Too late

I started this post on October 18, 2014.

That's a birthday card I made for Pops way back in the summer or spring during one of my marathon nights of creativity.  Carefully collected Beatles images perfect for his 61st birthday.  

I had the card out and on my desk when we left for the Outer Banks last summer.  The week we were there would include both our 9th anniversary and his birthday.  In the last minute scrambling to remember All-the-Things, I forgot it until we were in the car already and I never went back inside to grab it.  I'll give it to him when we get back since he's staying with us for a few weeks after vacation. Pops won't mind.  He's the most laid back, understanding guy... he'll appreciate it anyway.

On his birthday, he didn't get a phone call or any acknowledgment from someone close to him.  I noticed how sad it made him, even though he only mentioned it a few times and even though he was trying to embrace the joy of the day.  I wished I had remembered the card I made him months before. 

After we came home and he made our home his base for a few more weeks, I forgot time and again to just finish writing a note on the inside of the card and send it to him.   I'll just mail it to his house, I told myself.  There's plenty of time.  I mean, isn't a birthday card months early/late even more fun because it's unexpected?  Maybe?  Sure.  No big deal.

Then, on October 16th,  I got the phone call that Pops had passed away.  And there, in my desk at school, was the card I made, toted around, left out, brought to school to write out and send when I got the chance.  But that's the problem.  I had the chance hundreds of times, literally, to write and send that card.  And in the blink of a phone call, the chances were done.  Time was up.  Over.  No more birthdays, no more opportunities to write about how valuable those porch front conversations were, no chances to say thank you for everything from good cheese to bourbon to encouragement and defense to advice to love to Mexican dinners and burned CDs.  

All of a sudden, it was the most too late anything could ever be.  

There's a lot wrapped up in the symbol of that unsent card.  For me, it's much about the pain and regret I feel about not taking the few minutes or half hour to write out a heartfelt rush of words for my second father and dropping it in the mail.  It's about knowing he never got a chance to hear it again --  the love and the gratitude and appreciation.  Because hearing those things in a sincere way never gets old, does it?    It's about grief and what death means.  But it's also about the pain and the shame of believing I have unlimited time to do the things I want to do for other people, heck, even for myself, in this life.  That there's a point of ultimate finality.  That one-more-chances and next-times are finite.  So very finite.  

That card haunts me sometimes.  I value it, all pain aside, for the tangible reminder that it has become that we don't have all the time in the world.  We can't even count on having a little more time, a reasonable amount of time, an average life expectancy.  It reminds me that patience, virtuous as it is, isn't something to bank on.  

I miss Pops but I know he taught us all a great deal about ourselves and how to love.  He taught me a great deal about waiting.  It's a lesson I hope I don't have to learn again.  

Kids

One of the coolest things as these kids get older is when they take your phone camera and pass it around without you knowing.  Then, a few weeks or days later, you come across a string of their pictures featuring things like these.

Their candid shots and partial portraits capture their personalities and state of perpetual motion better than most real photographers could.  And these babes, they're developing a good eye, methinks.  

From Anne Lamott

I like when I hear snippets of Gomez on NPR.

Also, prayer.

Celebrations From Last Week.

So I'm a big believer in perspective-shifting and such-forth.  It gets tricky sometimes when life is hard and some things are really sticky-back-ick-stuck and other areas are actually quite joy-full.  It's hard to tell the whole story for what it is without seeming like I'm on some kind of manic roller coaster.  That's part of why I like this bloggy and why I like photo-documenting.  Although, I am also torn between just pure savoring.  For example, last night I went out and picked carrots and peas from our garden, brought them in to the kids, and then they devoured them in one sitting (it wasn't much; modest garden this year).  Anyway, I thought about taking some picture to capture a moment of that exulted feeling of bringing in food I planted with my own hands and feeding it to the happy and waiting mouths of my children.  But how can a photo accomplish that grand feeling pared down to the scale of a small bowl of carrots and peas.  How could it capture the smell?  The victory of mostly un-green shoulders of the carrots (I'm getting better at this small time farmer thing! woo!)?   So I left that one uncaptured. But her are some joyful moments from the last week I did capture:

Lots of letters and notes written

Cannoli cupcakes entirely from scratch.

Nerding out at a conference about teaching the humanities and getting in some personal study time.

Getting a chance to dress up and be all pregnant and feel cute.  

Finding a lone patch of irreverent clover on an otherwise perfectly manicured field and sitting there to eat my healthy dinner of frozen yogurt. 

Taking Women's World Cup selfies after the third goal was scored early in the first half.

