on nurturing

One would think, I told myself, choosing nurture as one’s word for the year would necessitate a kind of gentle life, a quiet realm, a soft and soothing environment in which to nurture whatever it is one wishes to nurture.

 
Last year my word was release.

It wasn’t a word I chose, but rather, a word which found me late in January, several weeks after I’d given up with possible words and had p’shawed the idea of choosing a “word of the year” as faddish and unnecessary.

But a friend, beloved, spoke release over me and, unbidden, it followed me all year, showing up in every major event of 2012. Release of ideals, of expectations, of old bitternesses, hangups and grudges. It called for the heartrending release of unhealthy relationships and even release in the form of long-suspected-but-finally-diagnosed-and-treated health issues.

 
Twenty-thirteen.

This year, I remained ambivalent to the idea of a word. If I was supposed to have a word for the year, it would happen. If not, I wouldn’t fret.

But a few days after Christmas, everything I’d felt swirling in my breast on the cusp of 2013 settled into one thought and, eyes flashing, I turned to John and exclaimed, “Nurture! My word!”

He nodded, yes, yes. That does seem to fit, doesn’t it?

 
Yesterday I made plans to spend the day in my favorite coffee shop, at my favorite laminate table in the far back corner, sipping my favorite extra large latte while turning phrases and weaving words on my little white laptop. Other than a few quick tidbits to do for work (did I tell you I started a new job last fall?) I anticipated seven whole glorious hours without any responsibilities.

As life goes, the “hour or so” of work turned into six hours of work-related busyness and the sun was down and the baristas were washing out the coffee pots for the night before I had typed one quality sentence.

So I wrote for the final quarter hour of coffee shop time. Then I drove across the highway to an open bookstore and pounded the keys for another sixty minutes. Then I rolled the twenty miles home, said some lofty words to my husband and brother about the process of combining art and work and play, and then went to sleep at midnight fantasizing about a pre-dawn wake up for quiet thought-gathering and a bit of stolen writing time. The baby woke an hour later for a three-hour party and I stayed in bed until seven o’clock, time to get the big boys ready for school, to plan supper, to prepare for today’s conference call.

sleepy boys, working mama

I joked to a friend a few days ago that I should change my word from nurture to survive, because 2013 is already shaping up to hold more than its fair share of crazy. How could I nurture anything – writing, my children, my marriage, relationships, my husband’s aspirations, my own  dreams or our family goals – if I’m living on adrenaline and I crash by 10pm each night?

Isn’t that the point? she asked. Doesn’t nurture mean it’ll take some extra effort?

 
2013 is my year to cultivate those hidden plans and dreams, to grow the way I love my dear ones and cheer for them in their own pursuits, to work toward our big family goals.

 
Nurture doesn’t equate fulfillment; it speaks of plugging along, stealing moments here and there, viewing life through the lens of priorities and aspirations. It’s a yearning and focused passion through of the hum of full and hectic family life, in all of its imperfect, blissfully busy glory.

So here’s to cultivating and not simply surviving. Nurturing… even still.

January 23, 2013 12 Comments Filed Under: Create, Mothering, Story

the third of december

This is our neighbor’s house. He pulls out box after box after box overflowing with lights the weekend after Halloween and by Thanksgiving the rooftops are shouting their blue rays above the neighborhood. People turn down our street for the sole purpose of pulling to the curb and snapping pictures.

Until a few days ago, our door was bedecked with its autumn wreath.

My boys were distraught, because after all, our front windows glow blue.

 

December 3, 2012 4 Comments Filed Under: Create, Heart & Home

on the mess

Let the house be a mess. Let the house be a mess. Let the house be a freaking mess.

 

I don’t know where it was I picked up this idea that the measure of a woman is the state of her house.

But somewhere along the road I grabbed the handle of a heavy suitcase that had no wheels but did have the word “perfection” emblazoned on its side. I’ve lugged it behind me these eight years of homekeeping.

Perhaps the road was named “worth” and its cross street called “woman’s duties” but I traversed it willingly, happily in the beginning. I’m an all-or-nothing girl who takes any decent cause and cheers it until it’s become a weight around my neck.

So it is with this house of mine.

My chest gets tight when my eyes behold clutter and I can’t rest if there are breakfast bowls beside the sink and I can’t go to the park if I’ve left laundry folded on the couch, can I?

The converse, in true extremist fashion, is that when I have to do exactly that – leave the laundry or the million tiny bits of paper cut by safety scissors – I decide it’s not worth trying because it will never be just right and let’s all just raise our hands and give up already.

 

It’s just a house, isn’t it? But it’s three stories tall and each one the size of the little cottage we called home before this. And it’s bathrooms with toothpaste in the sink and so much light carpet for both the black dog and the vacuum to cover. It’s a sink full of dishes and guest room sheets to wash and a basement of scattered toys and couch pillows and did I mention all the vacuuming?

It’s ungrateful, I know, and absurd, I’m sure, to say that the house is just too big when so many wish for any house at all or for more space for little legs to jump and toddle, for voices to laugh and carry. And this house, a true gift in its rental price to fit our budget and its yard and the wooden playhouse. How spoiled can one family be?

But still I tense my shoulders and mutter under my breath. I run around the furniture, picking up toys and straightening the blankets tossed over the couch and picking little pieces of black dog hair from the carpet to keep from having to pull out the vacuum for once. I sigh over the bathrooms and the toys and that one office-slash-craft room we can never seem to get set up properly.

