Fall-en Goals

With the advent of fall we rearranged our rooms. With this rearrangement, came a reshifting of goals. There is something about the start of school that brings both sorrow and resolve. The languid days of summer with swimming punctuating our days gives way to flurry of pencil sharpening and uniform preps for the first day of school post labor day. 

With this surge of organizational activity I feel the urge to cleanse our house of stuff, of dormant idleness, and really an urge to move. I've moved many falls since I have been an adult so when the season of fall becomes apparent I get that itch. Instead of moving this year though, I decided to move rooms. And by rooms, every bedroom but the babies was involved. My sweet husband tolerated it, although did not feel the urge to do this. Finn's room became Kieran's room and my office. Our room became Finn and Liam's room. Liam and Ki Ki's room became ours. Did you follow that? Lots of beds were taken apart, reassembled and then taken apart again when the positioning in the room was not just so. 

During all this dusty upheaval came our kitchen farm table from the kitchen to my office/third's bedroom, where I resolved to get busy with my fall writing projects. 

Zen Desk-September light streaming in.

My nighttime view as I write...One of my sweets!

I need goals. I need the space to achieve those goals. And, I wanted to start my own schooling with the commencement of my boys schooling. The following is in no particular order, but is numbered for sanities sake--don't numbers look nice?!

1. Writing in my notebook...make this a daily meditation. When it is not daily do not get frustrated and feel all is lost, only reopen it and write. As you once wisely said: "Your notebook will not judge you it is always there waiting for you." 
2. Pull out past notebooks and start to piece together the hair book...daunting but necessary dragon to slay in order to move onward.
3. Write some shorter feature essays or short stories to send out to magazines.
4. Write some more posts for Outside.
5. Write daily poems--or at least weekly.
6. Recommit to the Nest!
7. Read good books. Good reading makes for good writing.

Then life happened to me and all my above goals gave way to real life.

Wild thing... you make my heart sing...you make everything...

Wild thing...I think I love you

Doulaing for a friend who's baby would have an intricately short life, reluctantly companioning my dog, Emma, through her sickness, Peter traveling oodles (thank God he is back again), and launching Yoga Calm classes at my boys school accompanied by six stitches in my achilles, and my zen office/third's bedroom now looks like this!

Real Life Zen Desk.

But guess what, all it took was some realization that I was missing my writing. Missing the page. Missing showing up. And realizing that without writing and exercise I can not do anything else with grace and composure, it's a life line for me. And guess what, confessing to you that I was spinning in my sorrow about the previous paragraph helped! Once I got that out and heard the gentle reassuring voice that nothing is ever lost, it all comes out in it's own time I was able to unclench, open my notebook, sit at my cluttered farm desk with the seasonal-clothes-switch-out still begging me for my attention, and like Max be able to tell the baskets: "Be still! And tamed them with the magic trick"--not now I am writing!

"BE STILL!"

Poem of the Day

Inspired by your 2012 project poem of the day, and your post on Power Bursts, which is totally the only way I can write these days, I share with you some of my poems of the day. Written with a call response form from my friend, Melissa, and inspired by her relationship with her children as well I give you...

Crayons

Coloring and Art work by Liam call me William

Request of a friend: "There's a poem to be written about crayons...their divine capacity to both transform paper and be an inspired tool of creators....as well as their cursed presence littering floors and demanding organizational attention...Who will write this poem for me?"

Coloring and Art work by Finn

My response to a friend: "Crayons crayons crayons, waxed and papered, prim and pointed. Belaying my child's inner world brought forth on crisp white snow of paper, on walls, in their mouths so that they speak their color. Oozing reds and yellows, wax indented molars, littered crayons, with scattered peeled paper traipsing my floors, missing my trash. They scamper like mice when I graze my unassuming toe upon their forgotten presence. Evidence of a masterpiece."

___________

Hiccups

Hiccups!

That's.how.I'm.thinking.of,this.dark.day.of.anxious.transitions.

Sleep.WILL.come!

Calm.will.reign!

Rest.will.be.restored!

For.now:hiccups.....

Xox

Total hiccups. Damn hiccups. Interrupting speech, thoughts, dreams. Hiccups total intrusion. Upside down water glass, peanut butter, surprise scares, prayers. Hiccups damn hiccups. Holding breath holding hope hiccups. Damn hiccups be gone!

___________

Hammocked

Sacred space, when analog time holds no meaning,

life suspends itself like a hammock between two rooted trees swaying in the breeze between here and there,          

between before and after,

swaying into that intimate space of the present.

When all you can do is breathe, deep breaths, shallow breaths, breaths…because no one can prepare you for the threshold you are crossing over,

they can only silently, reverently, hold your hand,

offer a gaze,

provide a subtle gesture to let you know that you do not walk alone;

the oils you were baptized with, blessed with, live in that garden of your body’s memory.

The hands that laid upon your own still lay there caressing you.

No, no one can do what your life asks of you.

They can just lay down on the tall grass next to you and sigh,

watching with you as the clouds overhead pass,

and notice as that ant climbs that blade of grass near your face, and that tall strand curves under its presence;

much like the arc of God’s arms cradles our weight in his embrace-- as we too strive to climb nearer to his heart.

And when we rise together from the summer’s green grass

and look back at the matted imprints our body’s left behind

we know we were there

in that sacred space of raw, real life that brings us to our knees

only to know what it is like to rise rooted again.

