Write EVERY Day...HOME

Starting 2015 in California, the place of my birth, the place of my mother's birth, the place of my grandmother's birth...the place that holds so much of ME. All of my childhood lies within about a 150 mile radius of the kitchen table that I sit at tonight. It has been a weird "last week" of the last year. Today starts yet another...and where will it take me, take us? So many steps ahead to climb. My wish for the next year is simple...strength. To dig deep within and summon strength to live peacefully, presently and pressure-free. SO often I find myself frustrated with the little things.When given the power that they do not deserve, they can be overwhelming. In 2015 I have a hope to push everything insignificant to the side and focus on the people and places that make me whole and powerful. To love them and care for them fiercely. This week has been filled with smells of this beautiful drought- ridden reminder of my life, smells that evoke memories, memories that bring peace and understanding when I am trying so hard to understand why some things happen to the people that they should NOT happen to. 2015 bring on your love...bring on your healing...bring on your reasons to remember and stay present. Today I am thankful for acorns and peppercorns, camellias and redwoods all in one place, smells that remind me of hikes and creeks and playing on gnarled branches. My mom's rum cake and my aunt's perfume.  Powerful wind and the coastal air that softens my dried up high desert heart. Lemons and oranges from our neighbor's tree. REAL citrus....it is heavenly! Scrunched up lavender and a bay leaf in my pocket from a walk. Grey-green olive trees and agave all mixed up in the view from beneath the eucalyptus. I am immersing myself in the tangible during these last hours of January splendor in the Bay. Tomorrow we head north to responsibility, snow, juniper and pine. Smells that are HOME as well, but for tonight I am thankful to be right HERE. Thankful for my MOM. Thankful for LIFE and a CHANCE to see it through another year. Thankful for California no matter how much it struggles. Thankful for green grass and a few almond trees left amongst the condos and concrete of the Santa Clara Valley...thankful for this little oasis of Mt. Hamilton, for better or for worse, you are home and home feels good.

Making Love to Life

As I sit in the warm afternoon light after having just raked the yard...not for the sake of clearing leaves but just for the sake of raking...I am thankful and I am in love. This is my favorite season, my favorite time to be a part of the world. The coolish weather and sensory appeal of fall have never ceased to bring me out of my "reclusive extrovert" shell. New personality type I discovered...more later. Today I am making the most of a Saturday that was supposed to be spent in the Ochocos camping. Instead we decided to stay local and start our "fall cleaning" and yard love a bit early. It has been a magical day. Slept in, snuggled with three love bugs, had coffee and fried egg sandwiches with Siracha, journaled and laundered, raked and laundered some more. Read to my youngest and sang songs with the oldest. And now, now they have gone...aah the sheer beauty of QUIET. I am sitting in our backyard, thankful for smells. Oh the smells of fall...a few faint whiffs of summer from the fresh cut tomato vine in the compost, crushed lavender on my hands from pruning and the woody, warm freshness from new shavings that line the coop. The sights and sounds are pretty wonderful too...asters in full bloom and bees! buzzing in and out, here and there. Chickens clucking, the rustling in the aspen trees and the gentle click, click of my own hunting and pecking. Being here, being present, immersing oneself in the moments...I must assume that this is what she meant when she said, "Make love to life." The woman that I am speaking of, I've never met. I did have the privilege of seeing her speak once though and she inspired me then, even from afar, even if only for 30 minutes. She wrote stories about and took photographs of women...she told their "Body Stories"... When I heard about her project at the Muse Conference last spring I was intrigued and inspired. Having PLENTY of my own body stories to tell and desperately hoping for someone to share them with...someone who understood them and would care for them, I tried to reach out to her just a month after that day that she had been on the panel at the conference. I looked her up and to my utter sadness her blog shared all of her beautiful work, but also her brave announcement that she had been diagnosed with cancer. Out of respect and not wanting to bother her, I never made contact, but fiercely wished her support and healing as she embarked on the journey that was before her. Over the summer months there were a few days that I thought about her...Sarah is her name...but again I did not connect. I did not know her, I did not want to bother her. On September 15th, a feed on my Facebook page from a friend of a friend shared the news of her great fight, her beautiful spirit and of her passing. I wept. Not because I knew and loved her, but because she was loved and would now be forever missed all because of some awful cancer that invaded her body.  The next day I read another post titled "Make Love To Life" http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/08/a-manifesto-for-living-a-life-worth-writing-about-sarah-mcmurray/ that she had written. From some beautiful place in the heavens she inspired me again. Sarah...I did not know you but I wish I could have had that honor. Your work and words have deeply inspired me as a woman, a writer, a budding photographer and...a person. Thank you. May your family find peace as they remember you.

