waking up

this business of growing people.  i will always say it's harder than growing babies. so much fun, but hard passionate work. sometimes i look at these people i'm growing (knowing that really, they are growing me) and i see all the years, all the places i've dragged them around this great spinning world. they landed with us- entrusted- gifted- they didn't sign up for us. they didn't choose nomadic. they didn't ask for adventure.

i'm reading some good books right now (trying to) it feels very stereotypical (what i'm reading, for my demographic). but only because there has been a hole waiting for it, a void, an absence of strong women's voices speaking into spirituality.

i read something beautiful today. it was in the introduction to a book, the explanation really of why she had written the book. it was a question, "once you wake up, can you wake up anymore?"

yes! yes absolutely yes. life is a forever waking up. this is one of the gifts i hope i can pass on to my people - the desire to be woke and the search for continual wakening. and to surround ourselves with people and situations and art and writing that challenge us to think differently and broadly. to fight the urge to box things up, to resist our inclination to categorize and sort, but instead to be okay with a different system- with one that can hold options and maybe less order but more acceptance. one with more room, and less tension.

i'm trying to notice the tension. i'm trying to live in this space of internally accepting more and fighting less. for me it's a gummy feeling inside when things are coming from old stale places. i've learned to know when it's there. it's the color of stubbornness. i can see it even in small doses now, sizes that used to be able to hide. now that i know what to look for, i can help myself gently unglue inside. i can follow the thread and look for the old pattern or fear and i can awaken another small part of myself.

it's become more and more important to me as i see my people and i want so badly to give them a better way.  but the truth is - i can't. it's their journey. they will have their luminal spaces to traverse. their dark nights of the soul. they will have to wake up again and again and chose if they want to stay awake, if once is enough or if they will chose a life of waking up.

the girl on the trike

it's a strange time. and there is so much of it. i thought i'd be able to write. a lot. every day. back to how it used to be.
but.
instead of output, i've been quieted. held in thought. collecting things. observing. curious. about this strange strange time, the whats and hows and whens and whys of it. i've been trying not to go narrow on these questions in the darkness but to hold my arms open to the greater whole. to keep the perspective broad. 'everyone is going through some version of this, mine is a very blessed version actually, how can i help my universal neighbor today?'

my immediate neighbors are my 4 kids and mike. zoe is home! 5th, 7th, 9th and a full special education curriculum are definitely challenging-  in good ways and there is so much blessing in being able to see their minds working and how they each learn and don't learn and what works for them as individuals. to be able to spend time asking hard questions with them and listen to them figure out their answers, to give them the freedom to speak their truth and not just provide the answer they think the teacher is expecting- it makes you want to keep homeschooling.  i don't think my kids would agree.

today was the first sunny day in what feels like forever and my dear friend neeli had given zoe an adult sized trike, so today was the perfect day to try it out. zoe has never learned to ride a 2 wheeler. she has balance issues and motor planning issues and the two combined just made it too hard. it was another thing she couldn't do which always made me sad. at her new school, they have trikes and she had learned to ride one and really liked it - so when my friend said she had one and wanted to give it to zoe, i was thrilled. so was zoe.

mike got the trike in the car and zoe got the helmet and we headed off to a flat trail that runs through the woods.

it was amazing.

she started off near a big puddle and the brakes were a bit shaky but she figured out she could slow down by not peddling. she got the hang of the steering and to stay on one side of the trail. she could go fast and make us run after her which she loved. "this is so much better than walking or running!" she said.

for 2 and a half miles we could forget about corona virus.
we could hear birds and feel sunshine and see only a handful  of people walk or bike by, mostly without masks.
for 2 and a half miles we watched our girl experience a childhood joy that she hadn't ever had in her 20 years!
for 2 and a half miles - life felt normal. or as normal as it could for us. our version of normal. 

it was delicious.

i watched the people that walked by as they would take a second look at an adult on her trike (who also happened to be talking loudly about animal facts from "wild kratts").  i know those faces so well. but i think i interpret them differently now. the kids looks are curious or confused, kind of like they are really wanting to ask if she never learned to ride a 2-wheeler, combined with a look of relief that they've passed that milestone or are on their way to.

the adults give a look of what i feel like now is solidarity. like, i'm glad she's got this. it must feel good. the look is saying, "she seems good with it, you seem good with it, we are good with it."  and to that, i give zoe the credit. she is the girl on the trike shouting out facts about fennec foxes and not afraid to ask for a push if she needs it. she would have no problem if those kids did ask her about trying to ride a 2 wheeler- she'd tell them. 

watching zoe over 20 years has changed me. for the better. seeing her become, and loving her so deeply and enjoying her so much- there is no room for anything else.

gratitude

i am grateful today for breath and life.
for friends that reach out from across the ocean.
for the ocean,
and that it's right outside my window.
for the smell of coffee grounds mixed with boiling water
and all the mornings of memories that it brings with it.
for the brave forsythia who blooms before everyone else
promising spring
reminding us it will come.
yellow hope amid gray scraping branches,
'there is more. don't give up!'
for my yogurt cover this morning,
God's whisper to me.
because the mercies are enough for today
just. and tomorrow, there will be new ones.