Love

That moment when. You're been cryibg in bed for the last two hours and your sleeping babe reaches over and holds your hand in her sleep.

That moment when your students respond to a class bulletin about
your injury more lovingly and with more compassion than your spouse does.

Fair is foul and foul is fair.

I miss writing.

Glorybox

Sick, cystic, menstruating, and sunburnt.

I enjoy being a girl.

Emotions this day

Joy and loved and supported and understood and frustrated and peaceful and grateful and glad.  And overwhelmed but calm about it and engaged and proud and in between it all very tired.  And sometimes irritated by the noise and also love and loved and grateful again and still and always.

New

I'm back. And I plan to remain back.

John Boutte

The smell of empty warm beer glasses reminds me of mistakes in college.

Adele

This was all you, none of it me
You put your hands on, on my body and told me
Mmm
You told me you were ready
For the big one, for the big jump
I'd be your last love everlasting you and me
Mmm
That was what you told me

I'm giving you up
I've forgiven it all
You set me free-ee

Send my love to your new lover
Treat her better
We've gotta let go of all of our ghosts
We both know we ain't kids no more
Send my love to your new lover
Treat her better
We gotta let go of all of our ghosts
We both know we ain't kids no more

I was too strong you were trembling
You couldn't handle the hot heat rising (rising)
Mmm
Baby I'm still rising
I was running, you were walking
You couldn't keep up, you were falling down (down)
Mmm
Mmm there's only one way down

It's night but something in here smells like sun on cotton.

A thousand hidden viburnum bushes
breathe their fragrance across the highway
and I am grateful.

Confident

Life is amazing in that we can not know what we are or where we stood until we have moved.  

I've begun to perceive my own confidence and strength in new ways in the last year.  It's a more tender, honest way of holding my own self, cupped in my own outstretched hands.  I'm both more and less than I once thought.  And I love myself more.  A love that is more real that the brazen swagger I used to hide behind so much of the time.

Lawn mowers ate the grass around our neighborhood today.  Changes are in the air.

I really don't care for cake.

Five

Trying a new practice of recording my days in terms of each of my five senses.  So far, I like how sometimes it's ambiguous which sense goes with which experience.

I find that I'm always drawn to clothes the colors of earth and sky.  Also dust.

More bad medical news this week. This is becoming a pattern.

So.  I'm working on re-framing and reassessing.

I like noticing when people stop themselves from saying something.  Sometimes I'm nearly dead sure of what they were going to say; other times it is utter mystery.  Every time, I wish they would have just said it.

There is a mitten in the chandelier.  There is a chicken in the fireplace.  It's snowing in April.  My body is, quite literally, self destructing.  From the nerves in my left foot out.

I have almost as many pots with dead plants as I do with live plants.

WHAT IS GOING ON?!

As this cannot possibly be my life, stay tuned for necessary and potentially drastic changes.

Eye Doctor

Limits and Old Friends

Someone once called me "Limitless."

It's not true.

I said it wasn't true at the time, and at any other time a similar comment was made.  Nicely, of course, acknowledging the way it was meant as a compliment.  But I am the very picture of finite.  And even if, at the time, I had hoped that maybe it was true, now I know for sure that it wasn't.  It isn't.

Lately I've come up against more and more of my limits.  I don't know why other people in my life have such a hard time believing in my limits, but I really wish they could feel the crush of the limits the way I do.  Singed wings and lung constriction.

So here, world, I am declaring my limits.  I am limited in how much I can give, and bear, and forgive before I need (and yes, need) to step away in order to preserve my sanity and sense of self worth.  Yeah yeah yeah Christian forgiveness I know I know, but God is infinite.  I am finite.  I have a brain and a heart and neural networks and actual physical parts of my body that God designed and I'm telling you, He's designed them in such a way that coming up against some of this stuff so many times is going to do serious damage to me. It already has done damage.  And there's all that stuff about your body is your temple and that the body came first and then the spirit (That's in the gospel of John in some form, isn't it?  Something like that?  Help me out, scholars.  Comment if you know) that seems to run right up against all that forgive and love bears all and forgives all.  Lay down one's life for a friend.  Cut off the left hand.  It all becomes kind of tangled up when I apply it to my life.  And at the end of the day, I'm simply not God.  And I'm not supposed to be.  And maybe part of my problem all along has been that I'm trying to love like I have no limits and that won't ever work because the reality is that I'm very, very limited.  Add to those limits of bearing all the limits that come from my own rucksack fulla flaws I'm carrying around with me and it's not, in the words of D.J. Davis, tenable. (I'll always think of him when I use the word tenable).

