Poem : : First day of School Vacation

These little people
who have been
like the walking dead
for months on end
as the school days
droned on and on
Barely able to put
feet on floor
Groaning
in the glare
of the light
when Mama comes
to wake them up,
Are squealing
and bumping
and giggling
and building
and whumping
in the pre-dawn
hours of
the first day
of school vacation.

Poem : : My Feet Use to Be

My Feet Used to Be

My feet used to be
Bare and free
Calloused and agile
Gauging the bark
and strength of the branches
as I climbed.
Sinking into the soft red clay
of the well-worn path around the lake,
in spite of the carpet of pine needles,
gallantly thrown
like a cloak over a puddle.
Expertly avoiding the crabby crawdad
under the rock
who did not appreciate two giant invaders
into his watery domain
Quick stepping
on the hot black tar-top road,
softened by the sun
so my indented footprints
were left behind.
An advance scout
Sent out
test the strength
of some cobbled together invention
made by kids with too much time
and too little building experience
on their hands
Now they are prisoners
of age, injury, fitness goals, work, and propriety
Swathed and suffocating in cotton socks
and always shoes
My feet remember
how it used to be
to breathe

On the Loneliness of Marriage

I have lived for over 13 years with someone who is very unlike me.  He is an introvert in the extreme.  And sometimes his hobbies and job make it exponentially more intense.  But this is not a blog about him or why I think he is the way he is.  It is about me and the loneliness of being married to someone like him.  Let me be clear, I love my husband very much and I work very hard to accept him the way he is, in the place he is, and still gently ask for my needs as a partner in marriage to be met.  But sometimes they just can't be met.  He can't give what he hasn't got.  You can't get oranges from a hardware store.

Most nights I put the kids to bed and then he retreats to his man cave and I putter around.  Alone.  In fact, for one reason or another, I do most things alone, or with just me and the kids who are still young enough that I am constantly parenting and not always just enjoying their company.  Trips, church, chores, most meals, holiday preparation, parties, cookouts, camping, hiking, concerts, household projects and repairs, shopping of any kind (and lots more) are, for the most part, done solo or sometimes I can recruit a friend.

You would think I'd enjoy it after a full day of being with three rambunctious, hyper kids.  But I don't.  I recharge by being around people.  Grown people.  My brain wakes up and thinks and connects thought to thought and laughter with laughter.  I enjoy being around people.

The other day as I was driving to a class alone, I began to cry and pray.  "Lord, this feels like the same crushing loneliness I felt as a single person.  The loneliness I cried out to be released from by joining with a spouse.  I really thought that marriage was the answer (even though everyone said it wasn't.  I didn't believe them).  If I could just find a partner to share life with.  If I just had someone beside me to see what I am seeing and enjoy it."

But here I am, the other side of it, and I am just as lonely.  Some days it feels like I might not be ok, because I am so lonely and in that loneliness, feel intensely unloved.  And then I get angry.  I AM OWED COMPANIONSHIP, right?  I AM OWED A PRESENT PARTNER, right?  Usually this ends with me yelling at my hubs and telling him all the things he is doing wrong.  Perfect for making someone want to spend time with me, no?

As I cried and prayed, the thought came to me, if I am the same kind of lonely inside or outside of a marriage, maybe the answer was never marriage.  No brainer, for anyone with therapy experience, but knowing something and KNOWING something are different.  Know what I mean?

I drove to my class and on the way back home, I took a "vitamin" from the Y.  (It is a little slip of paper you can grab on the way out of the door and it has a scripture on it.)  It said ""As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. John 15:9"

Remain in my love.  Remain.  I am already there.  I just can't see it.  Or feel it.  Because I am focused on what my flawed (and we all are) husband can or can't give me in relationship.

It's not all peaches and roses from here on out.  I know that.  A bible verse doesn't fix me.  Self knowledge doesn't fix me.  I need to be reminded multiple times to remain.  Just stay here.  Present.  And be loved.

As the Day Ends

In the click of the lock as the day ends
In the hum of the a.c. outside
In the thrum of the mower that the neighbor uses at 9pm as if that is the perfect time for firefly lit yardwork
In the woosh and spin and click of the hookup of the dishwasher that is
An anachronism in this kitchen made for the 50's
In this house made for the 20's
In the stones that hold 100 years of time in the history
of earth and death and grass and Hackberry star seeds
To the rhythm of the breath of sleeping babes
Who dream and become old men and old mothers
In the passing of the sun and the moon as it grows fat and lean
In the seasons and the years and the lifetimes that this place
Held and lost and held and lost until this moment.
My bare feet on these creaking boards, once trees, once seedlings, once acorns,
Once one hundred feet high on the limbs of their mother
Carried here.  To now. Where the mint takes root in the glass on the sill
And the van beeps as I double check
And the lock clicks as the day ends.

