Warm Thanks, Autumn Dreaming and a Book or Two

Not so much sleeping happening last night, so I am greeting Monday a little gritty-eyed and not really feeling like living my best life today. Maybe tomorrow. :-) But let's give it the old College try. . .

I must being by saying thank you to sweet Susanne , who honored me with a Creative Blogger Award. Blogging has given me such a gift, by making a space for me, both in cyberspace and in my day, to unite my loves of writing, photography, cooking, homekeeping, and parenting into one form of expression. I receive so much inspiration from other women who dig deep every day for words, images and projects and put them out here for us, to enrich our lives.

I am also feeling grateful on a very practical level today: after rummaging around in freezer and fridge and cupboards, I have found raw materials enough for several meals to make over the next couple of days and store in the freezer. Today I put a chicken pot pie and a huge dish of homemade macaroni and cheese on ice, tomorrow I'll add meatballs, pizza Stromboli and whitefish cakes. (These are made like crab cakes, but with the whitefish I never seem to cook correctly.) I feel "paid double" by these dishes, in that they are being made with small, odd amounts of ingredients, and that they are my insurance policy, on weary evenings, against an unplanned meal out.

Finally the picture with this post is not just to torment all of us who are counting the days until autumn arrives, it ties into my latest favorite children's book: Pumpkins. Not a Halloween story, Pumpkins by Mary Lyn Ray is a delightful story of love for the land, hard work, self-sacrifice and conservation, told with wonderful language and humor. We had checked it out once before in the spring, and I enjoyed it even more the second time around as Joshua read it to us last night. I have requested her other books. And also in our stack: When I Was Young in the Mountains. Cynthia Rylant has become a perennial choice of mine, and this Caldecott Honor book has the Appalachian soul that appeals to this Blue Ridge girl.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Lemony Steam and Home Thoughts

There is something about ironing that takes me back to the days when we had first moved into this house. Really beyond memory, more an inhabiting of those first weeks here, every time I unfold my screechy board and set to work with spray and starch and steam.

The kitchen around me looked very different then. Dull and dark wood cabinets, brown carpet on the floor, and primed walls, it looked kind of like a whitewashed cave. But nothing made me feel so much at peace in our new home as being there, looking out the window, smoothing wrinkles and crisped creases.

There were more questions than answers, then as now. Then, I contemplated some relationships and wondered if they would survive our transitions of career path and geography. Some didn't. I dreamed over our new home and imagined the loving changes I wanted for it. As always with a family with small children, the pace of those changes has been slow, as we have resolved to be careful about laying aside too much living for the sake of improving. I reflected as I pressed business shirts for my husband on his love for his new job, and felt a profound gratitude that long-deserved professional success and satisfaction was finally his.

The kitchen looks different now. The room of the house where we have laid the heaviest hand has pale green walls, creamy cabinets, and the door and drawer pulls I set my heart on. I walk a cream and charcoal ceramic checkerboard floor laid by my husband. I wonder about different things, like our new church home, Joshua's school friends, Sam's last year full-time with me and what books I should use to tempt their vibrant minds.

But deeper than any conscious thought is this settled feeling of peace, that has been with me since the first morning I stumbled into this kitchen to make coffee. Like a quiet whisper-- here we are, we live here. These walls contain our truest selves, we make a good place for each other, a soft place to land at the end of the day.

Signing My Name

This is one of those posts that maybe should be more like five posts. But the clock has been ticking on it, swirling around in my head with all the emotions and thoughts and anticipations and prayers of the new school year beginning.

Tonight we are headed to Meet the Teacher night at Joshua's school, and I am getting excited, almost in spite of myself, to be back in that pint-sized world, to meet the personality I'll loan my precious to for six and a half hours a day, for the next nine months. I think, despite my kicking and screaming, that we are all ready for the adventure to begin.

I have mommy friends who send their littles to public school, to private school, and who teach their children at home. (One dear mom I know, because of the different needs of her kids, does all three.) The blogs I read represent every sort of home education flavor I can imagine. And I would be so much poorer without my homeschool blogging buddies, in the richness of their pursuit of children's literature, nature study, and out-of-the-box learning, and their devoted hearts and spirits.

