Welcome, Sweet Dog

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

Welcome, sweet dog.
We've waited patiently for you
and now that you're here
our house feels just right.

We've all needed your
unconditional love, butt wiggles
and playful boxing capabilities.
We just didn't know how much until now.

Our grief over losing Molly
is safely tucked away,
but not forgotten.
An ache we will revisit from time to time.

But you're here!
With energy!
With sweetness!
With us!

Today is going to be awesome.

Now

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

What is it all really about?  This life?  Family connections?  The stuff we acquire and then purge from our lives?

I feel like there are so many lessons in every day living and, to be quite honest, I don't think I've given much thought to them until I entered my fourth decade.  Before turning 40, I just lived my life without much examination.  Or, at least, it feels that way.

Having a child brings so many situations circling back to you to think about.  Parenthood is like this big mirror and you can either look away and start fresh with your views or take a minute and examine what's in front of you.  What are you bringing to the parenting table from your past?

As my son navigates his pre-teen years, it's becoming more clear to me that I'm parenting from a standpoint of been there, done that.  And I should quickly confess that it's easy right now.  I'm not gloating, but taking a moment to really let that sink in.  I know that hard stuff is coming and I'm trying to relish in the now.

Now he likes to spend the weekends with us.

Now is when he wants to watch silly DVDs and read books about Greek Gods & Goddesses.

Now the library is one of his favorite places to visit and grab a frozen yogurt and talk about his day.

Right now the wildest thing he wants to do is wear the same thing every. single. day.  But even that is morphing as of this week.  He finally relinquished his grey hoodie sweatshirt and I could not be happier.

Now he wants to share his art and play on his iPad.

Now is the time he practices his trumpet in his room before school.

I'm loving right now and feeling confident in my parenting.  I know that whatever the future holds, I'll be ready and until then?

I'm enjoying the now, too.

Time [6th grade version]

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

The days are slipping by so fast.

Yesterday the boy got his first pair of eyeglasses.

Today he had his hair lopped off and he looks a little like Eddie Redmayne.

Tomorrow we get a family dog.

Spring break is the week after next.

One more quarter left of sixth grade.

One more quarter left until I start Summer school.

One month until G turns 12.

He turned in his report on the Hindu Holy Trinity this week; tennis lessons; science test; and I finally let him play around with an Instagram account.

How did this happen?

The painful colic, the skinned knees?

His dressing up and acting like a dog?  Long gone, I tell you.

Typing up papers on his own computer.

Picking out brand name t-shirts so he can give the appearance of cool and to help offset the glasses mentioned above.

The mirrors.  Oh, the looking in the mirrors business is at an all time high. The self-awareness kicking into high gear.

All of this wonderful.

All of this hurts a little bit, but then smooths out into mama pride and acknowledgment of his next phase.

And the love.  The overpowering, all encompassing love I feel for this little human; this life.

Nothing quite like it.

Mornings

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

My mind wakes up before my body is ready.  To-do lists are drafted in my head before my feet even touch the cool wood floors.  My bare feet shuffle across those worn Douglas fir planks and head toward the living room.  I click on my desk lamp, open my computer and then take a few steps to the left to stretch my body and absorb the view before me.  

Some mornings I greet the dark and other mornings I greet the sunrise.  It makes no difference to me what kind of view is out there, I'm just happy to meet the day at its inception.  Something about this small act of taking the time to recognize the start of a new day centers me, grounds me.

Quiet blankets my home.  I rub my son's back and kiss his forehead.  This is round one of trying to get him out of bed.  My husband, the night owl, is still in bed and I gently close the bedroom door so he can rest a little longer.  

I set about making the morning coffee and take pleasure in this simple morning ritual.  Grinding the beans, filling the tank with filtered water and pressing the start button.

The day can now begin.

back to school

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

I'm reading the iconic The Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk & White & Kalman  and all I can say is - it's about time.  This is the back-to-the-basics, definitive guide for writing.  I ordered the updated version featuring Maira Kalman's illustrations and it's so gorgeous.  She's one of my all-time favorites illustrators.

I have a lot to learn in terms of sentence and paragraph structure and the do's and don't of writing.  This will be a good first step.

In other news, I registered and signed up to return to college today!  I'm working on getting over myself on a lot of matters that hold me back in living a fuller life.  I'm embarrassed that I never finished, quitting when I received my first-ever letter grade "D" in a sociology class.  Good grades came easily to me during my earlier school years and I was in no way prepared for college.  Instead, I took the easy way out after a full year at the J.C. and went to work in a law firm.

In fact, working in a law office was my sole line of work until I was 32 years old (minus the two weeks I worked at 31 Flavors, but that is an entirely different story).

