When my head is full and my heart is hurting, I need the lake. I need the lake because it claps and waves and pours out. It is music and art and an open willingness. When I think I’ve figured it all out and my end answers bring pain, the lake laughs with its ever-changing redemption, rolling over the rocks and springing up, alive like its breathing and talking. The great pretender, the lake says watch this, and then steals the thunder from the sky and tosses up some rain. I need the lake because it is proof. That there is always a washing away and a miracle. This post is a part of Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
We painted. For hours. It was our anniversary and the two short dudes were staying with Nanny and Bapa. Painting may not sound like a very nice way to spend a day celebrating six years of perfect wedded bliss, but there we were. (Actuallly, we like to work on house projects together when without the kiddos. We talk, we boss each other around, we take our time.) Anyway. We were painting the kitchen and taking turns observing out loud how annoying it was that the paint didn’t seem to want to be on the wall. Or maybe, it was the previous coat of paint that was trying to shirk off the new and better, brighter color. We rolled and rolled and brushed and brushed and the paint put up its fight, acting all see-through no matter what amount of paint was being slathered over it. Of course, this was an analogy to me. […]
My Miles, “helping” Daddy build a shed. When my boys came home yesterday, Miles was the first one to bust through the door with a bang. He was talking fast about a park, a place he had played with his cousins on their trip. It seemed very urgent, what he had to say, while he held his hand behind his back. His sun-kissed cheeks were just a shade darker than three days before and I felt like I’d missed so much. It was so good for all of us, this short time apart, but then there he was, somehow suddenly older, maybe even taller, and just so perfect. When he pulled that hand out from behind his back he was saying he found something at that park and then he saved it for me. Here you go, Mama. It’s a small yellow hair binder, one that must have belonged to a busy little […]
The thing about summer in Minnesota, is that it’s so precious, a person hardly even knows where to start to make the most of it. It seems as if it flashes by in a moment and every fall, we Minnaahsoohhtons are left wondering if it really happened or not. We stand in the crisp turned frigid air and wonder how one point on the map can be so full of warmth and vibrant color and then, in an instant, so full of ice and gray. So we gobble up summer, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. See? Miles with friend, Marin oh my, I can’t stand it… look across the lake, at the rain falling over there, but not here um…seriously… little T is such a tasty little morsel.(my life-long friend Jenna’s little girl) Meet Lucy. She is my sister and her family’s dog.Her head is not floating…she’s simply begging to […]
I did some writing for a while in my favorite coffee shop today, but with my boys out of town for a couple of days, I felt the pull back to the quiet house. I looked around and knew there was too much mess and dirty for a clear head, so I cleaned for a while and then I played Super Mario Bros and then cleaned some more. My head is clear now. And so is the counter top and even the under of the couch. My friend came over and we sat on the patio and talked about things that matter and when I look at her I see this beautiful person that reflects me and I feel better about who I am. We are both so broken and so fixed. I made her late for dinner because of stories. Then I got in the car and drove to the grocery store. […]
So I disappear for a while and then I come back with a random post, waxing philosophical on crying strangers. Am weird. Then so many of you were kind enough to say something along the lines of Um…okay, Heather…but how are YOU? I’m well{ish} I’m trying to make friends with the middle. And by that I mean that I struggle to be okay with not being perfect while I also mostly just want to cave to being the opposite of perfect. For example, I feel so much more peace these days about all things motherhood. I used to ruminate and worry much more than I do with sobriety in my pocket, and it’s strange new territory. Because as an addict (and a human being) I have this all or nothing tendency. So. That whole peace thing is bordering on laziness. Believe me. I know. I live here. Yesterday I did more nothing than […]