But I am a public school mom. Joshua will continue at our neighborhood school this year, and my expectation is that Sam will follow him there next year. It is not a lesser choice, an inferior choice, a sub-par choice. We believe it is our calling for our family. It is our choice.

It has been our experience with Joshua, and was his father's and my experience in our day, that the halls and classrooms are staffed with compassionate, skilled, and devoted professionals. They are overworked and underpaid, which only makes their performance more laudable.

We know. We know those places full of laughter and art also harbor too many days of standardized testing, bullies, lunches of questionable nutrition, worksheets and other busy work. . . on and on.

The kicker is, the kids themselves. The kids my boys would not meet on our street or on Sunday morning. Kids who give them a bigger sense of the world. Kids to love, kids to worry over, kids to stretch our hearts a little bigger. Redefining our notion perhaps, of who our kids are.

Of course, last year this led to some eye-opening dinner table conversations-- Joshua testing the limits of vocabulary on occasion, questioning entertainment guidelines, and sometimes giving us a peephole into a classmate's life that broke our hearts. Sometimes uncomfortable, always challenging. And some of the richest moments of parenting I've experienced. When I have come to the end of my "wisdom." And really need wisdom from Another.

So that is who we are on the educational landscape.

And here is where it gets messy. There are hard decisions we make, raising our kids. It isn't picking paint colors. It is growing little people. And we all make the decisions we make because of what we think is right. That only makes sense.

And we sometimes fall into a couple of pitfalls along the way. One is thinking there is only one right decision. (I remember weeping, post-mastitis and in the midst of post-partum depression, knowing deep down I could not face continuing nursing and sure I had already failed my little boy. )

The other is believing we must be in conflict over our differing choices. (A big thanks to the authors of any articles called "Mommy Wars" or using the term "versus" to apply to parenting.)

The problem is that it is easy to give lip service to the idea that we are all doing the best we can figure out, we are all aiming to raise great kids, that there are many paths to that goal. It is harder to keep our internal dialogue and how we view other, different parents compassionate and tolerant. It is easy to understand how we can fall victim to judging other parents, sometimes over the smallest issues. We are unpaid and largely un-praised. We don't get promotions or incentive-based raises. No one sits down with us for a performance review, and many of us are constantly evaluating our approach, because the stakes are so high, or seem to be. It is hard at times to maintain our perspective and our sense of humor, and all too easy to say to ourselves, "Well, I am not doing that great in this area, but at least I don't ____________ like ____________ does."

I'm not innocent of this, and neither are most of the parents I've met. The cocktail of self-doubt, conviction, sleeplessness, and pressure that parenting can be wears us down, in a sense, to this sort of one-upmanship. The problem is, left to grow, these attitudes isolate us from parents unlike ourselves, who have made different choices, and these may be the ones from whom we stand to learn the most.

I am all for passionate parenting, conviction, strong feelings and opinions. My husband would tell you I am composed almost entirely of those! So I am trying to learn the art of owning where I am in this journey, signing my name, not apologizing, and at the same time, retaining the humility and humor of just one mommy, knee-deep in the process. There is only one perfect Parent, and I am still growing in Him after all, still a Child myself.

Blessings to anyone who loves a child, educates a child, kisses a child as she gets on the bus, holds a baby to breast or bottle, potty trains and sings to sleep, reads aloud from Milne or Calvin and Hobbes. Company for the journey. . .

Normal

We are back from our adventures away, and sliding into a day at home, with the AC humming already and bread rising in the kitchen.

I love traveling, just the four of us. There is a subtle cementing of family identity that happens when we are on the road, not in route to see extended family, but just out for pleasure and to take pleasure in each other's company. We are always enlivened by the curiosity of the little guys, their eagerness and excitement and gratitude. We returned tired, but felt bathed in blessing.

