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Big & Little Bill

found!

Me, Mandy, and Glenna looking like we're praying (but not really).

SARK

Bill made some amazing, no, AMAZING gluten/dairy free muffins yesterday. Seriously. They taste like vanilla cupcakes except they're not and they're supposedly, no, supposedly not so bad for a girl. I had them for dinner last night and again this morning for breakfast. He spoils me so well :)

We had agreed earlier in the week that Wednesday Bill could sleep in and today I could. Good thing because I was up most of the night with some sort of cold/allergy mayhem. It sucked. When I did finally wake up this morning the boys were already out the door leaving me with some unexpected quiet. I'll take it. Again, he really does spoil me well.

Wednesday I had started writing a second post, it goes like this...

More thoughts and a second post for the day.

Yesterday when I was ruminating about my present funk I thought about healing and how we are never truly "healed"--how the process of healing never ends.

Today, as I used my gift of time and space to look for new inspiration I found these words from Sark's book "Transformation Soup":

...This was during a time when all I could do was wake up and eat Fritos. Then I had to complete and turn in more art work. People say to me, "But you've done all this therapy, have a healer, a company, but you are a bestselling author how hard can it be?" What they're really saying is that they hope the pain ends when they get to a certain level. It doesn't. Let's just realize and admit that the pain never ends and go on brilliantly anyway. (126-127)

and a bit later...

Joy is tougher to accept than pain. Isn't that a curious paradox. We are often more comfortable with pain and struggle because it's familiar...I believe that we are so unaccustomed to living in joy that we actually create suffering and wrap it like a familiar cloak around ourselves. We forget that it is our right and privilege to live in a state of joy. Be willing to notice just how much joy you're creating and living with. (127-128)

And then I stopped because all the words I tried to use to explain why it resonated with me sounded forced. Even the picture feels a bit much without some explanation--but I did leave it because a) he's so stinkin cute. and b) because some how the picture does explain what my words could not.

Let's see if I can get any closer today...

First of all I like how she is talking about the never ending process of healing--which was the exact thought I have been mulling over. When "coincidences" like that happen I tend to perk up and pay attention. Right? And I love it when other humans can just admit to their state of humaness and say something like, "wake up and eat Fritos". Cause who hasn't been there?

It's the second paragraph that speaks to me so loudly and yet, maybe feels too close to me to try and unpack its relatedness. The other thought that I have recently been trying to obtain mastery over is "willingness". And there she was also. Right there on page 128. Willingness...she is so slippery. I have learned that I won't find her in the bottle of wine--or a bag of fritos/french fries/popcorn...I actually do realize that she doesn't reside in my coffee cup (but sometimes I still pretend anyway), nor does she come to me from inside another person's willingness. She only sits someplace inside of me--yet I have no clue how to find her on command. Smarter persons have told me, "suit up and show up" and "fake it till you make it" and more often than not these things tend to rouse her from her mysterious depths. More often than not--but not always. Usually this kind of willingness is situational--like the willingness to do the dishes or get dressed for work or pay attention in church (shh, don't tell!). But it is hard to make it apply to life--the willingness to participate in life--which is the challenge for a hermit crab like myself.

I know that on days when I don't think I can possibly participate in anything else related to life if I give myself over to and pay attention to--really, really look at--the smiling boy I live with...observe his sponaneous joy and endless curiosity, still myself to be humbled by his trust, make eye contact, smile back and mean it...on those days she arrives and bowls me over with her might. Willingness to experience the joy I live with? Indeed I am spoiled well.

Willingness to create joy? :) I journey on "brilliantly anyway".

Ordinary Time

Even Bella is anxious to get started. She has jumped up onto the bed and is yelling at me to hurry up and find her (previously mine) red bathrobe. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Meditate NOW! Get centered--go!

Do you see why I am struggling? My heart is needing to settle but my brain is twirling. It's making for a difficult time. And for that I feel guilt. Lovely, lovely, horribly misplaced and deceitful guilt. Why do I feel so...angst ridden? Right? What right do I have? I have been blessed with health and a healthy family. We are employed. We have a home. We have love and food and friends....I even have the time and space to bemoan all that may or may not be real.