I'd like to just get it across that I'm limited and struggling and that the things I accomplish all come at a cost.  This isn't easy for me.  I end my days worn the hell down.  And I guess I think that if some of the key players in my life could see me for the limited person I am, they would take a little less, nurture a little more, and I wouldn't feel so much like this:

The responsibility is mine, ultimately.  I know that.  I have to set boundaries (such a convenient term but seems to be so much harder than just putting up a fence or drawing a line in the sand).  Protect my time, fortify myself, surround myself with people who build me up or whatever.   That's all nice and good but it's not nearly as easy as it sounds.  Not with four kids, especially.  My resources, my time, my everything is limited, too.  Which makes it harder to stand up for the limits.  And I don't know if I'll ever be able to shake the sense that I have to be the rock for people to come to and lean on.  I like that role, to an extent.  The problem has always been that the rock-being is just not reciprocal as I need it to be.  Or that sense that most people just aren't all that interested in my stupid, cyclical, never-changing problems.  Hell, if I want to get away from them and they're my life, I can only imagine how enervating they are for other people to hear about over and over. 

But but but here's the cool thing that happened:

Yesterday, I hung out with an old friend from high school.  In all honesty, there were times we could be considered frenemies, but despite that, we've always had a lot in common.  In fact, the commonalities were probably what was really the root of any contention that existed in our adolescent selves.  I can't remember any real reasons for beef between us. 

But we've grown up and become mothers and built careers.  And yesterday we got together and laughed and it felt so good to just be limited around someone else.  We laughed so much, connecting over the joys and aggravations of motherhood, wifehood, labor, essential oils, inappropriate jokes about murder, you name it.  Rather than leaning on and drawing from, I just felt ease.

Suddenly hanging out with someone I haven't seen in person in almost fifteen years could have been awkward, I guess, but I knew in my gut that this wouldn't be.  And I came away from last night feeling seen and known... which is something I'm not used to experiencing on the regular.  How sad, that.  What a gift it was to see her and to lay my limits on the table next to the falafel salad and instead of "why why why no you can't yes you must but but but no you're wrong" there was "yes! and!"  And sitting across from the sometimes birdlike movements of hand and chin, and the familiar features that have been softened and made more beautiful in the fifteen+ years between our last shared meal, I felt a little more whole. 

So that's how it all pulls together, then.  To look at me without seeing my limits is not to see the whole me. It's like zooming in to a coloring book picture so much that you can't really tell what the picture is.  Like this, for instance:  What is it?  You can still color it and your mind can maybe make a guess, but without the seeing all the limits, all the outlines and edges, the picture is not complete.  

 You can zoom out a little more and get a better idea of what you're dealing with, but it's still not whole.

But once all the limits are known, the full image emerges.  I don't want to be a partial portrait, not to the people in my life who play the largest roles.  The lines, the limits, show you who I am. 

It's once again too late at night for my ideas to come together they way they did in stages throughout the day.  But one of my goals for break was to write here at least five times, so here it is.  Mess and limits and all.

Redeeming Columbus

I still maintain that Columbus pretty much sucks, but I discovered that there's a Neruda Street over by the Short North area.   That's worth something.

Yogahhhhh

Dude,  I miss yoga in ways so deep and big I am unable to find words.  My whole body is craving it. In fact, I haven't experienced this kinda of whole self desire in a long time.  Ahhhhhh! Broken foot, broken spirit!  Well,  it's not that bad yet, but holy Moses we're getting close!   It's making my adhd and crazy-fast-idea-brain much harder to control. 

