I was walking along the main street of the town where I grew up. Everything is different and everything is the same. There are new shops and a place called Middle Fork–a quaint little restaurant owned by someone who used to babysit me. I walked in and called for her and she turned and peered through the window to the kitchen. Heather King! she said, and then she held up her left hand to show me her engagement ring. I’m getting married, she yelled. I know! My mom and dad told me! My friends and I, we had dessert. A brownie with a hazelnut cookie dough frosting piled high on top. All day I spent time with people I don’t get to see in Austin, Texas. We talked about everything and more and then I had a vulnerability hangover. Those are much better than a booze hangover, even though they hurt, too. When […]
We drove to a town not too far out of Austin. It’s called Wimberley. Isn’t that just the most perfect name for a Texan town? It’s motto is “A little bit of Heaven” and I suppose that’s true. From the paths that stretch out of your eye’s reach along a curving stream, to the tiny shops and restaurants. It’s pretty heavenly with its beauty and vibe. Toddlers can poop even in heavenly places though, as you well know. So she did. And we went hunting for wipes because moms and dads can even forget things when getting ready for a road trip, as you well know. There was this little grocery store that had the wipes and the dude bagging at the end of the counter said, “Whoa, wipes and water. What a party!” Yes sir, I said. BYOW, that’s me, nothing but a party mom. He rolled his eyes. Then a lady […]
The playroom is totally trashed again. Legos seem prone to the floor, all over, like a minefield. What is the Lego table for? I don’t know. To pile bricks on before tossing them to the floor. I told the boys it’s time to do another Big Cleaning and they fussed and whined. We still haven’t done it. Even though this is what my oldest wrote on the chalkboard right in that same room: Hey! Practice what you preach, kiddo! (I can hear God whispering that to me today, too.) The rules my child wrote seem to cover all the rules for life. We seem to desire clean bodies, our hearts and minds both. It feels best to have no hidden darknesses. We are good-intentioned like that, picking up all the bricks and putting them away, neat and tidy. Not destroying, but building. Not messy, but clean. We want it, but we’re finding […]
1, 2, fwee, 5, 1, 2, fwee, 6….9, 10!!! this is the counting of a two year old, for hide-n-seek. She laughs hysterically when you find her, or she finds you. I can remember, vividly, the exhilaration of the game, as a little girl. Maybe that’s why, at 38, I still love playing this seek and find game with my three little hide and seekers. My Dad made this game so exciting for my sister and I. He’d be down on his hands and knees, hiding behind something and when we got juuuust close enough, he’d pop out, growling and roaring, or so it seemed to me. And we’d take off running, laughing hysterically and squealing with our hearts beating extra fast. Now Elsie does this with her Daddy, and it brings it all back. I listen to Ryan ROAR and my little girl squeals and backs up, shrieks and giggles. Her eyes […]
I sent off a reply email to my friend Sarah, typing out a fast thank you (because she is always helping me) and then I said, THIS WEEK. I was referring to the fact that I will see her in just a matter of a couple of days, in San Diego at the Storyline Conference. Months ago we were like “yeah, maybe we should just go to that, together!” And we registered pretty impulsively cause that’s how we roll, and now it’s here. Today I sat for a moment thinking that maybe I’m a little nervous. But it’s Sarah, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense, while it also makes sense. You know how we used to get to know people? In person or snail mail or the phone, that was it. NO INTERNET, our kids won’t believe it! And I can remember having a pen pal and I felt like I […]
Maybe he was just really tired, that’s what I kept telling myself. But he has been saying this off and on lately, with that same look in his eyes and the stubborn frustration in his little robotic tenor voice. You are always leaving! You haven’t been spending time with us! It was right before bedtime and my heart was breaking. Really? But I’m here, honey. Almost all the time. I’m right here. And it struck me then that he is right. Sure, he’s just an over-tired kid and he’s got really big feelings from his really big heart and sometimes that confuses him. And you know what? I’m not going to beat myself up or make this bigger because I know I haven’t been that detached. But I also know that when there’s a travels-for-work husband and the daily grind and multiple other extra life stressors like we all have, there’s often nothing […]
