beautiful things

Slowed

I stood in the famous valley, my toes coated with sand, as I watched my daughter and her small friend learn how to wade into winter run off just barely melted. As the sun kissed my shoulders, and my back rounded forward to support her tiny hands, I thought to myself, these are the moments I need to be present for.

We traveled this weekend, to Yosemite Valley, and visited friends who have walked with me for over fifteen years. Now, their daughter, too, will walk with mine, as we figure out how to be together as small families. Our days started early with cups brimming full of dark coffee, avocado smeared on the floor and on faces, and we fell into a rhythm of watching our small people while passing cutting boards and tortillas to nourish us. Nap time was a must, and in the afternoon siestas, I snuggled with my daughter while also allowing myself time to rest.

I didn’t realize Ansel Adams spent much of his time at Yosemite, and while I strolled at the foot of waterfalls, I let the mist kiss my pale ankles, again wondering how different things look as artists if we slow to see them. Toddlers have a way of speeding us up, and slowing us down. While we wanted to “hike”, instead I held hands and helped climb logs and jump off rocks that seemed small to me, but surely were mountains to our little girls.

They say Americans are bad at taking vacation. We know, even with allotted PTO, we don’t step away from our work. While we were only gone for a few days, I could feel my brain slowing as my feet sunk into mountain meadows. I woke and saw flowers on trees and I took cuttings from lilacs, bringing the outdoors in. In the process, I turned down the volume, and allowed my to-do list to shrink. I let others drive me around for four days, friends planned meals, and laundry got mysteriously completed as we threw our dirties in with their loads. To be in shared space, being nurtured, and nurturing is a beautiful thing. We all were in bed by nine. In this allowing, I welcomed presence.

Now, please hold my hand as I climb back in the seat, responding to emails, planning to-do lists, tackling mountains of laundry. Presence is what matters here, not the rushing. I hope I’m not ramping up too quickly.

Shifting sizes, watching us all grow, perspective, slowing, angles, flowing water, wild flowers. The gifts of this weekend allowed me to slow. And those are beautiful things.

Unfurl

The sky is gray and the trees are budding green. The tiny leaves pop against the dark sky, bravely unfurling as they return to the familiar way of becoming again. Nature seems to say, I’m ready for what’s coming next. And perhaps I am too.

I’ve been reminded about the myth of arrival this week and new guides are instead offering the truth that with every new answer, comes new questions to live into. As I continue to grow, this answering of questions offers an invitation. How can I unfurl, just like the trees, against dark skies, with an inner knowing? I’ve done this before – the world has changed in the off season, and still there’s a power within me, trusting DNA and a swirl of interests, passions, and opportunities for what this season is calling for next. Sure, it’s trite to say the journey is the destination, and in all of these mixed metaphors lies the possibility that perhaps I don’t have to work so hard.

Perhaps my body and my heart already know what to do. It’s my mind that gets in the way.

The man next to me at the coffee shop is chuckling as he listens to a podcast, ear buds tucked in tight. I look around and watch us all immersed in our screens and our keyboards, eyes down so we don’t have to look at one another, I think about the way we come together, just to be alone. We consume, we scroll, we create, we connect. We sip and we stumble and we stutter, finding ways to either get louder or drown out the noise. What if we didn’t have to work so hard?

And this week, I want to instead rest in a different way of being. The leaves know what to do. They just unfurl, emerging into a world that has already changed. Unfurling alongside others. A beautiful thing.

In My Own Little Home

I recently had a coach ask me the question, “Seven years from now, how will you know the choices you made reflect the social change you want to be a part of?”

You can’t answer a question like that in one sitting. There are so many layers to my answers as I think about the next seven years. In seven years I’ll have a third grader. Hopefully there will be a president with a name we have only barely heard of today. Hopefully, we’ll have better care for children and the cost of groceries will go down. It is so easy for me to spin into possibilities of what might be that I miss what is, right now.

What I liked about the question, as mind-blowing as it was, is the reminder that the choices we make today also matter in the large scope of social change. As I spend my Friday afternoons with my daughter, I’m choosing to honor caregiving in a different way. I highlight the myth of work-life balance and sit in the truth that our choices reflect how we want to be in the world. I type. Baby naps. I feel guilty for being away from the office.

A follow up question the coach asked was, “What will you gain by making this sacrifice?” At first, I was angry. I don’t want to have to sacrifice. I want to “have it all” or at least be proud of what I’m giving up, which I think was the intention behind her question. After further reflection I’ve come to my answer – I’m gaining the freedom to live into the social change I want to see.