So much to say.  So little time!

Goals

At age 71, Fred Astaire dances like this at the Academy Awards.  I'm going on two months with no dancing, no yoga, no walking to work... pretty miserable.  But watching this gives me hope.  I mean, surely with all the practice this guy had to do over his decades of performing, he sustained some injuries, right?  and here he is, 71 years old.  Damn.

The full set-up for the routine is here if you're curious. Start about 3 minutes in.:

Alright, well, back to nursing my fever from the mastitis.  Because the fun never ends.  I miss writing, too.  And sleep.

Please let me get my life back soon.

If this fever doesn't break and I stay home tomorrow, the plan is to write a few affirming notes to mail to some awesome folks in my life.  People who probably don't even know how awesome I think they are.  And I know that in my fever delirium, at least writing those notes will make me feel better.  Moe has awaken in my arms and petting my face with his sweet, soft baby hands while I type.  The mastitis is his fault, but I love him as much as ever.

I potently disagree with the belief that love is suffering.  Love, real love, overpowers suffering.  And that is how I'm able to sit here and nurse this toothy beast baby knowing he will probably bite me again (aaugh!  he did!  just now!  graahhhhh! augh ahhhh owie!!!!!) and I hate it and it hurts but I love him so much I'm willing to do it.  Love changes suffering.  

There are more thoughts here, but not to share tonight.  Okay, ice pack for the foot, hot pack for the boob, and fetal position for the back and let's break this fever.

Quote

"I will break your heart if I don't play Lala Loopsies and babies with you." Nora says.

Dictionary

Baby paws- Footprints on the bath mat

Nora's Dictionary

Ear ponks- earrings

Birthday horns - noise makers

There are more I don't remember from the last month but stay tuned for more.

Affirmation

I was using my phone as a mirror to touch up my lipstick before conferences and in the background I could see all these Roses for Teachers notes from former students.   It was a pretty cool moment. 

As I listen to the bluster ringing my windchimes

I just realized that I will not be able to go for any winter walks in the snow this year unless winter lasts beyond late March.

Sad trombone sound...

Failure.

Today I kinda feel like looking the whole world in the face and saying:

"Get over yourself!  It's okay if you fail."

Here's what's not okay:

Quitting

Letting someone else clean up your mess

Hating yourself

Living in fear.

My friends, I hope we can all be BRAVE enough to FAIL.

If anyone judges you or abandons you for failing, they may be dealing with a whole host of other insecurities.  Surely they have failed before!  If you aren't enough for them, maybe they are too much for you.  Let them go, forgive, and notice that now there is more room in your life for people who will love you anyway and be with you through the failures.  

If you do it right, you aren't less because of your failures; you're more. 

More wise.

More compassionate.

More gritty.

More tenacious.

More humble.

And you probably have a better sense of humor, too.  And if you think you haven't ever failed at something before, well, you're probably wrong about that.  So it's okay.  You didn't die then and you won't die after the next failure either (Unless you're skydiving. Then you might die.  These are not hard and fast rules here.  I am no prophet.).  And notice, as you stand on the brink of failure again, that you have failed before and yet you are here breathing, heart beating, with the gumption to try something failable again.  You are a badass.  

Just don't quit, and clean up your own messes.

But the biggest thing, the really BIG biggest thing is this:  no matter what your failure is, your God loves you and has redeemed you.  The only way you could fail is by rejecting that love and redemption because it's eternal.  So take it easy on yourself.  Be able to receive God's love. He wants you to abide in it, so quit rolling around in your fear of failure and abide.  You're more worthy of it thank you will ever know.  You are treasured.

However huge the potential failure you face is, you can deflate it.  Bring that failure down and stare it in the eyes.  Here's how:

Love yourself, failures, limitations and all.

Accept God's unconditional love.

(these two things are linked)

And don't hide from your failures.

Instead, turn your experiences with failure into a way to reach out to other people.  Help them through their fears, share your mess, and give them a chance to love you anyway.  Show them that your failure isn't tied to your worth as a person.  It'll reassure them that neither is theirs.  And when they fail, love them anyway.  Can you imagine how different things would be if we knew we would be loved anyway?  