I’m sitting here with some acoustic folk. Not folk as in people, but with folk music, and I’m wondering about the lady that’s crying in the next room with her friend, the one who is raising her crinkly brown napkin to the corners of her eyes to dab and sniff. I can see her because of the french doors and their glass panes, ten of them. I wonder why she’s crying but I’m not going to listen. I could take off my headphones and listen, but I want to honor her story, her sense that it’s hers and only shared with a friend, in their own space, in the coffee shop they share with me. A place that feels very safe. And I wonder why so few people actually check on crying strangers when they’re not with a friend, and if they do, is it because they really care or because they’re curious […]
Summer is chasing into Fall like its catalyst is a hurricane. And I’m off to the races right alongside it, leaving behind my peace these days.I’ve got to sign off for a while to try to grab a hold of some semblance of order, a connection with my boys, a plan for schooling I’ve yet to find, for writing, answering, listening, for the preparing for the speaking, and for embracing the days. I’m the kind of person that feels a heavy ache over disorder. The state of my home is the state of my head and heart and I’ve been thrown off, tired, in a funk. Sometimes I just need a break from the beautiful and overly engaging worldwide web. But you knew this…we all do. Take care of you, friends. I’ll see you soon. COMMENTS ARE CLOSED. I still really like you though. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in […]
I think back on it. Back before we moved, nearly eight months ago already. I think back on the difference and I compare for a while. I feel sick to my stomach for a while. Then I feel grateful for a while. There was rarely anything that could interrupt my drinking routine. And if something came up, I almost always found a way. You’d be amazed at how there’s always a way when your will is that strong. But one night, after Miles had been sleeping for an hour or so and I was getting sufficiently buzzed, or trying to, anyway, he woke up with a cry. This rarely happened, and when Ryan and I went to him, he threw up and threw up and threw up. His sheets and pillow, his floor, his little blankie, everything covered in vomit. I sprang to action and forgot my wine. I held him and cleaned […]
{This post was written in the spirit of Letters From a Nut by Ted L. Nancy. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, there’s a small chance this could still be funny. This was written one night in the hotel room while at BlogHer, when Ellie and I were at our giddiest. You’re welcome.} ~~~~~~~~ Dear Blogging Conference, We wanted to write to you today to express some gratitude, opinions, questions and ideas. As your conference comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on our weekend and we are filled with many over-flowing emotions. Please give this letter to the highest of higher ups, so they can know about these emotions. We are the people. We are the bloggers. We are tired, and even so, we deserve to be heard, we the people-bloggers. As a side note, please be sure to consider our status in this subculture. We are known. […]
On Friday morning at BlogHer there was a 5K through Central Park, honoring Tanner of Tutus for Tanner. Tanner himself saw us off from the hotel lobby, and then as you can see, we sprinted the entire way. I am so in love with this picture. It is friendship and connection and it is spreading the word for a good cause. I have my hand on Allison, my fellow Minnesotan blog friend. She is one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the honor to know, so I’m really glad my hand is on her. Hopefully her goodness wore off, adhering itself to my palm a bit. ~~~~~ For the rest of this week through next Wednesday my family (extended and immediate) has the use of a cabin on a lake. We’ve already been making use of it this week. I have to show you some of the photos from out there because […]
and let’s not forget Maggie, who quit drinking the same day I did… So yeah. Yesterday I went on and on about some pretty ridiculous behavior I experienced on my trip, or heard about, or saw…but it’s over now and I’m letting it go, just.so.you.know. What I’m choosing to focus on coming away from the conference and the overall time in New York City is the deepening friendships with some amazing women I would not know without blogging. And also writing a book. I’m also trying to focus on that. But for now I want to share a couple of things I really think you might love to read: I often tell people that this blogging kinship thing feels like Meryl Streep’s (character’s) relationship with her pen pal in Julie and Julia. Through most of the movie you get the impression that this is a best kind of friendship, and then it’s revealed […]