What I found waiting for me was our beloved home, but also an ache, familiar after the last couple of years, but no less acute-- that in ten days or so Joshua will go back to school. Back to lunchbox and playground and worksheets and cubbies-- though perhaps not cubbies in first grade, perhaps a real desk. And from eight to two-thirty, he will be a citizen of the wider world, and Sam and I will hold down the smaller fort of home. Until Sam's turn, next year.

And I am faced with the question every mommy asks, nearly every day: Is this normal? This wrenching pain I feel at this little letting go? The tears that will flow at the slightest thought of the year beginning? Feeling fragile myself yet protective of these little hearts and minds? Greedy about hoarding these easy hours that drift by nearly unmarked by clock or bell?

I've searched my heart about homeschooling. I am not, at this season, called to it. I have not heard the deep YES that has marked every major decision John and I have made, and neither has he. Despite my mommy tears and our mutual trepidation, we know that this year, Joshua will be where he belongs, at our neighborhood elementary school. And we also fiercely know that we will not hand over our places as the biggest influences in his little life. We only loan him-- we do not give him away.

I used to see those back to school commercials, the ones where they played the song, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year," as blissful parents filled their carts and contemplated their little darlings going back to school. I heard other moms, counting down the days until they joined car line and relinquished their summer role. Was this something that would just happen to me, that as August waned, I would spur my littles out the door with glee?

It didn't. It hasn't. I don't think it will.

Is this normal?

All I am left with is the resolve to savor these days and the trust that I am only me, only one mommy, called to love and pray for these two little guys, to feel deeply, to laugh loud, to shed my tears and dry theirs. To get to know his teacher, to love the boys and girls who will join him on his adventure, to ask for meetings and send e-mails and be really present, here and there. There is no getting away from it-- the need for focus and attention, balanced with the grace to let go.

A little.

A Wish For Good Times and a Blog Break

It is ticking in the background you see-- the countdown to summer's end. For us it started July 21st, when there was officially less than one month left before school starts. But now it is August-- time to get serious about soaking up what is left.

So that is what we will be doing-- sights to see, books to read, maybe a couple of low-key projects, time with friends. . . Close your eyes. . . imagine your summer as a watercolor. . . does anything need to be added to the scene? A last minute feast under the trees, toes dug in the sand, a balloon set adrift on a breeze, a paperback and a hammock? Pick up your brush. . .

I'll be taking a little break from the blog for a bit, but I will return to share our adventures and the cooler crisper ones we have planned for the months to come.

Take Me To Your Leader

More stitching fun this week from the still-amusing and inspiring Sublime Stitching. I found a couple of Tees for the boys on a clearance table at Old Navy-- heathered cream with chocolate brown trim. Rather unremarkable until they met our alien friend. A blue-eyed one for Sam and green-eyed for Joshua, whipped up on Wednesday, about to be hung out on the line, and likely worn tomorrow. We 'll be in T-shirts for three more months here, so this little buddy will have a lot of wear, even if the usual Mid-Winter Growth Spurt strikes both boys.

I think one of the main things I like about embroidery is that I am not great at it. My vision is really bad, and I am not very patient-- and I pretty much do one stitch over and over. And I am so good with that! I am a perfectionist in so many areas, and other hobbies in the past have ended up in the pursuit of everything other than fun. This is such a relief! I still strive for excellence in lots of areas, but in stitchery, I find the grace of good-enough.

The boys think it is a miracle that Mom can make an alien on a plain-Joe T-shirt, and no one will ever mistake it for anything other than it is-- the product of loving hands at home, a summer afternoon well-whiled away.

And Yet Another

Two posts, one day? Only moments apart? What is she up to? And where are those boys of hers?

I simple couldn't resist. Daily I am undone, moved to laughter, tears or prayer by Ann at Holy Experience. And we know how bad I am at putting off tinkering with the code that steers the sidebars and bones of this blog. But this morning, when I read, and smiled, and sighed happily yet again at her words, I had to come back here and bring her to you.

A warning--- if you delve into the rich mine of her archives, make and pour your coffee first, or it will grow bitter, forgotten on the burner. Settle the kids for naps, make a quiet space, and listen to this exquisite voice.

