Showing posts with label Deep thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deep thoughts. Show all posts
This and That
4/14/2019
Some random things, in no particular order.
This Spring has been terribly long, longer than most it seems. It feels as though Summer should have been here five times over by now. I know that one day I will suddenly wake up to the heat having finally broken through the barriers of the cold, but when will that day be? Ten more years? Twenty?? And yet, the other day I was looking at the calendar to find today's date and was thoroughly shocked that it was already over half way through April. Wasn't it just March yesterday?! It is such a constant mystery to me, how time can go both incredibly slow and ridiculously fast all at the same time.
The other night we were out to dinner for date night, and as she was sitting us the hostess turned to me and very randomly stated, "You are so pretty." And I was sitting there with my unwashed hair tucked into my ponytail and my weary eyes lined with wrinkles, quite literally shocked to hear this from a stranger, so I said something really classy like "SHUT UP." But as I pondered this later, still sitting in my shock, I wondered many times if I must have heard her wrong, because I'm not at a stage in my life where strangers tell me I'm pretty. I'm a Mom, wearing the years on my forehead and in my eyes and, as of late, sometimes comfortably around my midsection. I don't feel pretty. I do feel strong, though, and proud and accomplished and optimistic. But don't get me wrong, it was nice to hear just the same.
Last week I took Rockie out for her first trail run of 2019, and how long the winter has been was most apparent on her. She lugged a large amount behind me the entire way, huffing and panting while the fat on her neck rolls bobble up and down. The entirety of the run I would call back to her every ten seconds or so, "Good girl! You can do this Rockie! We are so close! This is so good for us!" And I found myself wishing I had the kind of supporter on my trudging post winter runs as Rockie has in me.
We registered Beck for Kindergarten. Let me repeat that, because I imagine you think I made a mistake in my typing: We registered Beck for KINDERGARTEN. No really, it's true! He starts Kindergarten this Fall! I know, it's okay, I was in denial for a while myself. I made Dan take him to get his Kindergarten shots, because I hate watching my kids gets shots and also, it seemed fair as I was the one to take them both to all of their shots and this is the last one. So he did, and apparently Beck was just a champ who didn't shed a single tear, and only held his arm tightly and cringed while shouting "ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE" while they stuck him with a needle. Chocolate ice cream afterwards made up for it all.
I was listening to an interview with a Professor at Harvard who studies happiness, and it was enthralling to hear all of the science behind optimism and joy. In one long standing study, they were able to determine that by asking your child at the end of each day to name three things they are grateful for, you can change a child who is predisposed to pessimism to become an optimist. So naturally, I have been asking this to the boys each night. I noted it here solely for a selfish purpose, because in twenty years I'd like whoever is reading this to tell me how I fared. Are the boys optimists? Did it work?? If so, please remind them of when this started and how they have their Mother to thank for it all.
Camping season kicks off with a camp trip next weekend! We will hide easter eggs throughout the dirt in the mountains for all of the kids while we are there. We have every single weekend in June and July booked with camping trips, a different location each time. YIKES how did that happen? We may have been slightly overanxious during the longest approach to Spring (as I mentioned earlier) and booked up all of our weekends in anticipation for the warm weather, oops! But as it is, I think it will be fine. Hectic, perhaps, but doing the thing we love most and so, worth it. Probably, I'll let you know.
Perfectionism
7/12/2018
I am learning how to thrive in a life of imperfection.
For years, I wasn't accomplishing the things that would lead me to be my best self, purely because I was waiting for the perfect time. Some examples?
Writing.
Meditating.
Yoga.
These things were just notions floating around in the air above me, waiting for me to reach up and grab them, but I often didn't because I had a full time job and two young boys and when could I find the time for peace and quiet and ease? WHEN?! Never, that is when, and so I just sat there waiting for those perfect moments. And they came, now and again, so when they came I snatched the notions as I could. That was a lovely yoga session in the quiet! It has been months! Or, I wrote another page in my book! It is coming along like a snail scoots to China but at least I had those twenty minutes of silence just now! Maybe I'll get that again in six more months, and I can write a second page!
Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I was sleepwalking passively through life, waiting for perfection to fall in my lap and only then being proactive because, only then could I live as my best self?
Do you see how silly that sounds?
I stopped that thought process this year. I started doing things like yoga in the living room while my boys were in the next room playing nintendo, loudly calling out every five minutes "MOM COME SEE THIS!" to which I would calmly reply from my downward dog "I have twenty more minutes of yoga and then I will be glad to, please be patient." and they wouldn't be patient, but I would finish my yoga just the same.