I want my choices to build spaces where mothers are welcomed and given space to nurture their children and also be valued as employees. Spaces where rest is valued and treasured as much as outcomes and outputs. Spaces where grief and loss and uncomfortable, hard realities are named and held with compassion. Spaces where we hold one another with tenderness and then get back up again, holding hands, to face whatever comes next.

I’ve spent a lot of this week angry at the system – the motherhood tax, the war overseas, the scary political situation that still exists here in the idealized version of America. I get frustrated at a lack of empathy or care for one another. And my anger has told me that, again, it is in our choices where we get to make change.

So, for those of you wondering how to make sense of what’s unfolding for you, I hope you remember you have power in what you say yes to. And power in what you say no to. And power in holding dear the change you are trying to make in your own little world, on your own little street, in your own little home.

And those choices are beautiful things.

Constant Companion

We were driving from story time to get lunch when my mom said, “Grief’s a pretty constant companion these days. I’m no longer afraid of her showing up.” I inhaled deeply as she spoke, integrating the power and the truth of this realization. I call my grief a gremlin. She lives in my heart pocket and has wings like a crow and claws she keeps trimmed, though they come out every so often. Her big eyes are round and deep blue, and when I’m hurting, they look deep into me with a knowing so profound. This little gremlin sees me, if I let her.

We lost another matriarch last week. Dylan’s grandmother passed at the age of 94. Her decline was quick, perhaps it always is. Though we knew the end was coming, I’m always sensitive to the sucking away of air leaving the room when you get the news. When I received the text, it was early. We held hands and in the pause, welcomed again the little gremlin as she crawled out of the warm place where she lives. I wept when making travel arrangements, and again in bedrooms when we went back to her home.

Grief, if we let it, is a constant companion. March is coming and I miss my dad ever so much. When telling baby of the loss, she repeated me saying, “Grandma died.” Then, after her pause, said, “She went home with Papa.” Perhaps the children know more than we do.

And as grief walks alongside, life still happens. Emails pile in. To-do lists loom. The text messages buzz, reminding me of connection and purpose and pull my brain in perpendicular directions. After a busy weekend, and snacks for dinner, I found a rare moment of rest on the couch Sunday evening. At 8:30 pm, after the bedtime routine, I was scrounging in the pantry for a little something. I filled a pot, watched water boil, and made pasta, letting the steam reach my face for just a few moments. I melted butter, sizzled garlic, and pulled together a silky sauce to coat my carbs. I poured myself a glass of wine, and at a time too late for supper, sank into the couch to nourish myself. I patted the seat next to me, inviting the gremlin onto the cushions.

Turning to the episode of “The Crown” where the Queen loses her sister, I let the waves of tenderness wash over me. Relationships are complicated. We try to connect, we miss, we try again. We anger and we make-up. And in the end, we lose. And we love. Bowls of pasta help. The welcoming, again, of our grief as friend, is a beautiful thing.

I Contain

I’ve been paying attention to how frequently the notifications on my phone go off. I’m addicted to the dopamine hits and I know I’m not alone in this. We’re trained to be responsive, and my phone and its algorithms keep me going in a Pavlov’s dog-type way of being – always curious, lurking, waiting for the next notification to roll in. I’m guilty of checking in at stop lights and being distracted while my toddler pulls on my legs asking to be lifted up. And this week, after very full days with many meetings, and many other forces metaphorically asking to be cared for while I was also distracted, I wonder, who is training who?

The world asks us to move at an incredible pace. And the speed is making me grumpy, feeling like I’m less than, and that if I could type just a little bit faster on my phone then all of my dreams could come true. I made a shift at work recently, attempting to go down in hours. The demands stayed. I haven’t been very successful with my boundaries. The hours still fill. And I’m still split in the disappointing of family, my employer, or myself. Again, this juggling is not a unique problem, but I ask myself, who is leading whom?

This week, we partnered with a client on a one-day workshop to build team trust and improve how they work together. Part of the work requires participants to share their backstories. We sat together in a worn room, with posters teenagers created on the walls. Their hand done drawings of wildflowers drew me in as I listened to tender stories of pain, resilience, coping, and recovery. Gut wrenching examples of what being human calls us to go through. And then, we put the lid back on, and went about our agenda. I think the exercise was successful, revealing new truths about each of the team members in the room. And I find myself wondering, do the humans lead the work, or do the organizations dictate, leaving all the pieces we are often told to keep to ourselves in the dark?