On my 16th birthday, I was hired at a small law firm and worked as a part-time receptionist and file clerk after school.  This was a dream job to this Virgo who had a boyfriend at the time.  Organizing paperwork and I didn't have to work nights or weekends?  Sign me up!  My parents encouraged me to keep this "good job with benefits" and school fell down on the priority list.  It's kind of haunted me ever since.  I've worked half of my life for law firms answering phones, processing client billings, filing and, in the end, supporting two attorneys who also became dear friends.

In the end, I left that clerical life with a lot of knowledge about filing forms with the courthouse, editing and re-typing loan documents and ran towards the chance to run my own small business in the tiny hamlet of Bodega Bay.

I'm tired of thinking I can't go back to school.  I'm following through on this and showing myself, as well as my guys, that I can do hard things.

When I shared this news with my son, he didn't skip a beat and asked "So, are you going to study art?"

Why, yes.

Yes, I am.

Bandaid

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

I realized tonight that one year ago, on the eve of my mother's birthday, my first essay was published over at Mamalode.com.  Setting those words free and sharing them with the world was like ripping off my creative bandaid.  It hurt a little, but my artistic tendencies needed an outlet and it felt so good to have a way to express the feelings that had been bottled up for so long inside of me.

Ever since that nerve-wracking day, so much has happened.  I poured myself into different means of artistic expression that ended up bringing me so much unexpected joy - pens, good paper, watercolor and hand lettering.  Accepting my imperfect handwriting as an art form brought me a satisfaction that surprised and delighted me.  My imperfections could be celebrated and even appreciated for what they were - perfectly imperfect.

I put things into motion and tried them on for size.  Writing retreats, art workshops and a trip to the edge of the continent in Homer, Alaska fueled my need to make art.  Stories, poems and illustrations became the way I communicated my feelings and, as a result, I wanted to set them free and share with others any way that I could.

The Mamalode essay, Snap, was just the beginning for me.  There's a lot more hidden deep in dark within me that I need to turn into something beautiful.

One bandaid at a time…

Born Again

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

I once questioned a mormon missionary about why mormons don't use the phrase "born again."  The missionary simply stated that being "born again" was viewed as a process, not an event.

A process.  Not an event.

What a powerful and wise statement, right?

At the time, I wrote those words down on an index card and stuck it in my brand new bible.  I recently came across that 24-year old card and pulled it out to read.  I decided to use it as a bookmark.  It's since become a little mantra.

This weekend was spent heating kettles of hot water for tea, stoking fires and spilling the truth about a great many things to my best friend of 25 years.  Truths that had mostly been said only in my mind and not out loud.  At first, I parsed them out slowly and carefully, but by the end of our days together I felt the urgency to unleash them before it was too late.  Too late for what?  I'm not sure.

Truth telling doesn't come easily to me.  I'm often scared of how it will be received, how it will land.  I'm fearful of the fallout - knowing full well a lot of this fear is manufactured and adjusted to assist in keeping my secrets safe, guarded.

I found freedom in saying hard words and thoughts and confessions out loud.  I wrote down things that I wanted to be free of and wrote, in capital letters, the word GUILT and centered it in the middle of the page.  I read my list of shame and guilt to my friend, my witness.  I vowed to be free and move forward and to rid myself of the self-hatred.  I no longer want to operate from that place.

I positioned that ugly piece of paper on top of the small stack of burning firewood and bid it farewell.  I shut the doors on the wood stove and sunk into the couch and watched it burn and then double-checked the ashes to make sure nothing remained.

I felt born again.

for better or worse

[Us circa 1998]

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

for better or worse

that’s what we said 

oh so many years ago

when we didn’t know about 

the trappings of marriage

we now move through it all

sharing the roles we were made for

dividing duties

like seasoned pros

making lunches

reading bedtime stories

school pick-up

paying the bills

your stellar knowledge

of math & science

make me glad you’re the 

partner I picked to parent with

it doesn’t sound romantic

but, really, it is

how much we come together

to make this life work

our schedules synced

our mornings hum

our evening dinners

our days recapped

it’s not how i imagined it to be

when we said “i do”

but i think it’s so much

better, not worse

my life in metaphors, lately

My Mom & Dad circa 1969

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

I'm constantly thinking in metaphors ever since I stopped drinking.  As I prepared for my girls'  weekend, I found myself in my head quite a bit.  Normally, I would be packing my personal nine-bottle wine tote and filling it with special wines or the fixings for special martinis.

Instead, I packed up a box of assorted tea bags.

The weight of this intention was both heavy and light.