{This post is sprinkled with photos of women who are The Real Deal. Just so you know. Links to them are at the end of the post.} All around the bloggiverse, posts are being written about BlogHer ’10. Posts that are filled with excitement and joy and fear and disappointment. Posts that are filled with feelings. loads of feelings. If I’m being honest, I’m hesitant to raise and add my voice to this current choir. Maybe because I’m afraid it won’t be heard and I want to believe it matters. Or maybe because I know many of my readers aren’t bloggers so blogging about a blogging conference and all of its strange nuances would, for them, be too foreign to understand. I don’t know. I guess I’m posting this because what I have to say is universal, and maybe it’ll shed some light on what is currently a mostly unknown subculture of good […]
I feel like I just got home from summer camp. I want to pontificate on my many layered feelings about the BlogHer “camp” experience, but I don’t know that any of us can truly articulate what it was like. And some of us are going to avoid sharing our true feelings in their entirety because let’s face it, everything in life, even beautiful things, have their share of yuck. I returned home last night exhausted, with nothing left but a need to decompress.Ryan wanted to hear about the weekend and I started to tell him stories and then I just stopped and said I was too tired of thinking about it all, even if most of it was absolutely good. There’s just too much to say.For now, let me just tell you the story of Wednesday, the day I flew in to New York City, hopped in a cab and 50 bucks later, […]
There is a lull, this settling in me at the same time as I float, all while striving.I don’t know how a lull that brings a settling and its opposite–this floating like transcending, can equal balance, but they do. Somehow they do. I’ve never understood math, anyway. Life is always both settling and transcending, floating while in a lull, pushing and pulling, sad and good. I don’t know what to make of it, this freedom in the balanced place between, the place where I stand, in the middle, believing the striving and the pain and the hope and joy are all acceptable at the same time. Today I’ll have the literal sense of floating, up there in a seat in the clouds with my nervous butterflies of insecurity and hope. And while I fly toward a new adventure, I will feel the pull down and back, to home. To my two small boys […]
Today I need to go pick up my tutu. It has black netting and with a neon bright color underneath. The color is a surprise. I will run through Central Park with my tutu on this coming Friday for the BlogHer 5k, raising money and awareness for Tutus for Tanner, a let’s-kick-muscular-dystrophy’s-ass organization. I’m really excited. Also. I plan to run like Phoebe in that episode of Friends, where she runs through Central Park with such wild abandon, flailing all over the place. And then Ellie, who will be with me, will have to play the part of Rachel in that episode and give my Free Limb style of running a chance. And then people will take pictures of us and I will crop them and put only a flailing Ellie’s photograph on this here blog after chopping myself out of the picture. {evil laugh} I have no time to be writing this. […]
Sometimes Mother Guilt is about more than the junk food our kids eat or how much TV they watch. I have a friend who has a boy who has something. There’s something wrong. My friend is looking at herself and asking questions. What could I have done differently? Maybe it’s because I did this? Maybe it’s because I didn’t do that? Was it the shots? Is it his diet? Maybe I shouldn’t have sent him to kindergarten yet….maybe all that stress triggered this, this new person he’s becoming…. His behavior is obviously changing, moving him higher on The Spectrum. And his mom sits terrified, waiting for what he’ll do next, and what the assessors will say after her firstborn boy is evaluated and scrutinized and labeled. She is exhausted with three kids, listening to his high-pitched screeching sounds all day every day after very little sleep. This is new, he didn’t make this […]
I was sitting on a towel in the sand, keeping watch over my two little guppies in the water and soaking up some vitamin D. She walked up next to me while speaking rapid-fire Spanish, an excited expression on her face. I caught about two words, and assumed she was talking about the toys on the beach that my boys were playing with, that they were hers. I tried to answer her. It was awkward. The boys watched. Wait. They did not just watch. It was more than that. They sat enthralled, looks of interest and awe on their faces, defenses down. It’s not that they’ve never been around people who speak something other than English, they have, quite a lot, actually. But maybe it had been a while, or maybe it was just her, this girl, the way she carried herself with such joy. I think that’s what it was. It wasn’t […]