Another Voice

I really wanted to blog today. This is the last day of July, and we have less than three weeks until school starts. Stirring in me is the simultaneous mourning for the summer that is passing, and yet the sweet ache for autumn-- long cool twilights, soups and stews, trees aflame and clear blue sky over bluer mountains.

But I am reading one of those books that makes me feel like everything has already been written, like a kindred spirit, in this case, Katrina Kenison, has brushed her fingers against the pulse of what I believe and transcribed the aspirations and longings of my heart into her pages. At the end of each essay, there is a long satisfied sigh, the exhale of, "Yes! That's it-- that is it exactly!"

A sample:
"When we cultivate a mood of calm repose in our homes, we scooping out a space for reflection and wonder, for contemplation and reverie. Our children are exposed to incessant commotion in the world that exists beyond our walls. Let home be the place where they can find the peace and quiet they need to make sense of it all. A place, too, where we can nurture our inner lives without distraction. The soul speaks softly. And so I guard our quiet times. Creativity flourishes in these spaces; grace and peace reside here too."

Mitten Strings For God

I am about halfway through this book, recommended some time ago over at Eyes of Wonder. And some of my specific approaches are different than Kenison's, but the spirit of this book has been breathing a blessing over my mothering. May I suggest reading it, and perhaps passing it on to a friend, or making it a gift for a new mommy in your life?

Of course, I'll be back with my own words-- likely a riveting post on recipe organization or a rhapsody on Mrs. Meyers linen spray. :) But in the meantime, I am enjoying this friendly voice, who more than anything else is whispering, "It can be done!"

A Place for Everything

Yesterday morning I tackled a household job I have been putting off for awhile. We have two different desks, one for the computer and a writing desk, as well as a large buffet with many drawers. Lots of storage is a good problem to have, but since we moved in and placed the furniture, I had not taken the time to think through all these spaces and the tasks I do on or near them. As well, we started the adventure of having a schoolboy. (I now envision him stepping off the school bus, pursued by a ceaseless river of paper that surges ankle-deep up the hill and into my kitchen door. ) The result was that I was not using my space well, and had little piles everywhere. Articles to read, book recommendations jotted on slips of paper, recipes clipped from magazines, and going on around them, constant searches for the stapler, address book, or a sharpened pencil.

I think it is true of many of us, that we are ruthlessly organized in some areas of life, but those skills never make it to other areas. For instance, since I cannot drive, I am very organized about our errands and shopping. We rarely run out of anything, my lists are written in the order items appear in the store and I try to buy in bulk to take advantage of sales and to stock up. I knew if I could conquer my mess of paper in the same way, I would reap benefits of more time and less frustration.

So yesterday, armed with a box for recycling, a trash bag, and a paper shredder, I went through each drawer and sorted and discarded and tidied. Some drawers already performed good functions and only needed "weeding." Others were emptied and given a new purpose. I stopped to think through WHERE various parts of my life happen. Most of my book recommendations come from the Internet, and I reserve library books online, so a little notebook in the top drawer of the computer desk for titles and authors only makes sense. I plan menus and make lists at my writing desk, where I need a drawer for my menu calendar, grocery ads, a coupon book and a folder of recipes to try. I write letters there as well, so stationary and stamps need a home. The deep drawers of the buffet are great for storing art projects and extra crayons and notebooks. Tape, pens, pencils and a pair of scissors in multiple locations is just, well, realistic.

I spent an entirely satisfying morning and finished with a box of paper to recycle, a bag of trash and a diagram for the family notebook so my husband can know what is where without searching every drawer. (And now the family notebook has a place too.)

Of course the value of this is not in the neatened drawers or even my little spurt of housewifely pride. I am now faced with the serenity of clean surfaces, free of little stacks of who-knows-what. And time and energy will be saved by knowing exactly where to go to find the tools for and records of our household life. And I have an action plan when the dam is unplugged, school starts and the paper tide heads this way. It is an easygoing and realistic system I can keep up with.

Now there is more space and time for crafting, reading, taking photographs and even just long, deep breaths. More time for living, and less spent on mere maintenance. And that is something to lift a glass of lemonade to. Cheers!