Taking shocked selfies when the fourth goal was scored while we were selfie-ing for three goals.

Showing off our silly faces and face paint!

Photo Essay: Mommy's hands

In this provocative photo essay by Jones, he explores the strength and expressiveness of his mother's work-worn hands.  Note the way she reaches toward music and how it endows her disembodied hand with a greater sense of wholeness, a unity with her body, and perhaps, based on the ethereal play of light from which the second hand emerges, with her spirit as well.  His subtle manipulation of perspective highlight his isolation in his car seat, which serves as a metaphor for the way he is cocooned in childhood, but also his ability to catch glimpses into a broader sense of the world around him.

Oh, and this is his knee. 

A celebration of cellular regeneration.

After my own heart

My babe wanted to get out of her cage (aka crib) and spent much time setting up the nest I built her.  Books and fancy shoes were a must.  Love these kids so much that often I just want to sit up here and listen to them sleep.

Study Time

Seeking peace, understanding, growth,  contemplation, unity,  and love.

Oh, and a win tonight from the U.S. women's team.

Til then,  growing my heart, mind, and one tiny human.

Please take a moment to appreciate the tiny post-it notes.

Fourth

The bright spot of today was returning to the kids' favorite playground to celebrate the first rain and appointment free morning in over a week!

The photos would have benefited from a polarizing filter, but I didn't have time to mess around with that because, quite honestly, this is my favorite playground too and I had playing to do.

Below is one of the best images from the morning.  I think it captures the joy perfectly. =)

Happy Independence Day, readers.  I hope you find yourselves examining what you are dependent upon and whether you want to keep that dependency in your life.  As for me, I've spent much time this summer examining things upon which I depend and whether those dependencies are valid or healthy.  Often they are neither.  So, cheers to each step toward greater independence.  May we all seek what we are looking for, and may that seeking lead us to greater trust, joy, hope, and most of all to the love that is God.  Eyes on the light.  Eyes on the light.

First Walk of Spring

(Here's another post I wrote back in February or March-- once I opened the draft, the date changed to today so I don't remember what the original date was)  Anyway, I don't know why I never published it.  Flashback!!

Hi.  This is me. 

A tree fell right on top of our favorite spot to build fairy houses, which is cool because now there will probably be a ton of good pieces of bark to use for siding and shingles!

Gorgeous rivers in the wrong and perfect places.

 I felt like garbage with nausea and fatigue all day, but then I walked and played with the kids, took an I'm-gonna-hurl break, cooked, took another break to lie still for a half hour or so, finished up the pies, and the nausea is almost tolerable right now.  Almost.  I am proud of my sick self because I made pizza, a breakfast bake thing, Hungarian noodles (but I pretended I remembered the recipe instead of looking it up.  Turned out decent), and two pies.  Except the Crisco either got hot or cold at some point and the crusts came together weirdly.  We'll see if they past the taste test in a few minutes here. 

Notes I never published from February 8th:

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

- Proverbs 3:5-6

And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

- Isaiah 65:24

Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

- Jeremiah 17:14

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

- Ephesians 1:6-7

Words

Toward the end of the school year, I needed a change from "Peace, Love, Joy" that were on my windows since December 5th.  So:

It's been nice to look at the words every time I drive past my classroom this summer.  I hope they bring other people inspiration too.

Here's what they look like from inside my classroom, except this was taken after most of my plants were already home so it's missing the pleasantly jungle aspect that my classroom usually has.

And, tea:

Highlights

Here, in reverse chronological order, are some highlights from when Chris was out of town and I was single-momming it.  

Three kids dancing on a picnic table and singing "What Does the Fox Say?"

Shortly before or after the top half Optimus Prime fell from my pocket and was lost in the woods.

Stepping out of the shower at 10 at night to find Jones curled up on my yoga clothes.

Our first radishes of the summer!

Girl Power

It's been pretty cool to watch soccer with my kids, both last summer with the World Cup and this summer when we caught the Euro finals on Fox (no cable; limited sports).  Emilia was asking a lot of questions about whether women were playing in these games and why not and why women's soccer was not televised as much as men's soccer -- at least with our limited access.  All that to say that I'm very excited to take her out to a pub to watch the Women's World Cup Finals on Sunday at 7!  Trying to find a kid-friendly-ish pub where it wouldn't look too shady to walk in, 7 months pregnant, with my six year old in tow was tricky, but I think it'll be okay to go to the Pub that's attached to Beachwood Mall.  I mean, right?  ha!  But I'm excited to celebrate some futbol and girl power with my firstborn girl child.  USA!  USA!