Then we can all keep trying, in the good company of really excellent failures.

And then keep failing.

And then keep loving.

Moments

Four

Brothers

Teenager?

My co-photographer admiring his work.

Baklava sneak

Daddy + baby

Gatsby

The older I get the more I love Gatsby and feel for him.  I feel with and for his naivete, his drive, and his disappointment.  

....sheesh.  He was only 32.  That was me last year.

Note

I want to learn cribbage. 

Words I like

From Carter Beats the Devil:

“I mean,” he rallied, “ there’s joy and wonderment to be had.  I love to perform.   It fights back the loneliness.  It’s all I really know how to do anymore.”

“I see,” she said.  There was no reason she should understand him.  He had in his way cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across a canyon, hoping she’d heard.

AND LATER...

Borax shook his head.  “You can’t really save people.”

Borax, of all people, saying this?  Carter felt like a curtain had, unfortunately, been drawn back for him.  “You have to try,” he responded, but without much force.

I'm feelin' it.

Adventure

My exciting Friday night: couch,  cast,  nursing, and a glass of water.  Don't be too jealous.

Shatter, Crack

 

Yesterday in the car, Chris drove home and I sat mainly in silence.

In my head, images of glacial calving

 

played one after another.

Low rumbles and icy majesty

Cracking and tumbling into the sea,

The unstoppable awe,

ice floe and schism.

 

Over and over the images came.

Sharp crack, deepening

Whole earths splitting apart

 

The sinking into frigid waters--

 

And then the icy reemergence,

Inexplicable masses

heaving out of ocean depths.

 

And deadly ice quietly rushing

from the glacier’s hard face

to the people watching.

To melt. To puncture. To dissolve.

 

 

 

Longing

I wish I could make a guitar sing.
I wish I could think in melody.
I can't, but I do so love people who can. 

Genes

I love discovering
stuff like this

Also I had an idea for a manuscript to submit to a professional journal. My professional mind had been on fire this week. Kinda feels alright.

Skipping Along

Happy winter. 
Soon Jonah's birthday will be here. 
I remember waiting with love,  fear, and anticipation.
You never forget births and it makes me think of winter and about how smells make you revisit memories.
Then all around you,  even the wind holds specific time.
Moments suspended.
You reach up, grab them out of the air.

More later. 

Damn Yeah!

I just submitted my first ever proposal to a national conference. Feeling pretty good.  Boo yeah. 

4:44 is still following me. 

Streetlights blink on and off when I pass. 
The quest to deliberately spend more time being one of the least knowledgeable people in the room continues.

Wish I could go to Creative Mornings.  After only two visits I wad starting to feel like pay off the community.  Hopefully next month.  

Update From the Trenches

How, exactly, does one adjust from the joys of being home with one's kids to going to work to the exasperating task of teaching other people's kids basic research skills and MLA format?  It's not easy.

Part of what makes it so not easy is that I like doing what I do well.  And right now, and probably for the rest of the school year, I will be neither mothering nor teaching to the best (or even close) of my ability.  It's hard when I genuinely like both jobs (momming more,  of course) and when I have so many ideas, when both jobs go so much more smoothly when one has the time and resources to put systems into place to allow for maximum freedom, time to play, ease....

So right now it's all just pretty uncomfortable.  Uncomfortable mixed with profound joy, getting in touch with myself, collaboration, sunlight, baby drool.  I'm listing again.  List-style-writing is so weak.  And I do it all the time.

My natural inclination is to push for things to change.  For me to change.  For something to change.  But today I remembered, again, because I forget every two days, that this is an Infant Year.  Which means I will be sleep deprived and in survival mode and frustrated by the way that I don't have the resources to give what little creativity eeks through the cracks of my bloodshot eyeballs the time of day.  Frustrated by the scrambling and the scarcity of calm moments.