There was one drawing in particular, done in colored pencil shades of yellow and white, of a coned daisy at the end of the season. The petals dipped down, angled away from a source of light. As I sat and listened, I thought, we all contain multitudes. Flowers do too. I tend to think in black and white, in binaries, and make choices on either a or b. And kind coaches remind me, usually, some third option exists. Perhaps this is where the yellow pencil comes in.

I contain multitudes. And perhaps these big questions I’m asking in this season of life will also reveal multiple options. Not just A or B, but some combo in between. And if you can help me put my phone down and choose to exercise instead, maybe i’ll have another epiphany while I let the emails roll in unnoticed. Big questions. Unclear answers. Beautiful things.

Mama Loves You

Last night I put an overtired toddler to bed. We asked too much of her – dinner was late, there was a tich too much t.v. while we cooked said dinner. I insisted on a bath. The offer of picking out a book pushed her over the threshold, and her tears started to flow. I’m learning to respond with more kindness when these moments happen, rather than pushing through, and as we closed the books, and turned out the lights, baby continued to cry.

Luckily, I wasn’t pushed past my limit just yet and I was prepared to sit with the tears for as long as it took. However, her distress is also distressing, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I started rubbing her back and singing a tune, listing out all of the people that I know to love her.

Mama loves you and Daddy loves you.
Pop Pop loves you and Gigi too.
Nahna loves you and Sam loves you.
Gaga loves you and M&M too.

Over and over I sang the made up rhymes until eventually, baby began to calm down. Her breathing slowed, eyes drooped and she fell asleep, awash with words of love.

I’ve been having so many conversations with hurting people lately. We’re tired, scared, nervous for another tumultuous election year. Layoffs are happening. The need for collective exhales seems to persist. And in those moments of distress, I’m realizing I’m gifted at being grounded, unafraid to sit in the dark. However, in order to do so well, I believe we need to be awash in words of love.

In a recent conversation with a wise friend, he encouraged me again with the invitation to stop and remember how incredible it is just to be alive. To sit in a warm coffee shop, with gloves on my cold fingers, and have intelligent, heart-warming conversation is a miracle in times like this. We woke up today. The cars started. The coffee brewed. How many things had to go right just to get us to this point, wherever you are now, reading these words.

Yes, there are a million stimuli, and the desire to melt down like an over-tired toddler is an active one. At times, we may need to let the tears flow. And when they do, for whatever reason, may you start to make your own version of the song.

You may not know Nahna or Gaga, but I’m sending love to you. Be awash in words of love. A beautiful thing.

And …

“What’s with the ampersands?” I asked our client as she sat across from us at a high-top table. After a successful client engagement, this leader told me about her small earrings in the shape of an “And” symbol.

She shared about how in leadership, particularly in public service, we have to live in AND spaces. Choices we make help some AND may harm others. We want communities to thrive AND we don’t have infinite resources to do so. We plan for the future AND respond to the present. She said the symbol has become her mantra, a constant reminder that we often live in the gray.

I’ve been thinking about AND spaces for myself lately. The suffering AND the beauty. Straddling a fence of understanding business needs AND wanting, deep within, to change our environments so humans can be seen and heard. When sharing this frustration with my boss today, he shared, “Maybe we can get off the fence, and find somewhere else to sit instead.”

This week a friend lost a baby. I watched and I prayed with hope and can’t begin to understand why something like that happens. We watched horrible headlines and numb ourselves from the suffering across the world.

AND

I stuffed my kiddo into a puffy pink snowsuit as she ate snow for the first time. Snowflakes fell, flirting with orange pumpkins, and we make plans for costumes, and candy and community gatherings.

We suffer AND we celebrate. We plan AND we respond.

To move beyond survival, and towards thriving, I’m embracing the AND. Both are true.

And this week, the AND space is a beautiful thing.

PS. If you’re wondering how to explore your own AND space, let’s have a conversation. For a limited time I’m offering two coaching sessions for $75 as I work towards my ICF coaching certification. These spots will fill quickly.

43 Months Ago

March 2020 was 43 months ago. We’re all impacted by the countless events that have happened since, and the fear of a virus rooted deep in me. The tendrils started with rumors of China, and I vividly remember the security agent trying to ask me if I’d traveled there when I was trying to get into Cuba. I didn’t understand her English, nor really, the impact of the question.

