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!