You create a space for people to be vulnerable, he said. The way you talk about recovery, especially. And it’s just kindness, you treat people with such kindness, they feel safe…” The funny thing is, I was leaning on a bar when he said this. I was ordering drinks, mine with no booze, his and hers with. And in telling me this, he let me know he saw me. He really saw me, took me in. And I wanted to cry because wow, thank you and because I want so badly to be kind, I want people to be able to feel safe with me, always. Anyone. This guy, the one that said these things, is the kind of guy that loves, just like me, to talk about Big Things for hours, and he has a great sense of humor and killer writing skills. He’s young and in love and getting married in […]
He sat down on the top step and asked how he could be so tired when he slept all the way until 6:57am. And he’s right, that’s totally late for him. So it hits me that he keeps complaining of being exhausted, off and on lately. It hits me like a ton of bricks. So I finally stop what I’m doing, look up the number for the doctor and call, right then. He doesn’t want to go and I’m honest that yes, they’ll probably do a blood draw and yes, that sucks. Both literally and figuratively. He’s so grown up these days but later, when we sat in the lab at the clinic he reached for me like he used to and I grabbed on and we put our heads together as the tech said, 1-2-3 and his breathing was erratic and so I kept reminding him, deeeep breaths, you’re so brave, it’s […]
Asher is blasting through age six, already more than halfway to seven. Seven. All these years, I’ve written about our happy boy and had the community of online mothers and other friends hold us up during the hardest times. He is doing so well and sometimes I catch myself holding my breath because of that. Like we’re playing Russian roullette, just waiting for one of these days to be the bullet. Hydrocephalus is like that. The odds are greater that something could go wrong, the longer it doesn’t. The other day I followed behind him, pushing Elsie in her stroller and trying to keep up. He got a scooter for Christmas, and he tells me he worked very hard at being able to ride it. It’s tricky, to balance, just two wheels. His brother has one too and he speeds on way ahead and we call after him, wait for us! Asher doesn’t […]
Elsie leaned into my legs, heavy with sleepiness and trust. Put mine boots on, Mama. She puts one foot in the air, ready. I say, Wrong foot, and she switches quickly, her right foot up. I slide on the boot, trying not to get it stuck partway. Elsie lets out a little giggle behind her pacifier. She loves her cowgirl boots. I show LeeLee, she says, because I’m about to walk her next door, where LeeLee will help her take off her cowgirl boots and she’ll put her pacifier in her cubby and offer her something to eat. I walk back home after a hug and kiss and sit down to work, trying hard to focus, to make the most of the work time. I set up calls, take a call, type out email responses and fill my water glass over and over. I edit something that has been sitting in drafts for […]
Free-writing is more about feeling than thinking. This post is freely written as a part of Just Write (see the square at the bottom of this post for more information on an online free-writing course with me, starting Jan 21.) I don’t know if this makes sense to very many of you, but I typed it out yesterday in a flash and moved on, “Watching videos of the boys when they were babies and I am sitting here feeling the weight of myself on this very chair and how I can’t stay here. I want to be heavy enough to stay here. I’m back there and trying not to go ahead and living in the now is hard, but please can I? Not really, because of time, and because I’m so slow to catch up. I’m far too busy reveling and all this time I thought I wasn’t.” Yes, a facebook status. I […]
Hello friends! This one is for the writers, or those of you who love to write but aren’t sure you feel ready to claim the title. And this one is for anyone who can pass the information on to their creatively writing friends. (Thank you in advance.) It’s normal to hold your breath and rock back and forth when you announce something you’re selling tickets for, right? I mean, especially if it’s YOU that YOU are promoting, basically. That makes the rocking back and forth really fast. Yesterday afternoon I started promoting a course I’m teaching through Quistic, in which I share my writing ways, tips and tricks and dig a little deeper into the hows and whys of writing without listening to that nasty inner critic. Writing without chains or demands, with freedom. If I’m going to preach letting go and taking risks with words, I suppose I should allow myself […]
