choosing to be

If I could just sit still like this forever! Just to be in the moment like these kids are in this picture. If we could always feel that sand beneath us, that sun warming our arms and spirits, calming us, bringing us inwards where we belong. I love pictures of moments like these because it gives me something to meditate on. I don't need a dream board when I have this scene. This is my dream and I am lucky enough to live it on occassion. So how do I bring it to everyday? How do I give them this beach always? They have the expanse of sand and sea and sky and they choose to sit down together. Nothing artificial or contrived, no manipulative plaything. They're barely dressed! They ran around and into the water Thatcher fell and floated for a heart racing moment, they walked the beach, collected shells and left them behind, inspected the roots of a driftwood tree, saw a horse trod past and then they sat down. Lifted sand between their fingers for minute after minute. How long would they have stayed there? Till the sun set? Would they prefer to live in a tent on that beach? I think they would. So why live that way just one day a year? Maybe five. I think it's only a matter of time before we come to another fork in the road. Or maybe it's just a dirt road veering off to the right, it looks a little risky which is why it's so unused. Maybe we can make it to the end, maybe the ocean's there.

Simply Dreaming

Here we are. The three of us, babes and myself, huddled into one half of a king size bed. I'm home from work, late as usual. It's nearly midnight but since I can't find my book and light I'll record a moment and a thought... Both sleep so quietly, their daddy in the next room, aching before the next day begins too early and runs too late. The plans for us though are simple and slightly overwhelming in their open-endedness. And so in trying to overcome the anxiety of unplanned days I've found a new religion of sorts:

Simplicity. I've yet to be interested in parenting books since Bean was born but I've found one I'm addicted to. It's simple, un-ironically. Less stuff, less information and more free time helps kids figure life out at their own pace, in their own way. I think I've jumped on this particular bandwagon because I've always loved the simple approach to raising kids although I've felt guilty for it. The idea that boredom is a gift you give your kids might come across as mean and neglectful but I refuse to carry any more guilt for not taking them to more "socializing" activities. So far these kids are homebodies, happier to play with pine needles and bugs than go to a tap class or even school! Maybe I should be more terrified but I'm not. I love it and although it's beyond comprehension in this day and age to just let kids be I'm vowing to myself to do just that. Not that we won't do anything ever (God, I want to take these kids around the world!) but most days I am trying to keep it simple. I am getting rid of tons of unneccessary stuff (theirs and mine), I am turning off NPR and turning on Miles Davis, I am letting them explore their worlds and ask the questions they want to ask without prompting them, I am trying to live in their world without burdening them with my own. The trick is to still have my own space there somewhere... which is where a half page of the New Yorker and a cup of coffee come in. I'm learing to simplify my own life too.

So here we are, all nestled in bed "like a bird in a nest in a tree". My nearly five year old crisscrossed with my nearly two year old, both dreaming simple, beautiful childhood dreams.

Please God

So years from now when you both are in therapy or just dishing it all out to your new, young lovers what your crazy parents did so so terribly wrong when you were being raised... whether it was having 24 sitters before you were 2, Tessa, or not fully understanding all your EH!EH!EH!s, Thatcher, I hope the underlying, deep emotional truth you ultimately dig your way down to is that your parents loved you down to their crazy bones. It's an inevitable duty for every human being to judge the crap out of their own up-raising and I have no doubt that we will not be the exception to the rule. But I do hope and pray that you feel generally understood. I know you feel loved, how can you not when we tell you one thousand times a day. But more than that you feel listened to, cared for, appreciated. That we fill your individual needs in a more than basic way. That you're happy. I hope to God above all else that you are happy. That even when you're sad you're happy.

A Collection of Proof

A collection of proof that these kids are indeed growing up. Thatcher insists upon wearing layers of mismatched clothes, preferably Tessa's. They stand and run on their own outside. Their individualistic nature turning them loose on the world. Tessa found and "saved" a dead mouse the other day. We finally had the dead talk although I'm not sure it phased her that much. A pulse is not necessary when a decapitated rodent is just going to sit in a play bird cage on ice for days anyway.

A Day Off

The One Day Weekend has come. Jason's only day off. We spent it hiking, driving, walking, driving, hiking, eating, posting. To document that the winter contains daddy too... here are some lucky shots. (And yes! I bought the damn earrings!)

Odd Vent

(A picture of Tessa's new pajama pants I fashioned out of an old hippie skirt to show I am not as useless as the following post might lead you to believe).

One of my favorite things to do when I'm feeling restless is rearrange my life somehow. Sometimes it's just a picture here to there, sometimes I take down an entire room of wall paper or sometimes I just swap out the comforters. This trait is genetic and it comes to me from my mother who is an avid, some might say obsessive, re arranger. Her house will look completely different from year to year, season to season even. I grew up in not four different places but probably 50. I loved it, my dad and brothers not so much. I think it sparked my interest in travel, in trying new things and my insistence on change. My childhood bedroom went from sunflowers to floor to ceiling collages to dark song lyrics painted all over in the space of a year. I felt like I could change myself whenever I wanted to, all it took was a little paint or a big shopping spree to SA.

So these days, these long often lonely winter days trapped indoors when I yearn to give away all my second hand clothes and start fresh, when I want to buy a gallon of Athens blue paint and start in on a room the reality hits me, in the impossibility of it all I sulk. I move a bed resentfully. I get the kids to help me organize every single craft supply into separate mason jars. I change which towells go in which bathroom. Honestly, it gets pathetic.

But all I have really wanted to do for a few weeks now is buy a pair of earrings. Seriously, it's a change that small that I've given into. I have exactly in mind what I'm looking for and I want it and the absurd difficulty of that kind of task makes me want it more. This feeling of wanting something just for myself is almost painful, it's so coated in guilt. To buy something, not make it, not craft it with the kids, but buy it. The frivolousness of it all. I feel like a real housewife of Connecticut. Not Vermont because if I was of Vermont I'd be melting down old iron from the torn down barn and welding it to maple leaf inlaid glass to make my own earrings. Nope, I want to go shopping. I don't want a yoga class or to go for a hike in the woods (I do but not with the same kind of obsessive zeal). I want a store to spend money in. (This post has been completely high-jacked by crazy Kirsten, btw.) Not much money mind you. Like $10. Maybe $15 if I go totally crazy.

Hoo. Wow. That was weird. Gotta go. The kids are restless. Craft time!

Winter 2011-12

The fillings of our winter.