy to be a person, anymore. We only do and survive. Today, yesterday, tomorrow.
I wrote a mantra on my mirror a couple months ago. It’s there as a declaration as well as a reminder to myself. “When I show up, I make meaningful art.” Some days I don’t know what I’m making or why, but I keep trying to show up just the same.
Maybe someday I’ll look back and see art. Maybe someday I’ll see the meaning in all this madness. Maybe someday life will be normal, again. Keep. showing. up.
Happy Hour
Me: I am rarely happier than when I watch my kids play in nature.
Dan: During golden hour.
😆 #truth
Planting
So many wishes.
Salute
State-wide jet flyover to honor medical personnel. 💛
When Change is Hard
After sharing a series of stories about how coronavirus is here to stay and we need to face that rather than live in denial/waste time longing for normal (still believe that), my mind has turned to the most challenging experience of my life: when Lydia was born. How that new reality crushed me at first and seemed to completely change, even shatter, everything I had expected or hoped for in her life and mine. How I was faced with a new normal that I wanted to run from or escape. But there was no going back. And that was a very painful reality for awhile—one that periodically issues waves of sorrow that wash over me, still. So when I look at it in that light, my heart softens a little. This is hard. This is a change. There is no going back (at least immediately). And that hurts a whole lot and deserves to be mourned. Maybe repeatedly and for a long time.
At the same time, life still has to be faced. You might have to go through the open heart surgery while you’re still reeling from the extra chromosome, and you barely know which way is up, let alone forward, anymore. You may wonder how you will ever, ever make it, it’s so hard—even as your perspective & ability grow to meet the new normal. Even as you learn to appreciate real beauty where you least expected to find it.
“The only constant in life is change.” In spite of the upheaval and pain and hard we walked (crawled) through following Lydia’s birth, that paradigm shift has been one of my greatest blessings, sources of growth and even joy.
Maybe this virus & the fallout can be the same?
It hurts. And that’s ok. We’ll have to be patient with and help each other. We can’t go back; it is what it is. And we’ll get through it.
Sunshine
Getting out and going for a drive.
April 2020
April. It’s so weird that this is the year I finally committed to the 365 when it’s such a unique year to document! I have a lot to catch up on, but this gives some good representation.
Brief Moment
This is exactly what we did not do, today: relax 😆 But, the house is clean and the day ended with climbing trees & eating cinnamon rolls, so we’re just going to forget all the (really, really) bumpy parts and hang on to that.
Team Spirit
The one where Lydie was a cheerleader. 🎉
The Good Stuff
Sunsets. Spring. Play. Beauty. Grace.
These are the things we hang on to, moment by moment.
Milestones
Things we are working on right now!
Climbing stairs.
Standing.
Eating different textures.
Signing words.
Petting softly.
Tolerating other humans besides just Mom. 😂
Also, we have discovered the secret to overcoming the bum scoot in favor of crawling: grass!!
More than a number.
Dear Self, When you’re scrolling through your feed, what makes you stop and “like” an image? Is it because it’s “good”? Because it shows something you want? Does it reaffirm your opinion? Or is it to connect?
I think a lot of us come here to connect, but that’s not what this platform is geared towards. It’s driven by numbers and popularity and those likes we all base so much of our worth upon.
When someone puts something of themselves on the internet—a story, an image, a piece of art—many are trying to make money off it, sure, but most of us (and even the $ makers in some respects) are saying, “This is me.” And that’s a vulnerable act. So if no one responds or relates, our natural response is to feel unheard or unworthy. I believe that’s why so many of us come to hate this place. Because the silence and comparison seem to shout, “Thanks for showing up. You are not enough.”
And when people do show up with their shiny likes and affirmations we hear, “This! More of this! This is what I must produce!” But production lines aren’t always inspiring and are rarely if ever genuine or unique.
Brené Brown talks a lot about vulnerability and its importance. But I’ve also heard her talk about trying to be vulnerable while respecting yourself and not just giving your whole heart out to every unproven person to trample on.
And frankly, that’s what the internet does best—trample. Even when we don’t mean to, sometimes we scroll, scroll, scroll without so much as a, “meh.” Pass those pictures, those people by.
I’m over it.
You are not unworthy. You can like something because you like someONE no matter how the algorithms try to direct or buy your attention. And if the likes don’t show up it doesn’t mean you’re less of a person or that your story or art is not valid and important. It means that we’ve forgotten, all of us, how to connect. That we’ve been trained to evaluate and walk on, saturated by so much information that we stop seeing faces—or hearts—altogether.
You can walk away. You don’t have to bleed yourself dry for something that doesn’t give back. You can create and build and hone and save it for those people & moments that matter. That see. YOU matter. Love, your ❤️.
Kitten
Once, when we were visiting family property and I was about 10 with 4 other siblings right behind me, we found a box of kittens. NEW kittens. Of course we couldn’t leave them there to die, so we brought them home. But those sweet babies needed to be bottle fed which proved beyond us, and also five kids plus four kittens is a lot 😬 so, we took them to an animal shelter where they could get the help they needed and traded them in for two older kitties that became the family pets. My brother named one Tiger, and I, in true kid fashion, named the other one Furball. 😅 Furball (“Furbs”) wasn’t “my” cat, but she was MY cat; we just got each other, and I loved that girl for years and years. Even after I was in college and had lived away from home, she was one of the best parts of visiting. When she finally died, I sobbed. And, I don’t know, I kind of think she’s waiting for me in heaven. *** My boys haven’t had a lot of stability growing up, at least in the fact that we’ve moved so many times, many cross-country. Like every kid they wanted a pet and after a lot of family discussion about what would work for us, I promised them a cat “some day.” They have patiently waited and never forgotten. Once we bought the house we all knew it was time. I spent a year looking for the right kitty for us & never would have imagined he’d fall in our laps right during COVID when we all needed a boost; but, he did, because God is good like that. 💛 So, this is Maverick, and he is loved. Seeing my kids with him takes me back to my childhood kitties and makes my heart so happy.