+++++

For the past 17 years, I've been wearing earrings that my mother gifted me when I was 27 years old and freshly divorced from my own first husband.  At the time, I appreciated the symbolism and sentiment.  They were made from two small diamonds that were once part of her wedding ring, from her first marriage to my father.

I've worn them every day since she gave them to me for Christmas back in 1997.  I took them off a few weeks ago and carefully set them in my jewelry box.  I said a little prayer for them and hoped the bad juju that I think they hold will wear off and be absorbed by the green felt lining of that little drawer.

The symbolism of this gesture was heavy on my heart, but I've felt about 10 pounds lighter ever since I shut that little drawer.

+++++

Waking up clear headed, instead of foggy and slow is new and, happily, preferred.  When the fog is rolling in over the hillsides, I'm reminded of how I used to feel.  Blanketed by regret or loss.  My heart cloaked in a thick sadness that is hard to share with anyone.

The beautiful revelation about fog is that it sweeps over the landscape only for a little while and then slowly lifts and retreats.  The world them seems open to me and I can feel the sunshine on my face.

The grey fog and the warm sunshine work together, in tandem, to help center me and start a new day.

The soupy fog symbolized my heavy feelings, but when it lifts I feel the weight of my burdens and thoughts rise up and leave me.  When they settle back down inside of me, they will be lighter after their journey.

my mind is packed

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

These six-minute quick writes are supposed to be just that.  Quick.  Only six minutes out of my day and somehow I couldn't find the time to do this today.

Starting the day off by waking up late didn't help, but I tried to salvage this mishap with making a healthy juice for all of us and joining my girlfriends for a barre exercise class in Santa Rosa, 30 minutes northwest of my home, starting at 9:15 a.m.

The camaraderie of those ladies helped jolt me from my morning funk and I easily fell into the sadist exercise regime also known as barre class.

The rest of the day was filled with work, doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, a makeshift dinner, homework help and packing for my impending Big Sur trip.  Just normal, everyday life items to tick off my list today.  I felt productive.  I felt a wee bit rushed.  I felt anxious about leaving my family for four days.

After tucking my son in bed and kissing him goodnight, I settled into the couch with my husband to watch a movie.

I felt nervous about leaving.

I felt nervous about meeting up with my best friend.

I felt nervous about not drinking this weekend.

I felt all of it.

All. Of. It.

I went to bed making small talk with myself about my strength, my impending journey.  My newfound ability to do small things for myself that will help me heal and make better choices for my mind, body and family.

My bags are packed and, now, so is my mind

the fog

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment

 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  

I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

the fog,
thick and pixelated,
blankets the world
just outside my window.

dewy, wet branches
breathe a heavy sigh
as the sun fights to emerge
through the slate-colored sky.

the sun surrenders.
grey wins.
the dampness is absorbed
by the ground, the air, the day

melancholy fills the ether,
sadness takes up residence,
reminding us to sink
into ourselves and feel

the fringe of darkness
just beneath the surface
of our body, our mind

with tendrils of love
and acceptance
gently traveling down
to the soles of our feet

we remind the darkness -
we are rooted,
we are strong,
we are loved; and
soon we are going to

shine.

The Door to Independence

{This series was inspired by my son's sixth grade english assignment
 of writing for six minutes, without edits or overthinking it.  
I'll be posting daily quick writes for the month of March.}

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of the teenager that my son will be in a few years.  He glared at me, barked something about how I ruined his perfectly good day by enforcing trumpet practice and threw his prepubescent body on top of his bed and laid there in silent protest.

I walked away.

Took a few deep breaths and quietly chuckled to myself while chopping root vegetables that he will most likely push around on his plate during dinner.

It's coming.

He's almost 12 and the increased attitude and shift in him is happening right before my eyes.  Everyday he is recalibrating himself towards the man he will one day be.  Ratcheting up his opinions and pushing back when he doesn't want to do what we want him to do.  Forming opinions and testing limits.

I realize he's taking baby steps towards a great big door called Independence.  Leaving his mark and trying new things on for size are what's happening right now.  I'm here, not too far behind him, making sure he doesn't wobble too much or fall over.  Supporting him, acting as cheerleader and disciplinarian at the same time, has been my occupation for almost a dozen years.  I'm slowly starting to understand that right now he will need to scrape his knees a bit and brush himself off without me.  I know this is all normal and completely to be expected, but it's my first time, as well as my last time, going through this new phase with my only child.

The door to Independence is unlocked and ajar and he's approaching it with great speed.

I just know the man that will emerge on the other side is one I will be proud of.  However, I feel a weight of responsibility in making sure he has the necessary tools available to him to help open that door with strength of character and knowledge that he is loved by us.

I just wish he would take it a little slower.