______________________

(Poem, prayer inspired by the Kiemde family written in July.)

My Confidant

"She believed she could so she did."

This was the quote painted on canvas on the window ledge in front of me at prenatal yoga this morning. I was back at Blooma, where I went when I was pregnant with K., our third. This small sign struck me then. However, it sunk in differently now, pregnant with our fourth-- as I contemplate home or hospital birth, as I believe in my powers as a birthing mama more and more with my doula work, as I grow as a writer with larger dreams and deep rooted stories to share, I realize it comes down to a core word: Confidence. Confidence and belief that what I set my intention upon can and will manifest. An internal confidence that radiates out, that informs my decisions, how I use my energy, and what I tend to daily. So today I offered up my yoga practice to confidence. And let that confidence soar off my mat to those in my life that need it—so, I offer to you the gift of confidence that you have all it takes to get through these days of solo parenting and whatever else may come your way.

Morning News

How can a morning that holds such promise go so wrong Katie? The sun was shining in, birds were chirping, promise of more snow melt forth coming. Yet the darkness of last night crept in. I had gotten no sleep until 6:30 am this morning and I have yet to have this baby, it was my third baby, K., that was sick and was awake all night long! With Peter out of town, I was solo sick parenting it, and I hit my max. To awake at 7:30 instead of 7, when F. needs to be at school at 8:10 held dread! And the kicker of it all my kids were whiney and tired and lagging like me. So instead of going to a Zen attitude about it I went to frustration, fear, and the ultimate Mother Tantrum. I yelled and hurried my chicks from the bathroom to the kitchen to the front door, all the while hating my approach and their reactions to it. To the point where I finally broke and sat down on the stairs and cried after throwing a boot that I could not get on my foot. Yep, it's official there is still a five year old child in me. Maybe that is too generous maybe she is only 2. But wow she came out, and my boys looked on in horror.

Then they did the most compassionate thing and offered me hugs and consoling. Talk about Zen response. What a role reversal as I offered them apologies and this is how not to handle your frustration explanations. But wow was I weepy after that.

And then Katie to receive your email about your dad and the final details of his estate and his death and the finality of it all, oh how my heart aches for you too. You’re living something so much bigger than the smallness of my morning. I wish I were there to drive down and then up those earthen red roads, pick you up for a cleansing hike, and hit Yoberri post trail to soften and quench our palettes. So thank you for diving into the dark moment of my morning with me when you held so much more, and for the Brazelton parenting tip: "To confide to the boys when you are upset with them, or the situation: I'm so upset (with you/with this situation) that I need to take a quiet minute and calm myself down and figure out what to do.). This will get their attention and model problem solving and self-discipline." Such sane wisdom--so practical!

As I enter into the early afternoon with my boys I let this morning go resolved for a fresh beginning, and forgive myself for my mother tantrum.  Motherhood when unchecked can create such a messy mind. I recommit to breathing and cleansing my morning mind of the trauma, the disappointment, the tiredness, and set my intentions on loftier goals of love and compassion for myself, my children, and my dear friend like you whose heart is ruffled rightly so.

How we met...

I have had writer's block. Much I want to say but not knowing how to start. So, I do what I do when this occurs. Try to just write whatever comes. When that does not work. I try it again. Text you for a writing exercise and try to meditate. Tonight, I finally turned to finding a good book to read and I discovered Dear Exile, the book you lent me that I forgot I had, sorry. I read it with fervor. Gratefully it got my mind going and the impulse to write soared back into me. And while you are not in Kenya nor I in NYC, we are split into two different worlds with different but similar realities and a deep abiding love for one another. For this I feel blessed.

It also got me thinking about how meeting you even came to be, such a long and winding road. I left the safety of St. Paul for the adventure of rediscovering Boston as a young married person with two kids and days after landing there found I was pregnant with our third child. Peter and I landed in Annisquam, a quaint portion of Gloucester where the fishing industry and many people who thrive on it are depressed, but Annisquam holds it charm. There we birthed our third son, on the coast of the Atlantic during a harsh, gray February, with snow drifts waist high. There we also lived over a year without many of our personal belongings, all of what we owned minus 10 boxes was stashed in storage. We watched the housing market tank and the prices from the west coast drop finally beginning to dip in Boston and it's surrounding towns. If it was not for that tenuous stay there and another invitation to move west I might still be there and never know the beauty nor the arid dryness of Santa Fe. If we hadn't taken the leap to be there, I never would have met you that sunny winter day when I loaded my three boys in the car to go to Fort Marcy. At my wits end that morning with them bugging one another I demanded that they get their coats on. My boys still in their pajama feet with boots over them, protested into the car until I placed them on the swings at the park. You strolled up pregnant with M. and encouraging P. to climb and slide. Us the only two insane mothers out in the brisk winter morning.

I remember getting off my cell as you approached and thinking I could be friends with her. I also remember for a brief moment that morning my boys each in a swing next to one another were harmoniously swinging in unison. It was like an answer to my unspoken longing of finding a friend that day at the park. A friend I could relate to and who would lovingly encourage and challenge me into feeling human again after my third child and two major moves in two short years. All the things we stored for over a year began to find their home and having a dear friend in you brought me home again when I felt in such foreign territory. So on Valentine's Day I write to say thank you for braving the cold winter winds of Santa Fe and being at Fort Marcy on that winter morning, much love my dear friend.