But the Infant Years don't last forever.  Unless  you're crazy like me.  My career:

Normal yearrrrghitbycar
Normal year
Change Jobs and Cities, start fresh, Normalish year
Preggo Year
Infant Year
Normal Yealamost year but then Preggo
Preggo year, half year off
Infant year turned normal
Preggo Year
Infant Year
Normawshit Preggo again
Infant Year.

That's my career.  Never more than a year without some big life thing that impacted my sleep/health/wellbeing so much that it affected my work.  Add emotional and relationship turmoil to the mix and ... damn.  I hope the second half of my career is a little more steady.  It has to be, right?  I the mean time, you'd think I'd have had enough practice to get through this, but there's always more complication.

All that to say that today C made dinner and I sat in the big chair nursing Moe, teaching Em to read, and loving on the other two who were climbing on my legs.  And to be covered in four babes when you come home from work... well, it's exhausting and doesn't make sense that it's possible, but it's good.  And in those moments I can feel that I was built for this much love and my heart is comfortable this full.

New Year, Crossing Out, Carrying Over

New Year's is such a funny holiday.  I used to value the excuse to go out or have a party but now I like a day where most stores are closed and there's no expectation to get things done so that I can reflect and let the learning from the previous year sink in.

On the way home from yoga this morning, I was thinking about how each day that it isn't frigid (though the last two days have approached that point) means more time with green grass and bones that don't ache quite so hard.  The absence of cold now doesn't prolong the cold at the end when spring is trying to emerge.  I forget that sometimes.  I forget that when the cold doesn't set in, it can mean less cold overall, not just more cold later.  There's a metaphor for a worldview in that somewhere, friends.

So then I got out of the car and noticed the snap dragons, who have been struggling with themselves for the past six weeks or so ("Do we give in to the frost and go limp?  No guys, we got this!  Can we squeeze out one last round of blooms?"  "Maybe!"  "Yes!" one lone branch cries, and so on...)  Today they looked like they were just about to succumb to the cold, and because their leaves were drooping and glossy, I was able to see the last branch of blooming salvia creeping up behind them.  What tenacity these plants have.  No one can tell them they aren't hardy enough or that they should have stopped growing at first hard frost.  That's been me a lot in the last year, feeling like I've hit my limits with what I can bear, how much patience I can show, I how much I can give, how many reminders I can make, how much forgiveness, how little sleep.  And even when all of me, the mindspiritbody, feels crushed, I find that I have more.  It can only be God.  I do, however, hope that the next year involves much less testing of limits and much more residing comfortably within them.  At least for a while.  Or at least if I got to choose the limits that were tested (capacity for my new chocolate chip cookie recipe perhaps?)

This salvia can't stop, won't stop.

Another fun part of New Year's Day:  the calendar swap.  No fancy calendar this year, just a freebie from the Nature Conservatory or something but starting with so much open.  Transferring the already-made appointments into January and February.  It's almost as if the old calendar feels heavier from the weight of all that this year held.  More doctor's appointments than I've had in a year, more marriage counseling, more scans of my insides, more school events, soccer games for the first time ever (I became a soccer mom this year!  Bumper sticker and all!), STAR WARS in all capital letters, appointments to look at new houses, dinners with friends and regular weekly things that were inked in, disappeared for a sad while, and returned again. Nothing really tells the story of a year quite like a calendar.  It's the unvarnished, day to day truth of your life.  I wish we could see more calendar representations on social media, honestly.  That's what I'm most curious about.  Save the curated truth for something else and show us the real mess of the day to day.  Maybe that's a resolution I could make.  It's always what I aim for at least.

