contentment

 

The day is full of empty pages, 

and I spend my nights wondering 

what could have been written on them.

This world promises nothing.

Even those of us who are pampered

Feel regret, pain, and discontentment. 

But, the Lord grants us fleeting moments of understanding...

That often happen in the indefinable space

Where fully living meets dying to ourselves.

I ran outside in the rain today to photograph

This dandelion with every seed intact.

It was such a perfect and fragile moment.

Even as I crouched there,
Other dandelions were being ripped to shreds 
By the raindrops, now coming in quick supply.

A body that will in minutes be on several individual journeys

Is in this moment still and whole...

And so am I.

Mornings...

I have been trying to jump start a different morning routine.  This has gotten me thinking about mornings in the past, the days I started off right and the ones that were not so good.  I am not a morning person at all, so I remember vividly and with little pleasure phases of my life that required my getting up at the crack of dawn.  Eew...

Lately I have had the great pleasure of sleeping until seven, and then crawling through a languid list of activities until about nine.  It has to change... I hate that it has to change.

I look back on mornings before I had the boys, and even after and my routine has been so much more relaxed, even bordering on the slothful; but I can't help it--- I so much love our lazy mornings, and I feel so blessed to have had a season in which I could just really love life at this time of the day.

Lately...

Mornings are for little hands on my shoulders gently waking me, and sweet little faces so happy to see my eyes open.  I watch them walk ahead of me to the kitchen, and melt over how they wobble because they feel they must carry every blanket and stuffed animal they own to the couch with them.

Mornings are for filling our bellies with soothing drink: creamy chocolate milk for them, piping, freshly ground coffee for me.

Mornings are for quiet talk, cuddling with favorite books, deep breathing, and the joy of being, and of being together.

Mornings are for a half hour to myself in the bathroom.  It's hard to explain how sacred this time is, but I love being able to start my day with a shower, to fix my hair and stare at my face.  I  don't think it's vanity... at least I hope not too much.  I don't stand there and criticize or pat my back for looking good.  I just stand there and think, and try to remember what I looked like younger, and imagine what I will look like older.  It's just a little way I try to connect with this body God gave me.

Mornings are for fresh laundry, clean dishes, putting away, sweeping under and dusting the tops off.  They are for teaching and sharing in little chores that make our days cleaner, clearer, and fresher.

Mornings are becoming a little rowdy, a little unhappy, and our days are a little too busy.  It is not a bad thing, it just means they need to be jumped into a little earlier and with a little more energy.  I would be crazy not to feel a little sad about what I'm losing, but I would also be crazy not to feel incredibly spoiled by every morning I have to spend as a stay at home mom, with such a sweet little family, in such a pretty little house.  Each and every day--- I am completely blessed.

Podunk

 

 Eatin' strawberry pie in a mid-town diner 

Next thing you know you're back in South Carolina 

Stuffin' your mouth at Grandma's house 

Then a lady in a booth gets onto her kids 

Lays down the law like your mama did 

And it makes you smile 'cause every once in a while 

We all go home to a place and a time 

In our hearts and our minds 

That we just can't outgrow 

There's a tie that'll bind you 

And love that'll find you 

No matter where you go 

Someday, someway we all go home

{Lyrics borrowed from Joe Nichols' We All Go Home}

What we do now...

“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” 

“What we need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.” 

“If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending... But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.” 


Quotes taken from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Wishing some reflection and perspective into our future.