I started doing things like writing my book from my front porch while the boys ran in the sprinklers of the front lawn with loud screams of excitement, or writing from the back patio while they watched a tv show in the living room and, heaven forbid, letting them make their own lunches, or while they played on the slide at chick-fil-a and I sucked up the free wifi. And I would be interrupted, inevitably, but I would write and my boys would learn how important it is for me to write, and we would talk later about what I was writing, and about storytelling.
I started doing things like meditating in the morning chaos, shutting down my mind and sitting on my bed or the hardwood floor and closing my eyes to breathe. And when the boys would come in they would sit beside me, and put their hand on their heart, and breathe with me there. They wouldn't last as long but they would get enough in and I would think, well how lovely that because I am mediating with them here, they are learning the art of meditation themselves!
And maybe one day they will remember all of this about me, how I was mindful and how I found moments to breathe and connect throughout the crazy-ness of life and how I would sit beneath the shade of a tall maple tree and write my book (that maybe once they are older will be published, god willing) and how I would stop every now and again to let them tell me a story or get them an apple, and how hard I worked and how invested I was in all of the things I was passionate about.
And maybe one day that will make them want those things for themselves too.
And how sad it would have been if I had only done these things when the boys weren't there, when it was perfectly quiet and easy, how they wouldn't have learned those things for themselves at all.
And how sad it really would have been, because I would have waited for years and years and maybe never accomplished those things at all.
So, goodbye perfection, and hello to this season of a beautiful, messy, chaotic, loud and ever-changing life that is mine.
It is all about the journey, friends. Get out there and get you some.
We are now in the thick of a hot and sticky summer and I took a few pictures of how we are surviving so far! I hope you are doing well for July and drinking a lot of water and staying up late and living in the moment as much as you possibly can! Don't blink, Summer will be over all too soon! Exclamation marks and all!
For years, I wasn't accomplishing the things that would lead me to be my best self, purely because I was waiting for the perfect time. Some examples?
Writing.
Meditating.
Yoga.
These things were just notions floating around in the air above me, waiting for me to reach up and grab them, but I often didn't because I had a full time job and two young boys and when could I find the time for peace and quiet and ease? WHEN?! Never, that is when, and so I just sat there waiting for those perfect moments. And they came, now and again, so when they came I snatched the notions as I could. That was a lovely yoga session in the quiet! It has been months! Or, I wrote another page in my book! It is coming along like a snail scoots to China but at least I had those twenty minutes of silence just now! Maybe I'll get that again in six more months, and I can write a second page!
Do you see what I mean? Do you see why I was sleepwalking passively through life, waiting for perfection to fall in my lap and only then being proactive because, only then could I live as my best self?
Do you see how silly that sounds?
I stopped that thought process this year. I started doing things like yoga in the living room while my boys were in the next room playing nintendo, loudly calling out every five minutes "MOM COME SEE THIS!" to which I would calmly reply from my downward dog "I have twenty more minutes of yoga and then I will be glad to, please be patient." and they wouldn't be patient, but I would finish my yoga just the same.
I started doing things like writing my book from my front porch while the boys ran in the sprinklers of the front lawn with loud screams of excitement, or writing from the back patio while they watched a tv show in the living room and, heaven forbid, letting them make their own lunches, or while they played on the slide at chick-fil-a and I sucked up the free wifi. And I would be interrupted, inevitably, but I would write and my boys would learn how important it is for me to write, and we would talk later about what I was writing, and about storytelling.
I started doing things like meditating in the morning chaos, shutting down my mind and sitting on my bed or the hardwood floor and closing my eyes to breathe. And when the boys would come in they would sit beside me, and put their hand on their heart, and breathe with me there. They wouldn't last as long but they would get enough in and I would think, well how lovely that because I am mediating with them here, they are learning the art of meditation themselves!
And maybe one day they will remember all of this about me, how I was mindful and how I found moments to breathe and connect throughout the crazy-ness of life and how I would sit beneath the shade of a tall maple tree and write my book (that maybe once they are older will be published, god willing) and how I would stop every now and again to let them tell me a story or get them an apple, and how hard I worked and how invested I was in all of the things I was passionate about.
And maybe one day that will make them want those things for themselves too.
And how sad it would have been if I had only done these things when the boys weren't there, when it was perfectly quiet and easy, how they wouldn't have learned those things for themselves at all.
And how sad it really would have been, because I would have waited for years and years and maybe never accomplished those things at all.
So, goodbye perfection, and hello to this season of a beautiful, messy, chaotic, loud and ever-changing life that is mine.
It is all about the journey, friends. Get out there and get you some.