We Tap Tap two times, hard. This is the way of our family and jigsaw puzzles. Tap twice, like Grandpa did, to brag about getting that piece in. We’re rebels like that. Take that! I am a Puzzle Guru! This is one of the ways a thread pulls through our generations, a sense of humor about silly things and lefse and pot roasts and casseroles. But we don’t call them that, we call them hotdish. Tonight we had a roast, mashed potatoes, vegetables. My parents and my Auntie K are here for a long visit and I feel like I’ve burrowed under a wing for a long winter’s nap. They are home. I mean, mine. My mom does a lot of bustling around, like me. Picking up and cleaning up and doing dishes, opening and closing the fridge. My Auntie Kay tells us stories and laughs her big laugh and she always understands […]
Its leaves were an orange I’ve never seen, changing late for autumn. Procrastinator. It was gorgeous, this orange from the tippy top to about halfway down the tree. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that not one leaf had changed on the other side of the three. Sneaky. If a person didn’t think to look, they’d never know, coming from the other way. The boys were quiet, on this drive to school. That pretty much never happens. But they loved the song on the radio and listened intently to lyrics. Lyrics being lyrical and all, have a tendency to confuse these young boys. Everything is still so literal to them. Poetic rhymes and illogical metaphors just make no sense to them at all. Sometimes I wish it were that simple for me, to just take the orange side as the only one. Never wandering around in curiosity, making sense of […]
I was moving fast, around the kitchen, trying to get ahead, knowing that if I don’t, I’ll be even more behind than I can predict. It just always seems to go that way. But I felt calm, peaceful even, in the midst of the dinner clean up and getting lunches ready for the next day while the kids threw a small plastic ball around the living room and laughed hysterically. I was cleaning up after all of us as I went, trying to stay ahead of the mess too. I wondered, while the loudness of my kids overcame me, how I could be less anxious than ever. It’s certainly not always like that, but it is more and more. I don’t really have an answer, but I’ll take what I can get, that’s for sure. At 6:30 I told them, when I was done with all the things, that we should go upstairs […]
I’ve never lived a December with 70 degree weather in it, but I am. I went to open the window in my office, to let the warm breeze in and a fly was freed from between the pane and the screen. Now it wants to land on my coffee mug, to bug. The boys play outside and play outside some more. They can’t stop. Elsie sometimes goes right out the front door, following them, giving me fits. I hear the soft click as she sneaks out and I run just in case she’s going to go out in the street. Her brothers are always on the other side, Stay right there, Elsie…you can’t come out without Mommy. Enforcers. It is no different here when it comes to decorating for the season. Lights are appearing along roof lines and up in the trees. Twinkling deer and angels and manger scenes are being set out […]
Winter even blows through Austin, Texas. You might not have known that. My blood has thinned through summer or so folks say, and I am consistently cold, buried under layers of blankets, two pairs of socks on, and an extra sweater. The rain keeps falling down and down and puddles around tree trunks and along curbs. The kids keep forgetting it’s not 100 degrees. Just yesterday, Asher came rushing back inside, bare feet and a t-shirt and shorts. It was 30-something out there and he was flushed and shaking. We hadn’t seen his exit, just agreed to it from the other room and off he went. We just assumed he had on shoes, and pants, and a jacket. But assuming with little boys is for the birds. This calls for hot cocoa, just like Minnesota. And a talking-to or seven, about the benefits of dressing for the weather. All of this makes me […]
Elsie was emptying all the cards and pictures from my Bible on the floor, away from the places I’ve tucked them, marking pages or time. Miles was on the bed with the rainbow loom next to Asher who was listening to me read. Ryan is out of town. I was trying not to lose my patience over chaos and how we’re always behind at bedtime but it felt like deep breaths were expensive. After we did so many things, the four of us, and they were all finally quiet with sleep, I sat stunned by the exhaustion and numb. There was more work to be done, lunches to get ready, dishes, laundry, writing deadlines… Then I put this note on Facebook – I wish there were some sort of motherhood gang sign, or a common phrase we whispered to each other as we walk by–in the store or on the street, at the […]