Embracing 35...and BENDing Expectations

Yesterday when I picked my daughter up from school at 3:30 in a fog of cold and flu medicine with a sick baby in the stroller, I found myself among throngs of other parents all away from work at 3:30 on a Friday. I was away because I was genuinely ill and did not have another parent to pick-up my child (John is working nights these days), but I found myself wondering What Do People Do All Day? here in Bend. I am both impressed and perplexed as to how many people my age have created a niche for themselves in which they do not work regular hours. Now in our case, John CAN be there to pick up and drop off quite a bit because he works nights, so do all of these other people work nights? No...don't think so. They were too happy and bright for that. :) What I do think is that Bend attracts people that are innovative and savvy and have left some crazy, hectic city life in order to slow down, dig deeply into their lives and families and connect with their schools and communities. Well done Bend! I am both proud of you and a bit jealous. I must remind you that this is a sliver of the population, and that there are plenty of people here working hard 9-5, in the trenches, day-in, day-out and they are in the same boat that we are in...but...the latter population is what I have based my expectations on for our family. I am deeply saddened by the fact that I can't take my daughter to school each day, walk with her among other moms and dads and pick her up on a regular basis. Quite frankly...it sucks. I also love my job. I love being a teacher, I love working with kids from ALL different places and I love having a career...albeit a stressful one that doesn't pay much. So... how do we SHIFT? How do I shift my expectations and be grateful for the beautiful life we have? How do we dig in even if were exhausted on Saturday mornings, how do we balance the load of work and financial responsibility with the joy of love, spirituality and self-time...not to mention exercise?? How do we raise kids that are tuned into nature and others instead of the tube, the computer and "what others have"? These are my questions this year...and How to stay healthy? :). We have worked so hard to get back to this "place", but this place is actually very different than we "expected" now that we're here. The place we need to return to is the place inside our hearts, inside our selves...a place of balance, gratitude and love. Sad to report that we have strayed so far from that place in such a short amount of time...only five months. So 2014...Year of the Horse...here we go. Eyes open, hearts open...time to BEND our expectations back into healthy ones and love this life. Life is what you make of it...and we only have one. The first thirty-five years have been amazing, here's to the next 35...and 40 for John this year!

fall...ing

October one, and I am fall...ing.

A Life Less Temporary...

I am a writer. I love to write...it is soothing to me. And yet, I rarely post on this old blog site. I tend to write for myself rather than others and I have journals full of handwritten ramblings about the simple day to day stuff that is important to me...and no one else. The feel of a "flowy" pen in my hand and soft pages of white or white-with-lines or linen or even the yellow orderliness of a legal pad, is much more enticing to me than slowly picking and plunking away on a keyboard hunched over my computer at the kitchen table ( as I am doing right now). Anyhow, in my quest for internal change this past spring, I happened upon Shawn Ledington Fink...a writer, a coach, and an Abundant Mama. I signed up for her weekly posts on living an "Awake Life" and I must say that I am smitten. I love opening my e-mails from her site each week and falling into a quote or a story, a tribute to the ordinary life of mothering or a frustration with dreams being put on hold. There are some weeks that she speaks so directly to my inner soul and self that I think she must have snuck into my brain at night. She is so much braver than I am though, as she is willing to put her feelings out there for the world to see.  So this week she posed a challenge to "Start Living". The idea of this challenge spoke volumes to the choices that we have made as of late and to the decision to return to Bend against all odds...against financial pressures, against lack of jobs, against moving for the FIFTH flipping time in two years, against a possible illness that was too scary to even comprehend, against uprooting our sweet precious beans. Against it all, we have pushed forward and made it happen. Last week, as we solidified our plans, I realized that part of this plan is to stop living a temporary life. The nature of our nomadic lifestyle over the past two years has at times stopped us from truly connecting to the places that we have lived. We have tried and we have both succeeded and failed in our efforts.  As Bend is upon us, I want to put down roots again, plant my garden, call on my friends, soak up the community that I am part of and believe in. I want my daughters to have a sense of belonging and a feeling of permanence. I am so excited to leave this temporary way of living behind. I love the open road, but I love the feeling of home even more. As I pack boxes tonight, it is my hope that they will soon land in a place that they will not be needed any more. As I take down pictures from the walls I realize that we have not been here long enough for the paint to have faded behind them...I want that again...I want faded paint. So, my challenge to "start living" is actually a challenge to continue living and to do so by reaching out and reconnecting and re-experiencing our long lost hometown. I look forward to seeking out favorite hiking trails but also finding new ones, to introducing the girls to our old friends but also to making new ones.. I want to be awake and present and live in the moment, but I also want the moments build upon each other so that memories are forged, traditions are engrained and life is familiar again. So here's to writing, to living and to making a commitment toward being an active member not only of my community, but of my own life.