I have changed a lot in the last year, I think, and a lot of those changes were those kind that come because I was thrust into situations and had to walk through the fire.  Many of those fires I'd prefer to have avoided altogether or learned these lessons in an easier way.  I'm grateful because I didn't realize how much I needed to learn.  I thought I was doing pretty well.  So I started to stand up for myself a little more, and I am becoming more mature.  I recognized the ugly truth that I tend to default to blame when I am upset, stressed, or uncomfortable.  And even if some of that blame is justified or true, that doesn't make it less ugly.  I have been humbled in hard ways.  But that was good for me.  And I think that being brought low will ultimately make me more compassionate, forgiving, and aware of my own shortcomings/mistakes/sins/selfishness all that ugly-but-real stuff.  It's hard for me to understand how, but seeing my own ugly more clearly and seeing the ramifications of it more clearly is comforting somehow.  I feel like I actually love myself more now than I did a year ago.  It's probably a combination of things:  being more compassionate toward myself and how, as with any relationship, knowing myself better allows for a deeper and more loving relationship.  And I am more in touch with what I need.  Even if I'm not getting it.  Hey, what's life if there's not room for improvement?   I guess... but man, wouldn't it be so freaking fantastic to get to the point that the places that need improvement are just the fun places?  Damn.  I hope so, someday.

Other core beliefs have changed too.  I don't think I'm becoming a different person, but a more real version of who I have always been.  That feels good and ever gooder.  And yes, "gooder" is still a word.  What changes?

• I now appreciate the west side of Cleveland so much that I'm considering moving there.  It's still rather flat for my taste, and the closer I am to the foothills of the mountains, the more tucked into the earth and safe I feel.  But the places of the west side we've been considering are closer to the lake and my soul just steers me toward water like I'm one giant 5'2" divining rod.
• Dishwasher.  Must have dishwasher.  The volume of dishes in this family has carried us over the threshold from pleasant, meditative task to never ending cycle of work.  And the realization that I'd cook more often and more creatively if I could get a handle on prep dishes is a big factor in this turning point.
• I'm breaking up with people pleasing and it's close friend image cultivation.  It's understandable to want people to see the best version of you that exists, kind of like taking that compilation ACT score that gives you the highest cumulative.  But it's at first scary and ultimately way more comforting when people know how much you suck.  What makes it great is that it allows them the opportunity to love you anyway.  Or to judge you and reject you.  And either way, you know the kind of person you are dealing with.  And while the judgement and rejection can hurt, you're left with security in the end.  I must have had this underlying belief I wasn't aware of that I could manage what people thought and hold it together, seem polished-ish, be well liked and that would be better or safer or something.  I didn't even realize I operated this way until I began to shed it and experience the freedom of it.  
• I've changed as a mother and become more patient, loving, and balanced.  It's about damn time *ahem* four kids later *cough cough*  On Sunday, my grandma was asking me about how it was going with four kids and the words that tumbled out were that it was more difficult but better.  And it is.  And as far as my kids and my relationships with them goes, all I could ask for is more time with them and fewer responsibilities that draw my attention from them, in part so I could focus on them more and in part so that when I don't have to focus on them, I can be free do focus on the other things I love and developing myself more.
• My relationship with God and scripture has changed a ton and all for the better.  It's been really beautiful and something I'm hoping to explore in this space more in the year ahead.  But it's been a huge change to me and I can't be more happy for it. 
• Finally, the last big change is that I noticed how much of a hater I could be sometimes, just for the sake of hating on something.  There's entertainment value in being contrary, I guess.  But that's just simply lame and smug and jerky.  So, starting with the west side, I tried to stop being a hater.  It's going well, considering snark is my native tongue and there are so many things to hate on in this world.  Like dog sweaters.  I jest.  They're fine.  Ish.  Okay I'm still working on the hater thing.

Looking ahead, I will write more here.  2015 has more blog posts drafted but never finished or posted than any other year ever.  What a sad thing!  All those words suspended in cyberspace...  I stop writing for lots of reasons and in no small part because there is so much to do and so many kids.  But writing is part of my song and my light.  Pouring it out adds breath to it.  And I'm going to let my spirit breathe a little more for my own sake.  Writing aside, I need 2016 to be a better year for me and for my family.  That's my hope and my prayer, whatever form "better" takes, it's what we need.   I have stopped pretending I know exactly what "better" looks like, but I think I'll recognize it when I feel it.  Can't wait.

Looking ahead a little more immediately, new Sherlock tonight.  Hominahominahominahheyyyyyyy.  

Happy New Year!

What's new with you?