the wren

What a day it is outside. Perfection.

Yesterday I put out a big grapevine nest I had collected from the woods and enjoyed inside for a time. I placed it on top of the old light fixture on the back porch and by the time I was brushing my teeth at bathtime later I noticed a wren sitting on it looking about. When it got dark I went out into the headiness of the night, singing with frogs, to look at the new quarter moon blazing through the tree branches. It felt like being at the bottom of the ocean and looking up to see moonlight trembling on the surface far above. I checked the nest and could just make out the silhouette of a tail jutting up from the bowl of it; the wren was sleeping there. I stood there feeling the poignancy and vulnerability of its little life just an arm's reach away, and then left it to its dreaming while I went to bed.

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whiffleball. with dog hair.

A home run every time.

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I am a warrior of quiet

Fitting it all in, that's what my days are about.

The hearty weave of two lives together; mine and Cedar's.

There are things I'm not willing to give up, that are non-compromisable for me to continue to be a balanced, healthy and happy person, and that makes things...full.

Sometimes I go blank when I have a free hour because there's too much to fit into it.

I am a warrior of quiet. I wear only soft cotton clothes. I keep an eye on the grass seed sprouting, the furtive woodpeckers, the tiny patch of fancy ferns on the front lawn I don't want Tim to mow over. I do an upstairs downstairs dance with laundry, keep a tally on groceries, try to keep surfaces cleaned off. I try. I just called a cleaning service to come every two weeks to do the bathrooms, the vacuuming and the dusting. I'm hunting down the number of a babysitter to come a couple of times per week to let me finish up some house projects. I need that time doing things on my own. I wrestle for it. I can lose myself now or muscle up.

This world ~ my house ~ my garden ~ Cedar's childhood ~ my fulfillment, takes it all. Everything fits into that. 

I am so lucky and so surrounded by plentitude ~ so why am I so cranky most days? This stuff is tough. But I'm glad it's here. It's in my face and I have to deal with it; be polished by it. I don't get to ignore this stuff and I'm glad of that.

The words all seem so brittle to describe things, just like they were for pregnancy and labor and birth and the love for my little boy. The words seem empty of the true feelings that fill them up. If you have gone through this, you know the meanings. 

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film love

 (he wasn't so awake yet...)

Whenever Somer visits, I photograph her shamelessly, happy to get someone other than Tim in my shots. She's pretty good about it. I wasn't even sure any of these would turn out. But they did! Lately when she visits, I pop a roll of film into my Ricoh and take the whole thing. I don't really worry about trying to get a perfectly composed shot like I might with my Nikon, and seeing what comes out reminds me of twenty years back, using my little point-and-shoot to document our days and how the excitement of seeing what I captured never dims.

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Often when I'm gardening below this window, I hear a yoohoo and look up to see them cackling at me.

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(new studio door color)

Even though Indigo has eaten his way through two pairs of Birkenstocks, one pair of flip flops, one pair of dress shoes, three onesies, one pair of baby pants, four cloth napkins, three hand towels and an entire loaf of homemade bread he snitched off the counter last night, we still love him.

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