I am at a loss for where this is stemming from and since I don't think I deserve to feel (at this moment) anything other than gratitude--I feel guilt. So freaking dumb. I am befuddled with how everything in life can be going "right" and still feel so hard. Sometimes the motions are hard to enact.

Thank God for Wednesdays. Thank God for gymanstic class and a willing husband. Thank God that on some level I get that it is ok to be stinky and cranky without reason. No one gets to stay on the peak and hang out.

Bella just nipped at me as a reminder that there really is only now. Right now. This moment. The rest can go away.

Breathing.

It's like, when we were away I missed our routines. I missed our everyday. But, like most, something in us shifted while we were elsewhere--so that when we returned, normal also seemed to have shifted. Now the routines aren't feeling authentic--even though they are still "good"--they just aren't fitting right. I'm secretly blaming Bill for shrinking it in the dryer. :)

I think I'm seeking a new inspiration, a new lens with which to view my world. Right now we're in what the liturgical church calls "Ordinary Time". Isn't that boring? We have this whole long stretch until Advent and after that it's just like an inspiration feast all the way till Easter. But now, now it's just ordinary. Regular. Normal. Blah.

At least the girl cat has settled. Sweet Belinda.

incomprehensively good

This afternoon I was lifting Asher out of his highchair and he burped the loudest, most spontaneous and brief burp I have ever heard emitted and we both instantly fell into heaping laughter. Laughter so hard that he collapsed into me because he had no energy reserves with which to hold himself up. Jiggly, giggly, baby boy whose joy reverbrated against my own. Oh me oh my, this love is deep.

home

Home at last.

We were in Maryland for a little over two weeks and getting home (such a layered word) has proven to be its own journey.

But we're back and life--our shared life--has returned. Bella is quite happy :) Us too.

We went down to Richmond for a couple of days to visit Beth & Jim. Our Beth & Jim. They're our best besties. We hadn't been back in four years. Unbelievable. It was beyond gorgeous. Beyond-beyond...We love living in CA, we really, really do...but the East is so layered in history that you know, good or bad, has this deepness that envelopes you and I love it. Where we live now? Well, the apartment building we last lived in was historically protected because it was built in the 50's. I kid not. It's just different.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention getting to see my beloved friend Margo while in Richmond. Who makes my eyes and heart tear up with the very remembrance...it had been eight years--and it seemed like it was no more than eight days since our last time face to face.

We have been blessed with the truest and dearest of friends. You know the kind? The ones who let your heart rest in theirs and see the truest sides of yourself (because it is safe to reveal it) and love them. Wonderful friends.

And there were daily thunder showers. And huge green trees that close in the sky and make it small. And it was all very, very good.

And family. How we miss them. Being there for three full weekends--its like--it almost started to feel normal to be around everyone again. We had started to settle into it all and the boy baby loved every moment with them. It hurts that he is growing away from family, but it is what it is and all we can do is try to soak in everyone while we're there. We left feeling filled up with love. I hope we managed to leave some of ours behind.

first world problems, pt. 2

Just keeping perspective...

We were trying to be indulgent and hired someone to help us with spring cleaning. They didn't show. We're being forced to clean up our own mess. Always.

ho-hum.

The reality of groundhog day is still real today.

It's Only Just Begun

Bill just got home from church--having preached his last sermon for the next three months while he's on sabbatical.

He came in, changed his clothes, plopped down on the couch and said, "I don't know what to do now".

It's gonna be a very long summer.

first world problems

I am about to cut a b up for a piece of fruit.

we're out, except for bananas, and those don't seem to count today. We went to the farmer's market this morning with the intent of stocking up and then remembered that we're going home next week and bought gifts with our money instead. When we got to the gloriously beautiful and perfect cherries we were down to our last two bucks and they were $3.50 :( I'm so desperate I even attempted to eat the lone last grapefruit leftover from a couple of weeks ago when I was on my grapefruit kick. It had gone bad. woe is me :)

How lucky that when Ash wakes we can head to the co-op where we have fresh food. How lucky that we have money to buy it. How lucky that we are healthy enough to consume it. How lucky that we don't even have to think about the option. How lucky to have the luxury of taking it all for granted.

It's a pretty good life we get to live.