Are you a Mommy? I turned around and realized she was talking to me, standing up in the back of the cart her grandma was pushing. Are you a Mommy? Yes, I am. I have three kids. One is 8 years old, one is 6 years old and one is about your age. She’s two and a half, her grandma said. Oh yeah, you’re the same age as my daughter. Her name is Elsie! She said her name then, in a cute little toddler way, and I couldn’t understand her. She said it again. I looked at her grandma. “Her name is Sapphire” she said. She calls herself Sapphi, because well, her mom didn’t know how to spell Sapphire entirely, so she only wrote Sapphi on the birth certificate and it just kind of stuck…now I have her. All the time. She’s mine. Sapphi bounced a little from the back of the cart […]
I have vivid dreams, every night. I don’t know if they’re in black and white, like people say, about dreams and their muted tones. I don’t remember them like a movie, but a memory. I’m revisited by people from the long ago in my dreams. So often there are people I haven’t seen in years, interacting with me like we’re family. Their faces and voices and the stories we’re playing out are so vivid, I’d bank on neon colors over black and white. I talked with a friend, standing out in the sun, about watching old videos of our kids. Those same kids played nearby, the boys knocking each other down and laughing and Elsie Jane watching and shriek-giggling and hopping around them. Outdoor toys were scattered all over the driveway. My friend said that she had forgotten exactly how her daughter was at age four, but they just watched a video and her little […]
The streets through the neighborhoods here are so curvy, so when I ask the kids to spy Halloween decorations as I drive, they have to do all the looking. I’m too busy making sure I don’t remove my eyes from any surprises around the next bend. Today I glanced, because this ginormous blown up black cat was so…well, distracting. It was as big as the front yard’s trees and those trees were big. I only caught a glimpse of the cat, and a middle-aged man loading things into an SUV in the cat’s driveway. The radio was playing Family of the Year’s song, Hero: …But I’m just a kid like everyone else. So let me go I don’t wanna be your hero I don’t wanna be your big man… And I wondered if the man in the driveway feels like that. Like I do sometimes–just a kid like everyone else. I wonder, does he […]
This morning waking up felt like it had something to do with quicksand. I made us run late, but just a “it’s going to be okay” from Ryan reminded me not to freak out about it. The boys helped get Elsie up and ready and that made me smile. I brought her next door and another mom was dropping off her boy and I told the room, “I overslept. LIKE A BOSS.” They just stared at me, and my bedhead and probably the lines still creased into my cheek. Okay then! SeeyaBYE! I’m still walking Asher in to school these days, it’s what he needs. But I wanted less people looking at my bedhead and creases, so I told Miles he would need to walk Asher today, down his hallway. He said yes without complaining, which made me smile. LIKE A BOSS. I am very sneaky and proud to have a backup plan on mornings […]
I have no idea what the date is, and I’ve had too much caffeine. So I’m dropping things and I’m craving protein. I’m on a plane and to get here I took a cab. The driver went too fast and talked on his phone and we were zooming past the goldens and greens and rubies and oranges of the Minnesota autumn. Hold on. Slow down. The security line can wait. My Dad turned 65 during my visit home. I remember clearly when he turned 50. My nephew Zach was a toddler and on that birthday, he sat with Dad in the front of my parent’s split level home, in the sun. Dad had on a blue Harley Davidson shirt and he was working on the bottom of something, I can’t remember, with one tool or another in his hand. Zach sat next to him repeating, “I help you fick it, Papa.” I have […]
We had taken quite a detour to get there, initially going to the wrong hotel and then taking Atlanta’s train system to the right place. We laughed the whole time, even when it felt like we were entering the center of the earth via the longest and slowest down down down escalator I’ve ever seen. There was no one else around, which made the dark and the damp and smelly air even more eerie. We found the terminal, down in there and came across a few good men, who noticed our possibly entirely lost looks and helped us figure out what train to take. A couple of days later, when we went to dinner again, a few people at a table turned to look at us as we stood at the hostess stand. They turned back to the large group with them, said something, and everyone turned to look at once. Staring. Staring […]