Respite

It's kind of funny in a way that I am from the South, and live in the South, and dislike hot weather as much as I do. Summer is NOT my season. So I was delighted this morning when the air was cool and the mountain I can see from my breakfast room was the deep, dusky blue we usually don't see until October. UP went the windows, and ON went the whole-house fan, pulling that delicious (not to mention free) cool air through our rooms.

With that cool breeze I am starting to feel a creative itch, to pick up the camera and climb the fence to shoot the sunflower that just started blooming, to dig into my papers and inks and goodies to record some of the memories we've been making in the months since I last scrapbooked, to start an embroidered present for a beloved sister in law.

I know the heat and humidity will return, and the sting of mosquito bites, and water beading on cold glasses of lemonade, the dance of fireflies and the audacious flowering of zinnias. I am hoping too that this creative impulse will not wilt but blossom still, giving me a full heart and busy hands well into the fall.

I think combating the natural weariness and impatience we can feel with homekeeping, with its repetition and monotony, has two prongs. One is what I often speak of here-- recognizing the sacred nature of the acts we do in being where God has called us to be. When we fully invest ourselves in our tasks, doing them in quiet service to our beloveds and to the glory of God, the tasks are both enriched and lightened.

But the other solace can be found in embracing part of our natures, created as we are in God's image, to become creators ourselves. Whether in writing, photography, sewing, painting, sketching, weaving, knitting, whatever our hands are drawn to, there can be great joy in creating something. Different than a kitchen floor, which will dirty no matter how beautifully and prayerfully it has been washed, a piece of art both gives us a sense of completion and takes on a life of its own. And in the creative process, we nearly always cross a line from the art being something we are caring for to something we are participating in.

This is why creative arts can often provide true "re-creation" to us, though it can seem absurd to want to "do something else" at the end of a busy and tiring day. And sometimes we need to do, simply, nothing, surely. But on other days, perhaps when we seem to have done the same things, many times over, the answer may be to make something. Not because we have to, not because a tummy will go empty or a little body unclothed, certainly not because we are paid or graded, but because He made us like Him, because He makes our fingers to make, and then to stand with Him, and see, and say, "It is good."

Thursday Morning

Not many words to share the last week or so. Change has been afoot in the house, as we have painted and assembled and dusted and sorted and nearly finished a true Big Boy room. Sam's toddler bed went away, carried off to bless some other little boy who is vacating his crib for a new little sister. Here, Sam is now the Captain of the bottom bunk, brother right overhead, and as pleased with himself as can be. ("No more babyish bed, Mommy.") And Joshua roosts overhead, with a reading lamp and his treasured buddies-- so many stuffed animals I have lost count.

John did the vast majority of work on the room, and it is a good combination of looking great-- three camel colored walls with an accent wall in navy-- and working well. There is much more space for play and just being than before.

Of course, in true "if you give a mouse a cookie" fashion, this touched off a chain reaction of cleaning and organizing that will be with us in fits and starts for the rest of the summer. Here I have to be careful-- I am an all-or-nothing girl, and I am apt to work and work until I fall over, or get really unpleasant to live with, for the sake of being done. I am seeking to separate my projects into bite-sized pieces, leaving lots of room around them for lazy reading, cooking with the boys, playtimes and do-nothing times. I am not good at that.

We are reading the Little House books aloud-- nearly finished with Little House on the Prairie, and the boys have their usual library goodies. I have a stack of my own I am working through, and pillowcases to embroider for the boys' new nests. It helps me so much, to carefully calibrate the pace of our days, to have those sorts of things built in, that really cannot be hurried or rushed through, that I am forced to slow down and savor. The boys are my teachers here-- they are so much better, as many children are, at being in the moment they are living in.

I know this is a recurring theme in my posts, but I struggle so with it, and suspect I am not alone. Even though I am a stay at home mom, and being unable to drive, most days I am truly, physically, at home, I so often have to stop myself to ask what I am rushing toward. And then, if the answer is to get through my work, to be able to stop, is how I spend my stopped time really recreation? Is it "re-creating" me for homelife, wifehood, mommying? Or would I be nourished more fully to slow myself down IN my work, to drink deeply of the bread making, the cleaning, the reading, the play?