 

I counted one day how many times I take the stairs and lost count after fifteen. The baby startles in my arms at the speed with which we fly up and down these two flights.

 

This thing is good, you know? The life we live – the way my husband works hard and I work hard and my part of this partnership is to mother the tiny ones. This house – its tall windows and big white mantle. I’m feeling it right to call this place home and I’m learning to again treasure my privileged place in this family as dwelling keeper and maker of a lovely abode. I’ve left the road called “have to” and now walk along “get to.”

But still, I stand on the grass of this white giant of a place, smile a bit and shake my head at it.

I’m not going to live for the house. I’m going to live from the house.

In fact, I’m going to live from the house.

Oh, I’ll clean it. I’ll wipe my counters and scrub my toilets and I’ll vacuum all three levels.

But I’ll leave those stacks of books beside the couch and I’ll leave the house with dishes in the sink. I’ll let friends pop in when the basement is a wreck and I’ll nod politely to the blocks and action figures on my way up to bed and tell them

I have too much life to live.

 ”Funny, isn’t it,” I said to John the other night, “the way it feels a little more homey when it’s all slightly messy around here?”

“You mean,” he smirked slightly, “it feels like people actually live here?”

 

Let the house be a mess. Calm down and breathe and let the thing be a mess.

 

August 10, 2012 16 Comments Filed Under: Create, Mothering

tired art

Last week I may have stormed up to my room.

I may have closed my door harder than intended (or perhaps, yes, as intended) and then I may have curled my legs to my chest, leaning back against the door of my big, messy closet.

I may have banged the crown of my head against the hanging mirror before realizing it likely wasn’t a good idea if I hoped to keep the mirror.

I may have gritted my teeth and lamented bitterly to myself about the lack of time and the exhaustion and the need need need to create and to write words and to think about something other than laundry.

 

My baby is three months old and the fog of pregnancy clears slowly.

I’ve been scribbling notes here and there, on napkins and in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes.

What does it mean to combine art and motherhood?

 

I’m typing now with a boy kneeling beside me, yellow paper ears stapled together and tied precariously to his head with blue yarn. The baby is learning to roll from side to side and my middle boy is hungry again.

I’m writing now, listening to the big boys whoop their way from chair to bar stool to piano bench to floor. Shelton is asleep upstairs but I hear him stirring on the monitor. Who could sleep through all this hollering?

I’m tapping my keyboard now, sitting at a tiny corner table in a coffee shop. My guy came home from work and shooed me out the door because my piano student canceled and the baby decided he didn’t mind sipping his mama milk from a bottle if Daddy holds it.

I’m sitting in the quiet now, a grey Virginia summer morning. Yesterday John and I took a grocery list and a few dollars to Costco for a date night of cereal and chicken breasts, pineapple and celery. We talked of life and goals and dreams and us. Later, the big boys asked to sleep in the basement and watch a movie. We said yes, because it is summer after all, but we heard their feet tiptoeing upstairs before midnight and we laughed.

art + motherhood

This is life, wrapped together with a silk ribbon and spilling over to the floor.

I’ll catch the pieces that fall

and tuck them back in

and call it all art.

August 6, 2012 14 Comments Filed Under: 300 words, Create, Mothering

starshine

Lisa Leonard - Baker Family Molded Star Ornament

We woke to a house shrouded in early morning darkness and no heat. The light switches were reduced to mere plastic and the stove wasn’t exactly helpful in cooking oats. So we put a log in the fire place and lit a few candles and snuggled under blankets on the couch.

Who needs electricity anyway? The mornings are so cozy without it.

 

My knitting needles and crochet hooks have turned into elves this week, working like mad to form yards of wool into wearable gifts. I want to show you everything I’ve made so far and tell you about the rest I have planned, but how, exactly, do I show you when the receivers of these gifts might likely read the words here? Hmm…

 

Our neighbor’s rooftop is covered with blue lights. His windows are lined with blue lights. His door and trim and trees and driveway and even the yard itself are all blanketed with bulbs in every hue.

Yes, we live next door to that house. People drive by and park their cars and cameras flash.

We wrapped lit garland around our porch and hung big green wreaths in the windows and tied red bows to our outdoor banisters. Sometimes I think I would prefer being 75 to being 25.

 

My dear friend Lisa sent us a silver star ornament and I gasped when I opened the package. It was more perfect, sitting there with its red ribbon and our four names etched around the middle, than I imagined it. Four names and a year, for the last year we’ll only have four names. Troy said, “Hey, it says our names. How did she know our names? Do your blog friends know our names?”

To think that in our time we’ve watched the line blur between online and real life and that in twenty years he may not know there ever was a line.

 

I think we’re going to stay in our jammies all day on Saturday and make my family’s famous chocolate dipped peanut butter and marshmallow fluff cookies. I always buy three times the amount of crackers we need and a tub of peanut butter that will last a year, but oh heavens. These cookies. We need fifty million of them if they’re going to last until Christmas.

***

Lisa Leonard graciously gifted us with this molded star ornament from her new line of holiday decor debuting this Christmas season. She is also offering 10% off of all orders using the code ORNAMENT2011. Perhaps you see one of her new Christmas ornaments that will look splendid on your family’s tree this year?

 

December 9, 2011 5 Comments Filed Under: Create, Pretty
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