I was getting out of the car, grabbing my bag and another bag, my coffee mug, and I dropped my glasses on the driveway. I bent down to get them and saw a snail in the grass. The squishy looking sluggish body was carrying a big shell. Just like that. It amazed me. My glasses were scratched, but I just needed to crouch down like that for a little while and watch the creature. I got out my phone and took a picture but it was like he was camera-shy and got inside his swirly shell before I snapped the photo. I went in the house, put down all the things and put the picture on Instagram. Everything needs cleaning, so I looked around at where to start. I had been at school volunteering and now it was already late morning, so much to do, a meeting this afternoon and on and on, […]
After all of this drought, we were caught in a deluge. Running out into it was like standing under a bucket, dumping it over yourself, drenching. We took shelter every time we could, bus stops, full trees, building awnings, but it was so much. So much water. Our feet would slap slap slap the ground, counting out a rhythm out of tune with the rain drops whoosh, all at once. Over and over. We ran from the sidewalk to a path through the Texas state capitol’s grounds. Our clothes and hair were soaked all the way through, puddles in my shoes. I had been hanging with a bunch of do-gooding out of towners and they were all like, Drought. Yeah, right. I know, it doesn’t seem like it right now, but it’s true. We ducked back inside to hear more speakers and we stood at the back, because, soaked. I thought about the […]
The dryer stopped making heat a couple of days ago, while my sister and aunt are here for a visit. I set it aside, in my head, on the Later shelf. Now I’m sitting in a laundromat, green and white checkered floor, for men in a row on the bench behind me, waiting. They have no phones or computers to look at and when it’s time, they get up in unison, pull the laundry baskets on wheels to the dryers and empty dryers, move to tables, fold in unison. They don’t talk much. A lady with short hair like mine sits up on a folding table, criss-cross applesauce, reading something on her iPhone while baby sleeps in a stroller to the whir of washing and drying. I check my email, look up and think, make stories in my head and wonder if Auntie Kay and Sister Shelly are bored while waiting for me. […]
He is explaining the behavior system in his class. Did I tell you how it works? You start on green and you want to go up. If you go down, you could get in the orange and that’s not good. But if you go up, that’s good. It’s your clips. Clicks? You go up and down clicks? No. CliPPPS. Oh okay, gotcha. I’m sitting on the edge of his bad and he starts to rub my arm, absent-mindedly. He’s wearing two shirts, even thought I told him he’ll be hot. Oh well. He’s all wrapped up in a hooded blanket too, it’s so soft. The hood has horns on it and eyes that end up on his forehead. It’s a monster hooded blanket. His favorite. He bites at his fingernail and tells me about his friend who has trouble not moving down into orange which means he could end up one more down […]
This is (WOW) the 100th installment of Just Write. Please join me in free-writing your (extra)ordinary stories, your memories, your moments. I would love it if you would…. Here’s to 100. *clink clink* ::::: These were the best fajitas I’ve had in…well, maybe ever. The kids jumped in the trampoline outside, yelling and screaming and bumping into each other on purpose and sweating a lot. Ryan stayed home with an under the weather Elsie who needed bed. Miles rode his scooter, ahead of us and Asher walked with me, behind. He held my hand. He still loves to hold my hand. More and more I want to hold these days and these moments in my hand and keep them for as long as possible because they feel more and more slippery. And then there are other times, in these young years when the whining and waking up over and over and the diapers […]
We walked through the grass that’s getting too long again, across our yard and into our neighbor’s yard, cut through their driveway and stood on their shiny brown stoop. Elsie was in only a diaper because she was about to have a bath and get ready for bed when I realized we should visit her preschool (yes, at the next door neighbor’s home) before the morning since it had been a while since we’d been inside. She stepped confidently in, but then when the whole family was squatting down to welcome her and tell her all the wonderful things she’ll be doing, her face crumpled with overwhelm and she put her arms up to me, to be held. Home. She said. Bye. I consoled her and showed her toys. Our neighbor told her she could have pancakes or waffles in the morning. She just stared, her big blue eyes all wet. Home. We […]