It is that sort of life, even more so than being here to care for the children and not having a paying job, that is truly counter cultural. To deliberately do things in such a way that there is "less to show for" a day. To accept, once and for all, the the Witness of my days only wants a heart yielded to where I am called. To be willing to be quiet, within. To still the interior chatter, and take off the masks I wear.

My mind rebels-- oh, how I want to be seen as capable, creative, strong, busy, industrious, interested in and passionate about the "right" things. . . on and on. These are all good and well, but in such a light they become commodities to be measured by, to replace the ones of money and professional status that I have abandoned.

Instead, to desire that when others look at my life, they see only its Author. . . the One Who has called me to this place and time, and by His hand makes this life a sacrament to linger over, dishwater and dough, shoes to tie and boo-boos to kiss, pages to read and pictures to draw, morning and evening, steady on. . .

Sisterhood

Last week I found a package, stuffed into the mailbox, and inside was this lovely, lovely apron, made for me by my precious sister, one state over. In it are united my loves of lemons and stripes, practicality and femininity, and I had to include a photo to show off the sweet shaped pocket.

I'm celebrating my sister Kim today (christened Kiki by my boys) because it is her birthday. Hopefully by now she has pulled her own fat little package from her mailbox. But it could never contain the treasures of our relationship. With a sister, you are both your current age and all the ages you have been. I love all the common ground we share now, but I also love that I remember her voice reading to me when I was little, movie dates with her when she was a young working woman and immeasurably cool to me, taking her day off to spend with me. I remember her as a mother of little ones as I am now, and I see her in the faces of her daughters, now in their seventeenth summer.

And no other woman's face will ever be more beautiful to me, no voice more sympathetic, no shared laughter more satisfying. Our conversations are a shifting patchwork, equal parts reason and rabbit trail, recipes, wardrobes, decorating and penny-pinching, child-rearing, books, faith and family. Simply put, she is always in my corner, on the other end of the line, listening and talking and loving. I love you sister. Have a piece of cake for me!

Sights of Summer

Around our house, it has been looking like summer. Glimpses everywhere of loosely-woven days, no homework, afternoons stretched as warm and soft as taffy. Scattered puzzle pieces and sofa cushions rumpled from sprawled reading time. Bread cooling on the counter, the last strawberries in a green bowl, the first green beans steaming on the stovetop. Herbs outgrowing their pots like November will never come.

Occasionally I have mommy-guilt, hearing about the cornucopia of day camps, enrichment, travel and team sports that fills the summer of some of the boys' peers. Alas, budget and transportation limitations place many of these delights quite beyond us. But it is partly also our choice to live at this slower pace, to let the time stretch out toward boredom, and beyond that, to creativity. Believing and trusting that there are simple and rich gifts waiting in hours not filled by activity.

This is not an us-them post. Many wonderful experiences happen in those classes and camps and leagues and we will sample them too when the boys are older, when they begin to find their passions and interests on their own. But what makes me so very happy is that it feels like childhood around here, the good parts I remember, of being unhurried, and free, not "on" all the time. Dirty feet at bedtime, paperbacks spread out to mark places everywhere, popsicle sticks, glitter glue, library trips and music. Strawberry picking, blueberry picking, crisps and crumbles and ice cream. New mercies every morning, long hours of grace.