We are now in the thick of a hot and sticky summer and I took a few pictures of how we are surviving so far! I hope you are doing well for July and drinking a lot of water and staying up late and living in the moment as much as you possibly can! Don't blink, Summer will be over all too soon! Exclamation marks and all!
Nostalgia.
6/18/2018
Today we had a little bit of a cold front, which so far this Summer has happened quite often! And by quite often I mean, at least twice that I recall.
When I say cold front, I mean wind and occasional thunderstorms with the highs in the 80's instead of stagnant sitting heat with the highs in the 90's. That is a cold front, isn't it? Anyway, whatever it is it has been lovely. I always enjoy a good windy, scattered showers day to break up the heat of the summer here and there.
Currently, as I write this, I have tilapia baking in the oven and the back screen door is letting in bursts of cool air and I find this all to be very heavenly. The reason we are having fish for dinner tonight (we don't need a reason and it isn't unusual for us to have fish for dinner, but I'll tell you anyway) is that our freezer is in the midst of a crisis! Although that is dramatic, it really isn't a crisis, so much as...a mild malfunction, really. Two days ago we reached in the freezer to grab popsicles for the kids and found them to be slightly slushy juice instead. Nothing is frozen anymore, although it is all cold and so it could be so much worse, couldn't it?! But the point of this not-so-tragic and boring story is, I am cooking up all of the fish tonight so that we don't lose it to the thaw.
Summer so far (even with its cold fronts!) has been a dream. Almost every single weekend since Spring sprung we have towed our second home into the woods somewhere until we are forced to return. If not in the woods, we can be found spending our days first at the skate park, followed by a good cool off at the outdoor aquatic center, and then an evening winding down with some divine meat grilling on the back patio and some divine peach flavored something to wash it down with, and maybe a movie to watch after the kids go to bed!
That all sums up our summer-so-far quite nicely. I am always simmering in bucketloads of nostalgia from long summer days and, my favorite, easy happy country song worthy summer nights.
When I say cold front, I mean wind and occasional thunderstorms with the highs in the 80's instead of stagnant sitting heat with the highs in the 90's. That is a cold front, isn't it? Anyway, whatever it is it has been lovely. I always enjoy a good windy, scattered showers day to break up the heat of the summer here and there.
Currently, as I write this, I have tilapia baking in the oven and the back screen door is letting in bursts of cool air and I find this all to be very heavenly. The reason we are having fish for dinner tonight (we don't need a reason and it isn't unusual for us to have fish for dinner, but I'll tell you anyway) is that our freezer is in the midst of a crisis! Although that is dramatic, it really isn't a crisis, so much as...a mild malfunction, really. Two days ago we reached in the freezer to grab popsicles for the kids and found them to be slightly slushy juice instead. Nothing is frozen anymore, although it is all cold and so it could be so much worse, couldn't it?! But the point of this not-so-tragic and boring story is, I am cooking up all of the fish tonight so that we don't lose it to the thaw.
Summer so far (even with its cold fronts!) has been a dream. Almost every single weekend since Spring sprung we have towed our second home into the woods somewhere until we are forced to return. If not in the woods, we can be found spending our days first at the skate park, followed by a good cool off at the outdoor aquatic center, and then an evening winding down with some divine meat grilling on the back patio and some divine peach flavored something to wash it down with, and maybe a movie to watch after the kids go to bed!
That all sums up our summer-so-far quite nicely. I am always simmering in bucketloads of nostalgia from long summer days and, my favorite, easy happy country song worthy summer nights.
Goodbye Summer - 2017
9/15/2017
And just like that, Summer is over.
The leaves are changing, the cool air is settling in, the whole world smells of pumpkins and cinnamon. Fall is the season of my heart. Fall arrives as a pleasant relief, just as the heat of Summer has really settled into my bones and made me so weary. I am my most creative self in Autumn, on slow rainy days when the leaves are crimson and the world is quiet.
Over the Summer I deactivated my Facebook account, leaving myself only Instagram to post updates and write out my thoughts and poems. It has been a real detox of a Summer for me and I have come to some very soul enlightening realizations, such as the apparent fact that "busy" is the enemy. I am my worst self when I am busy. I need slow and simple in the same way I need water. I need small to-do lists and a humble amount of obligations. I need less chaos and more peace. I need time to think, to breathe, to really see the world around me.
I am grateful for all of these self discoveries I have made this year. I think all of us have inner whisperings, conversations of our souls telling us what we need and how to heal our cracks. We just need to be quiet enough to listen to them, and brave enough to follow.
Summer, you were wonderful and you taught us so much. Until next year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