Three shots of "living a life less temporary" from our amazing summer trips. Love that we are all looking "forward" to what lies ahead...

Mama & Nina "respecting the ocean" at Pomponio Beach 

Dad & Neens paddling together on Tahoe

Elsa's adorable bum at Angora Lake

Happy Hearts Day

Valentines Day is over and done with but the sweet, simple heart garland that we made for a gathering of preschoolers at our home last week is still here. It is hanging in the space between our living room and kitchen and so forces us to walk beneath it every day. I love it. Every time I catch a glimpse of it, I smile. And smiles have been necessary as of late...

It has been a strange week for our family. John has had many overtime days, the littlest bean came down with roseola, Nina has been the sassiest ever (most likely due to lack of attention) and I am just plain sleep-deprived. More importantly though, and on a much sadder note...our neighbor across the street passed away. We did not know him very well; just a wave when we were outside or a chat about the weather, but his passing has left a mark. John was his primary nurse in the ER, even though he had passed before he got there.  They still tried. I got a call from John that evening sharing the news after a long day missing Bend, flustered with myself and children and school lotteries and life choices. It was a sad reminder that none of these worries mean a thing if you are not alive to worry about them. Bill died of a sudden, massive heart attack. He was 59. 

That night, our first snow fell in Kingman. Big chunky flakes coated the cactus in our yard and softened the sadness and unexpectedness of death so close to home. The snow helped me explain to my four year old that the man across the street had died...offering a gentle story about snowflakes and heaven and not waking up. It was the first time I had ever talked about death with Nina, and it was a very meaningful conversation, yet in that moment all I could think was...am I doing this right?

I am in month six of being a stay-at-home mom, and this thought crosses my mind and heart on a daily basis. Am I giving my children what they need? Am I adequately fulfilling this amazing task of mothering that I have been so carefully handed...or am I just so consistently screwing it up that my poor daughters will not know the difference? Worry and anxiety are parts of my nature that have seemed to intensify as the years go by. I constantly assess what I am doing, how I am doing it and what I can do differently. It is exhausting and not very healthy.  

As 2013 begins and the Year of the Snake is upon us, I want to change this. Bill's death, for whatever reason, was an aha moment, a face-slap moment: "I could be dead in an instant...gone forever." In the past ten days, I have been feverishly researching...reading bits of wisdom from other bloggers, checking out inspirational books from the library and starting to prepare for a fundamental shift in the way that I live and act.  I want to stop worrying and start really fully living. Living with purpose. Being awake. Showing gratitude for each day.  Nurturing relationships and taking time to love. I don't want to second-guess myself anymore.

So...with this in mind, Happy Hearts Day. May the love I have in my heart be strong enough and transformative enough to spark the internal change that I seek.  May Bill's heart rest in peace and may peace be with his family. May love and gratitude be yours EVERYDAY.

My Three Valentines

2012

As the first day of 2013 comes to a close...I am thoughtful of and thankful for all that came to pass in the last year. John was working sadly, but we texted at midnight...how romantic. So, the final eve in 2012, was spent with my children and our new Arizona friends, creating a new tradition.  I LOVE traditions. They ground me and more often than not this past year have served as a source of grace and salvation in a world of unknowns. Our new tradition (borrowed from said friends) is simple...breaking a pinata on New Year's Eve to "break in" the new year. It was very kid friendly, and thanks to the sheer silliness of repeated pummeling of a ridiculously taped cardboard creation, I laughed like I had not laughed in a very long time.

Having survived the night and waking to a New Year's day that provided nothing particularly special or meaningful...same old 6am wake up call from the babes, same old coffee mug, same clothes in the dryer that need to be folded, same dog that needed to be fed, etc. I decided that today I must repeat the tradition that I have made with myself each new year...to reflect.