Something Rare and Fine

Hello all. My hurty back is acting up again, so I will be (mostly) away from the computer for a few days. I will leave you with the lyrics to a Carrie Newcomer song I am listening to over and over:

the gathering of spirits

let it go my love my truest,
let it sail on silver wings
life’s a twinkling that’s for certain,
but it’s such a fine thing
there’s a gathering of spirits
there’s a festival of friends
and we’ll take up where we left off
when we all meet again.


i can’t explain it. i couldn’t if i tried
how the only things we carry
are the things we hold inside
like a day in the open,
like the love we won’t forget
like the laughter that we started
and it hasn’t died down yet

chorus

oh yeah, now didn’t we
and don’t we make it shine
aren’t we standing in the center of
something rare and fine
some glow like embers
like a light through colored glass
some give it all in one great flame
throwing kisses as they pass

chorus

just east of eden
but there’s heaven in our midst
and we’re never really all that far
from those we love and miss
wade out in the water
there’s a glory all around
and the wisest say there’s a 1000 ways
to kneel and kiss the ground

chorus

"Wait a Minute, Wait a Minute Mr. Postman"

I love the beautiful Scribe Template, but whenever I have to tweak things a bit, I feel like a chimp with a screwdriver. Or maybe not quite as smart or proficient. I realized there is no link to e-mail me from on the blog, and though I don't love how it looks, after a half an hour of messing with it, there it is. Please feel free to write me-- I have tested it and it works.

Now that I have been humbled by digging around in the codes, I am off to shower and head out-- we are bound for the library and then for a big U-pick farm nearby with a farmstand. Sandwiches in the cooler, CDs in the door pocket, and no schedule. My perfect Saturday.

If you want to read about a grander adventure, check out what is going on over at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly.




Of Farmer's Market Love

I knew my readers would share the Goodwill love with me! I have found so many wonderful things that I don't dare go unless I am prepared to purchase!

I got to spend an hour or two at another of my favorite places last weekend. John and I took the boys to Asheville to see some friends and took the opportunity to go to the Western NC Farmer's Market. Ever since my first visit, sometime in my childhood, I have loved this place. Long before we began to ask where our food comes from, and how it is treated, and how we can support the communities we live in or near, I instinctively loved the bins full of gorgeous produce, that moved in turn from the greens and berries of spring through the squash and beans and tomatoes of summer toward the pumpkins of fall. I loved the conversations over scale and cash register-- the neighbors meeting up with each other, the light through jars of honey and the peaceful saunter through the buildings.

I had visited our very local farmer's market with my sister, and stocked up on butter and beans and the first of the summer squash, so my spree was mostly visual. I bought what must be the last of the strawberries and a cloth sack of grits. (After a long learning curve, I can make lovely creamy grits.) But everywhere there were still delights-- herb plants growing in profusion, buckets of sunflowers and foxgloves, and something else. Something about feeling a foundation of reason and sense and mindfulness grow under what I had already appreciated and respected without being able to help it. And if our travels this summer take us back up that way, I'll be there again.

Goodwill Hunting

Wow, that pun looks even more hideous in black and white, but I cannot resist. What is definitely not hideous is this black and white number-- the sort of skirt I have wanted for a long time. $4 baby! It and some other goodies were found on a trip to a little Goodwill store less than ten minutes from my house, with my sister last week.

I love thrifting anyway, and thrifting with my sister, and two little guys who were perfect angels, was pure bliss. The boys racked up on books and a fisher price tape player with its own microphone, and Kim and I were able to try things on for each other, using that sisterly honesty and the occasional enabling nudge.

The damage? $24 for two skirts, one with the store tags still on, two pairs of capris, a shirt for each boy and a teetering stack of children's books. And a morning of fun in a clean, beautifully kept store. And the satisfaction of giving something cast away another life.

My skirt, after a wash, a line dry, and a steamy iron with lavender spray, traveled to church yesterday morning. The boys are discovering the wonder of their own voices played back. We are working our way through the books. And my sister and I are scheming about our next visit. (We could not help but notice a few beautiful sweaters on the racks.) Another satisfied customer.

Quiet

Long time, no post. I suppose I have been taking my friend Tonia's advice, to "Live first. Blog later." A little rundown of the last couple of weeks:

--Bliss to have my Joshua home all day, so we can putter around with Sam, be mostly schedule free, and share that uncluttered summery feeling.

--Reading some wonderful books, The Graces We Remember: Sacred Days of Ordinary Time by Phyllis Tickle and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. Leading me to haunt the Farmer's Market now, and plan a garden for next year.

--Enduring the first fist of classic SC heat and humidity, and drought, which is taking a day off this day of grace, as we bask in overcast skies and 75 degrees.

