From snowing to seventy-something degrees in a just a few days, we jumped. We’ve been soaking up sun like the pale and vitamin D depleted Minnesotans that we are. The sliding glass door bangs every few seconds, in and out and in and out. There’s dirt sticking to my bare feet from the muddy shoes. I don’t even care this time, this winter was just too long to begrudge a little dried spring mud. We are going through all of our things and really considering each item, Do we need this? Are we taking this to Austin? Will we get there and open a box and say “Why in the world did I pack this? Now I have to find a place for it and we never use it.” I’m a tosser, he’s a keeper. Our new garage is about a quarter of the size it would need to be to fit all […]
I’m in the airport at 6:15 a.m. The perfect time to write a post for A Deeper Family, no? Well. I did. I hope I was awake enough to make sense. I do have a really large coffee and a big bottle of water, so there’s that. What a whirlwind, friends. I’m all emotional about moving and I wrote about what a move means for a family and thank God for Phillip Phillips… yeah, you can go on over to A Deeper Family to unravel that mysterious statement….if you’d like. Peace. Instagram: “Strangers across from me. Army guy. Girlfriend. Words With Friends. They are playing each other. Holding hands.”
I always ask for spinach and black olives and pickles and lettuce and spicy mustard. If I get the spinach, I’ll feel healthy. Doesn’t it make everythign healthy? Jared, the sub sandwich guy who lost all that weight, would be proud. On the way to the airport, alone, I sat again with Ira Glass and This American Life. The two hour trip goes by quickly with Ira in the passenger seat. So to speak. Spinach leaf stems keep popping out the side of my mouth with the bites and I suddenly am fully aware that there’s someone at the table next to mine and he feels too close. Too close for eating comfort. We are basically eating together but so separate, waiting for planes. This trip was planned starting yesterday morning, and here I am, alone in an airport but not alone because of the strangers. But still alone. This isn’t the easy […]
To know a “spirited” child is to know extreme highs and lows in another person. To parent a “strong-willed” child is to continuously stand at the receiving end of these changing emotions, mostly dumbfounded. Sometimes we walk away, hands thrown up in the air, no guesses. I can’t help you, I wish I could. She gets over it, comes over and kisses a knee or your hand, says something akin to sorry, pats you softly with a dimpled little hand. In this photo she is thrilled for two reasons. 1.She is carrying a little purse, 2. and she just got to feel the water coming out of the gutter… I have known her for a thousand years and every day I get to meet her again for the first time. Happy weekend, friends.
We entertained them in the car with stories from our lives before they came. They asked questions about the most exciting parts. Daddy, do you think the eyes in the dark by your tent were a bear or a cougar? Mommy, when you got lost in Canada, where were you supposed to be? Why did you move to Michigan and then move back one week later? We laughed and laughed, dramatizing parts of our true stories for effect, their eyes wide. Back home, we shushed them and rushed them to bed. Miles came to the kitchen for “one more” drink of water and looked at me with big blue eyes over the top of his small glass. He took a big breath after a big gulp and sighed out, Mommy? Yes, Stall-y Stallerton? Has anything bad ever happened to you? He says this softly and I feel my heart in my throat… Yes, I […]
You guys, it’s almost here! The very first Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities. (I know, one day you’re going to want to be able to say, “I was there when it all began!”) That’s good because the Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities team is giving away tickets to our show! You can enter to win a 2-pack of tickets on EACH of our blogs AND on the LTYM Twin Cities site. You have a lot of chances to win! Winners will get to go to the show on May 9th at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis on us! The LTYM directing and producing team–Tracy, Galit, Vikki and I are getting so excited to share this show with everyone who can make it. Our cast and their stories are truly phenomenal, and this is such a unique and powerful way to celebrate motherhood, just days before Mother’s Day! You can bring your […]
It thundered this morning. I heard it and couldn’t make sense of it for many moments. Snow is coming down like it’s just days before Christmas or something and there it was, that rumbling, like a bowling ball across hardwood floors. This is both eerie and magical, in April. And disturbing and frustrating. To out-run the majority of the snow, I left our small town last night and drove the two hours to Minneapolis. Or near Minneapolis anyway, to my Aunt’s home in a suburb. This way, if my planned flight doesn’t get canceled on account of all of this snow and wind, I’ll have missed out on driving the two hours today, in really not-so-great conditions. ::::: That was this morning, now it’s nearing 3pm and I’m at the airport, with the flight delayed. I have to catch a connection in Denver, but maybe I won’t. In all the times I’ve ever […]
Blue grass, he says, comes from our time. These new guys are using it now, you know? Old time bluegrass is playing over the speakers at the coffee house. I’m waiting to hang out with the cast of Listen To Your Mother Twin Cities, in a corner by the window so I can see our theater across the street. His beard is stark white. His long gray hair puffs out from under his hat. See? Listen to that, he says to his friend. It’s so good. He’s right, it’s really good. The other man nods and takes a sip of his coffee, looking over the top of a crossword puzzle. These new blue grass bands now, you know how they’re trying to do blue grass? They can’t. They’re too young. You can’t do blue grass well when you don’t know anything yet. They don’t know anything yet! Some of the cast started to […]
Let’s go together into spring, shaking the dust from our eyes and ears, spitting it out. It comes from too many damning thoughts, floats around and brings us to sitting, face in the dirt of our own piling. No, you are not lazy, unless you think you are. No, you are not going to be alone forever, unless you think you are. No, you are not going to go unheard. You are not going to stay right here. You are shaking it off and out and today is a day for moving. Out of your head or your very self or even your city. There are things to not ignore, getting trumped by your repetitive thinkings that demean you and rattle around and whisper hurtful and damaging things. The things to not ignore are heart-gut nudges that you choose to ignore because no no no, not that. That sounds hard. That […]
It was a long day with so much sugar in it. Jelly beans, pastel ones, everywhere and chocolate eggs and Peeps. The boys landed flat on their backs on the couches when the company started to leave, head and stomach aches totally taking over. Elsie zipped around, bouncing off the walls, with her cheeks full of stolen jelly beans like a little chipmunk. At bedtime it was a crash and burn situation. There were several requests for more water, more hugs, more stories, more time. The sugar needed to finish doing them in. The two youngest fell silent first, which is almost always the case. Miles has these big blue eyes that stare into the dark longer, with all kinds of activity behind them, his mind zinging and zapping. His synapses are more active than all three of my sugar-over-dosed kids combined. He went to the bathroom, again. He came to get me […]