My reflection usually consists of pawing through the last year's notes and cards, journal entries and photos...just for the joy of remembering. I snuggle up with a cup of coffee and pore over this much loved correspondence with a hope for the same in the following year. I also take down the calendars and replace them with fresh ones, yet not without a reverent combing through to remember the events, minor and major, that graced the square boxes of our lives over the course of 365 days.

I love calendars. It must be the teacher in me, but I love the planning and recording that they force us to do. I love that each year brings the gift of four new seasons and all of the outings and adventures that go along with them. I love birthdays and holidays...days that are ordinary to most, but special to my family and community.

One of my favorite children's book illustrators, Nikki McClure, also publishes a calendar each year. The luscious cut-paper prints entice me to no end, while the dates and moon phases are simple and non-intrusive. But, the best part about her calendars are the WORDS! Each month is given a special word all to itself. Last year's NMC calendar became like a premonitory thesaurus for my life. It was the most unreal thing! Each month as I turned over the new page, there stood the word that exactly defined that month of my life...my theme, my definition, right there as if she had planned it that way. And so to sum up 2012...here are Nikki Mc Clure's 12 Calendar WORDS that strangely and magically came to define  the last year of my life.

January - PERMIT
Permit yourself to not have resolutions this year...give in to sleep and self-care during the mid-months of pregnancy. Permit yourself to have the first year of postponing goals and expectations and worries of the new year...instead give in to sustenance and family and self-preservation in a world of caring for others.

February - SUMMON
Summon faith and the good wishes of the gods as you hope and pray that your job lasts past its temporary date of February 29th. Summon strength and determination to keep working through the school year in order to support your growing family and nearly graduated husband.

March - INHERIT
Inherit the job of your predecessor...do not let her down, as this was HER class, HER place. Inherit the pride that comes with working with children who have nothing. Inherit the courage that will be necessary to make it through these last months of pregnancy while not knowing where life will take you. Inherit patience and strength as you navigate the troubled waters of your marriage.

April - FREE
Free for one more month...free before the realities of graduation, birth and job are upon us. One magical month left of just the three of us: John, Becky and Nina before we welcome this new little soul. Free as we enjoy one more month of the college-lifestyle that has been our year in Flagstaff.

May - PERSIST
Persist, work hard, don't give up...graduate. Persist through to the end of the school year with my class before the baby comes. Persist even though you have no strength left to carry this enormous child! Persist right up until the very end of the month...May 31st. She is here and she is healthy and happy...thanks to our persistence!

June - GOOD LUCK
Good luck to us as we send out resumes and remember life with a newborn. Good luck to us as we pack up our belongings...AGAIN...and venture towards the unknown. No jobs, no home, two babies...GOOD LUCK!

July - DEPEND
Depend on the parents that love us and have welcomed us home. Depend on strong shoulders while we wait and hope. Depend on in-laws that buy diapers and make dinners because they have faith in us and know that things will be okay. Depend on each other in a time that we know not what will come but have put every best effort forth towards the promise of something brighter.

August - STEADY
Steady ourselves as we receive the good news and accept the job. Steady income, steady marriage. Steady ourselves and move forward into a new life that we are wary of but so so grateful for.

September - FOSTER
Foster new relationships in this new place, this foreign place of cactus and sand. Foster kindness and openness to those that think so very differently than we do. Foster friendships at new schools and new workplaces.

October - ENCHANT
Enchant ourselves with the whims and marvels of two small children. Enchanted by new friends that bring apples and pomegranates ( in the desert?), a bloom on the cactus in the front yard and birds that grace us with their beautiful morning fluttering just because we put the seed out.

November - PURPOSE
Purposefully travel to be with family in celebration of the passing of a life. Purpose and hard work as John dutifully serves the ER each night and supports our family. A sense of heightened purpose as we celebrate living in a free world with choices in who we elect to serve our nation.

December - WE ARE STARLIGHT
Remembering that life is such a beautiful, short gift that we are given. Celebrating milestones with family and mourning the inconceivable loss of 26 lives in CT.  Holding our children dear and taking part in traditions old and new...facing the worries of what will come to pass in the new year. We are but a small speck on this earth. Our time here is precious...we must do the best we can to cherish every moment. WE ARE STARLIGHT!

Happy New Year to all... may 2013 bring all of these things and more!