permanence

We are smack in the middle of my favorite time of year. Cozying into layered favorites. Aromas in the home after an afternoon of chopping, sautéing, and simmering goodness  in the kitchen. Tucking in for tea or a good read while the rhythm of the home backdrops the moment. Don't tell the others, but fall is my favorite.

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Last month my son and I were out for a walk. We passed by a leaf with great coloring that we both paused to give a second glance before moving down the street. I stayed on course, but he broke our hand hold and hustled back to fetch the leaf off the sidewalk. “You gotta remember the good stuff,” he said. I thanked him for the good thought and tucked the leaf into his shirt pocket for the rest of our sunny stroll. 

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The next day we ventured to a local haunt that features treasures and finds during the first weekend of every month. Amidst the antiques and collectibles is the ongoing gifting of sentiments on a wall inside the loo. After a stop in there my son came out from behind the door to say that he’d left a note too. “I told people to remember the good stuff, Mom!” I smiled, loving that the day before was still cooking inside his young, old soul head. 

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At the start of this month I cruised through to see the most recent additions in the shop—if anything old was new and up for the needing. While there, my daughter headed to use the bathroom, so I followed along, mostly to see if her brother’s post from the month prior remained. I scanned the entries, but I didn't see his handwriting or words among the collection. Just shy of a disheartened departure I saw his graffitied addition among the yellow bits of paper. Either they’d run out of post its or he felt his words worthy enough of an permanent reminder. In ballpoint purpose I read it right there: Remember the good stuff.

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Cause in the fleeting in betweens, amidst the seasons that come and go, in the ebb and flow of our days, we’ve gotta hold onto that which puts a pause or skip in our step. We have to jot down, retrieve, and savor that which is worth holding onto. We have to ink in our mind the times and things and people that fill our heart's treasury. 

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advent

It's only because we picked the long-loved Mexican option near home versus the one nearby for dinner. And had we not taken the roundabout way to our neck of the woods, we never would have stumbled upon a picture perfect tree lot for our traditional post-Thanksgiving hunt. "Pull over! Let's check it out."

The sun was setting in all its glory, the kids were zig zagging through all the greenery, and I was loving the twinkling white lights shining on all of the options for our perfect pick. It felt like Christmas, the Hallmark movie kind that I can't help but watch this time of year. 

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The boy scouts on hand let us know that we could keep the trimmed piece off the tree if we wanted. Sensing an arts and crafts option for sentimentality, I was all over the notion.

With fingers sticky from sap, I looked at the rings circled on the bit of trunk and thought about what a dear friend mentioned earlier this month--that what if we all were trees, with the chance to offer other souls a glimpse at our rings, our cycles and circles that defined us?

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It wouldn't be a collection of perfection. Some years would swing wide with joy, some jagged with grief, some zig-zagging and wandering, others on course taking aim.

What I like about the rings is the building upon, the circling of experiences around one's spirit. The venturing out or hugging the turns, but still swinging back to complete the cycle, to add another year to the life that's evolving, becoming. 

Advent is my favorite season.

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I love the anticipation that comes with eager young ones getting wrapped up in the magic that is Christmas. I reflect on the year's events while looking to another turn of a calendar year. And I try to savor the now, filled with promise and opportunity for all of us to grow into and enjoy what's to be. 

Our joys, our hurts, our milestones, our dawnings--all collected in a compact glimpse, our many seasons of being. 

"a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living."    
—Virginia Woolf

here, boy

It could be a few weeks, it could be a few months. But either way, the end's been mentioned for our English Setter. 

Happy, heart-shaped patch upon 'round his eye, he is a love of a pup. And according to my husband, he's as money in the field finding birds as he is loyal in loving those with whom he lives. 

My great grandmother once noted that it's a blessing to not know what tomorrow's going to bring--in goodness and misfortune, not knowing about tomorrow's unfolding keeps one from worrying over or celebrating that which isn't even in the books yet--leaves us to settle into the now.

Yet, our boy's diagnosis is a bit of a boon even in its disappointment because it reminds me to savor the todays while we have them. And him. 

Errands with a co-pilot, extra pats and scritch-scrathes, making time to sneak in an extra block, letting the kids take the leash, more eggs scrambled for sharing, more packages of bacon for frying.

More loving, less barking.

There is nothing like the steadfastness of a good boy or girl in one's life. The loving without ceasing, the eagerness in pleasing, the tail wagging to greet, the joy-filled hustle to go for a walk, the contentedness that is an open window ride down the road. 

Our house won't be the same when our boy's gone; it will be better because he lived, loved, and tucked in among all of us here. 

walk on

My friend kindly shared great mothering wisdom in my early 'tending to two' days. I didn’t know, though, that when you "prepare the child for the path" (and not the path for the child), that you’ll walk home to a house so deafeningly quiet that you can almost hear those tears rolling down your face. 

“It’s already started…” one dad said as his daughter waved good-bye and crossed the street to the bigger school. That was just before the mom who also does '2nd Day of School' pictures was a reminder for me to take ours too as she relayed her offspring’s reluctance to keep with tradition. 

Mine wanted to leave five minutes early today. The one who used to grip her legs around my hip as we’d walk into Mother’s Day Out was sharing the joy that is seeing her new teacher. And big brother assured me that he’ll take the long route to his classroom, making sure that little sister gets to hers. Cause they can cross the street together now, and they’ll have that sibling stride to the bigger school, and around the corner I won’t be able to see if they stick together or dive into the company of friends. I may know the path, but I won’t always get to walk alongside. 

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There are house sounds that go unnoticed when you’re so busy in the living. There are things that you forget to feel in the hubbub going and doing. And then the early years of trying to keep up greet you with a stillness of what’s been created, and you celebrate and grieve the milestones reached. Everything's rolled up into one, big catch-in-your-throat emotion that leaves you taking a seat with a sigh because you’re just not sure what you’re supposed to do next—because nobody’s asking for a snack. 

I watched our son pause and take a deep breath when he reached his new classroom yesterday. A “let’s do this, I can do this” sort of reminder to self. And I felt my daughter’s grip loosen a bit on my hand as she spied faces familiar. A “here’s happy and fun and waiting for me” start to a new chapter. 

Maybe they were just showing me how to get through my Day Two. 
Or my day too.

Thanks for that, dear hearts.
I'll meet you at the corner.

making the connect

My knees hurt when I run.

Heredity's a front runner for that. There's also the part where I'm finding my cadence again after an injury-motivated hiatus. It might also have something to do with my Tough Mudder Party of One when I took a digger during my first tour back a few weeks ago. 

But the pain is worth the reward of endorphins, and there's a peace that a personal pace can bring. 

"The knee bone's connected to the..."

My friend said that strengthening my inner leg muscles would help, would keep the knee cap from straining and pulling.

While I won't be Amazon-Priming a thigh master anytime soon, I'll find a way to heed what she is saying. 

"The thigh bone's connected to the..."

It makes sense, of course, that whatever's aching maybe needs to call on the other parts to buoy, join in the strengthening. That whatever joint's forgotten how can be reminded by that which remembers when. 

We fashion these strongholds throughout life and sometimes overlook the steadfastness of certainties, the steely reserve that's fortified throughout our experiences, our exertions, our strides, and our recoups.  

"The hip bone's connected to the..."

The Tin Man always had a heart.
The Lion, already courageous.
The Scarecrow, a brain and more. 

They just needed to lock arms, look ahead, get a nudge, and sometimes skip along their yellow brick path full of promise. They needed to bump into one another, see how one could support the other, and find that what they needed was there all along. 

"The backbone's connected to the..."