--Rearranged my paper-crafting area and have been dipping my toe in, making a few cards, enjoying the paper in my hands and ink on my fingertips.

--Continuing to hang laundry, turn off lights, use the attic fan when I can and generally try to set my foot a bit more lightly on the Earth. Conviction on every side about the connections between ecology, human rights, and health. And how it is all coming down to stewardship for me, graciously receiving the gift of this life.

I read the above and feel that nagging feeling, that I'm not doing it, I am not flying that "I'm so busy" flag, the commodity of my spent time like a measure of affluence or importance. Even for this slow-living, stay at home mama, who really doesn't want anything else, I feel it.

But in the stillness of early morning, or late night, I am grateful, for time: time to breathe, to wait for the bread to rise, to wait for the shot to click the shutter, to wait for the pace of the child, to listen.

Remember Me?

It comes in pieces, like hearing the melody of a song you barely know, or a waft of the exact blend of candle wax and flowers from the church you married in, a bite of some forgotten flavor that carries with it somehow the warmth of the sun on your shoulders and the last peal of laughter from a long lunch years ago.

Have you ever had the feeling that you are coming back to yourself, though to be truthful you had not known you were away? That sense of, "Ah, yes, this is me." The me underneath the bills and mopping and baby weight and political news, the one who leaned forward in college in passionate conversation, who read long and laughed long and listened long. Her.

She has slipped back into my skin these last days. It has not all been easy or pleasant, for she brings with her the memories of why some prickly relationships are prickly, why some sins that seem persistent have their roots deep in the past, why life is messy.

But on the whole, gloriously messy. Take her subtle return for instance. She glimmered around the edges of a ranging and wandering and wonderful conversation with a precious friend. She waited around the edges of an art fair, her idealism and hope blessed the eco-changes we are making in our little home. She rustled in the pages of an absorbing book over the weekend. She settled like the blanket of lessening heat at an outdoor concert, wrapping the dulcimer and guitar and banjo, and the four year old who listened raptly.

She wore red on Pentecost, she rose to say, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. . ."

Stress or worry or just the round of life can dull our senses and cause us to forget our essences. Only God, Who made us in His image, could create such a variety of mysteries and marvels, wrapped in skin and set to spin on this green and blue ball of a planet. To connect with that real one He made is to live out the unique journey He authors.

So today is about the smell of homemade bread, pasting paper to paper, drying towels on the line and kissing boy cheeks and ruffling boy hair. CD changer loaded with dusty Cd's, a barely-diminished stack of books and a needle threaded to finish a present. What are the things that take you back to yourself?

From There to Here

The days of May are spinning away. I picture a bobbin on a sewing machine, giving over its thread to the progress of the seam. There is no stopping.

This picture was taken on our camping trip with our friends, only two weeks ago. In the odd ebb and flow of time, it already seems long ago that we pitched our tents, built the fire, and saw our children play together. And yet, like yesterday that we were college students together, when all of this life was only imagined.

As Joshua's K5 year comes galloping to a close, it has been a long journey, and a blink. It seems only an hour ago he walked away with his dad with a Darth Vader backpack and without a backward glance. And yet I know the fall festivals and chapter books and art projects and parachute play and playground heroics and heartbreak that have filled many busy days since that August morning.

We are a long way from the blueberry-eyed baby laid in my arms almost seven years ago, and for that matter, a long way from the tired and terrified mother who received him. And yet, and yet I can feel his slight weight, see his unbelievable smallness and complexity. Feel the fear and joy pounding in my veins, and how I then felt a long way from when that child was a hope, a prayer, a promise, a flutter.

The reality that gives me pause today is that despite the elasticity of my mind and heart, the odd speeding up and slowing down of memory, we are making something in these days. The bobbin spins, the stitches advance no matter how I perceive them. What am I making of these days? Is the seam straight with purpose? When I survey the endless and flying year past, I am grateful that there is another Hand at work, whose grace weaves and breathes through the moments and days, Who knows the end of the creation and is the Crafter of Love itself.