An Invitation to Beckon the Lovely - the passing of Amy Krouse Rosenthol

I am typically not a fangirl, but I was and will always be a fan of Amy Krouse Rosenthal. She died today. Amy was a writer, an essayist, a film maker, a mother, a wife, a finder of magical and beautiful things, an encourager of others to find their magic and beauty. I watched her film, read her books and like a total nerd, wrote her a letter. 

She wrote me back. We didn't agree on where bowls should be racked up in the dishwasher, but in all things serendipitous, beautiful, and so unexpected they seemed magical, we each found joy. Me, because she pointed it out for me (and many others) and got my head out of my own crazy, lost in baby-land, navel gazing and her because she was a perpetual optimist who had her eyes wide open and searching for it. I strive to be like that. She made things. She did things. She gathered other makers and doers to her side without fear or comparison (or the paralyzing self doubt I am plagued with) and I watched her in wonder. They made things together. 

When I read her post in the NYTimes about her husband (a dating profile of sorts in hopes that he'd find love after she was gone), that was when I realized she was passing out of this world and I sobbed like it was news of my best friend dying. I had to go to bed early. I was a wreck. For a virtual stranger. But that was the way she invited people in. To know her through her writing. To make them laugh, and think, and wonder. I am grateful that she was here as long as she was. I am grateful that she shared so much of herself and encouraged others to beckon lovely. 

In honor of her, I will do as she asked and beckon the lovely into my life.  To look for the magical, romantic, serendipitous, silly and beautiful.  To open my eyes and live more deeply in gratitude.  And when I forget, as inevitably I will, I hope that you, my community of lovelies, will walk beside me and lift my head up to see the sun rise.  I will do the same thing when it is you who cannot look up from putting one foot in front of the other.

Thank you, Amy, for all that you brought to this world.  You will be sorely missed.








Her movie
Her Books
thebeckoningoflovely website has been taken over by some insanity.  Don't go there. 
whoisamy.com is much better.

Lack

I didn't know we were poor until it was pointed out to me, with sneer and disdainfully curled lip, topped with perfect blond curls and giant grosgrain bow, that I always wore the same dress to church. 

I didn't know we didn't have what others thought we needed because I had the wild woods, the endless Texas sky, a creek to dig toes in mud, and a library so full of everything I could ever want to read, (I wanted to make it so no one else could check out books and I would go A to Z and read them all.  If others checked out books, how would I know what I missed?), 6 playmates, logs and leaves and forts and trees, a lake and a flat bottom skiff and shiny brass hooks to catch those 'sucker fish' with, with the night crawlers dug from the leaf beds, where the long, tar-top driveway curved and ran to grandma's house.

I learned while my sister worked her first job to buy nicer things than my parents could afford so she would feel like she fit in.  And she permed her hair and her eye lids turned a shimmery blue to be like those other 90's teenagers.  I learned when the kids around me asked if I had worn those jeans yesterday.  I had.

I learned when I saw your house and realized that mine was different.  That there was a hole in the floor, where the only thing between me and the chickens underneath the trailer was a green shag carpet.  It bowed there and we jumped over that spot between the living room and the kitchen.  And the thought of you coming over and knowing that about me, made my insides roil like a nest of rattlesnakes. 
 
My three haven't learned.  And we haven't lacked.  Until now.  When the job goes and the money dwindles and the roil comes back.
.
I am gloriously grateful today that a trip to buy new Storm Trooper shoes for a gift is all the birthday he needs.  He hasn't discovered it yet.  The Lack.

And this I know to be true, even if I don't manage to live there, The Lack, no matter how much we have or buy or give or fill up with 'things' and people, it will never go away.  There will always be someone with more and will I compare or will I be content?  Will I envy Disney and nicer, bigger houses and vacations and fancy mini-vans?  Have I given the illusion that I have transcended the envy of 'stuff' but still envy bodies, and beauty and youth, and relationships and compare my inside to your outsides (and Facebook feed)?
Or will I close my eyes and find quiet in the lack?
Can I find quiet in the din of this noise in my head and this twisting roil of rattlesnakes, that's true name is Fear of being known and rejected?
Can I get by with filling my eyes with envy instead of the peace brought by the lack thereof?
Or can I live here? In the Lack?  And hand over my worries and fear and just be content?
Sweet Lord, I hope I can.