For 43 months, I avoided the virus, until this week, when I tested positive. I took three tests, just to be sure. When I called my mom to tell her, I started crying. I’m in quarantine, and I’m going to be fine. Sniffles and body aches are the result of vaccines and perhaps blind luck. I don’t know, trying to make since of why things unfold the way they do doesn’t really give me much to go on. My tears were out of fear for others, my baby, my mother, my husband. But too, for the 46 months worth of fear that layered inside of me in the shape of headlines, and collective loss, and a culture that makes sickness our own individual problems to be mended in literal isolation.

I hesitated to write about my experience because most of you, most of us, have already experienced this virus intimately. You’ve had the bug once or twice, or perhaps would rather forget about the terror when we watched Italy shut down, hospitals filled up, schools closed, people died. We all want to move on. But these markers of trauma linger, and in my facing a 43-month old fear, I had to weep.

It’s tempting to switch to platitudes, to the cliche phrases we use when life keeps happening. And a transition to hope or beauty feels weak here, like the wobbly little legs running around my house. With all of this found time, I’m discovering the old way of being in the world isn’t as satisfactory as it once was. Pre-baby, and during the years from 2020-2022, every week brought the choice to read all day, to binge watch some tv, to paint my nails without disruption, to write every week. And then, along came a baby and everything changed.

As the world moved forward, I turned inwards, moving to care taking, and with the pivot, came an elevated pace of tending to the needs of others. I haven’t read a book in months. But, on this bedspread in the upper corner of my house, I’m finishing novels. I’m painting my nails. I’m binge watching hours of television. While I isolate, I hear little steps and giggles, and a man I loved turned into a father attempting bedtime solo. I hear a toddler falling off beds and shouts of hooray and watch the lights turn on and off as days turn into nights. Friends are dropping soup on the stoop and texts come in and my husband I talked on the phone last night, like we did when we were dating. Perhaps the prior years taught me how to be alone. And these recent months, taught me I don’t have to be.

While reading a book all day will continue to be missed, mostly I just want to hug my little one. The old years are gone, and new ones unfold.

To hear little noises of family life, receive help, and let fears release, especially while in quarantine, are beautiful things.

Ball of Clay

I got my purple Patagonia coat out of the closet this morning. They call it a mid-layer coat – one intended for seasons of transition. A light jacket of sorts, not too puffy, one that serves as a trusted friend from September to November. I feel like I just hung it up to wait, back at the end of May.

This summer went fast. And with it were hot days, a few spent at the edge of a baby wading pool. Now, clouds are rolling in, and leaves are quivering, wondering what change awaits them.

I’m in that season too – of transition and wondering and closing different roles out. One phrase that mothers my age keep using is ‘carving out time.’ I get images of matrons using giant knives to widdle away pieces of time on their busy calendars – filled with obligations and responsibilities not of their own choosing. I stand, at the end of the line, with my post-partum hair re-growing, saying wait a minute – what if we didn’t have to work so hard to carve?

Instead, I’m reclaiming – closing doors and using my fingers to pry more space for myself into a day. Like a little kid sculpting a thumb clay pot, I hold the materials of my life, warming in my palms. I’m not sure what shape it will make.

In the show Working Mom’s, one of the characters attends pottery class for theraputic reasons. Each week she brings home a large ball of clay. “It soothes her” she says. But people want her to have created something by the time she’s ready to leave the class, and each week, she insists in returning to the big ball.

This is where I’m at, standing with the ball of clay.

Finding space to apply my fingerprints, in the doorway in my purple coat. A beautiful thing.

July Mountain Escape

Perhaps I ought to change the name of the blog to 26 Beautiful Things. While it lacks a certain ring, it’s a more accurate depiction of what I’m capable of lately. Finding time to allow my fingers to type freely, without agenda, seems sparse. I know, I know … you make time for what you prioritize. And Instagram gets too much thumb action, rather than the clacking of keys on a keyboard. Instead of justifying a social media habit, I’ll allow my butt in seat, fingers on the keyboard, with my mind focused for just a few minutes on a lunch break to bring another musing to life.

Last week, while on vacation, I found my rhythms shifting again. To drive west, in late July or early August, is etched into my being. Each summer, my family would pack up the Subaru with bags and bikes and coolers filled with too much food for a week in the San Juan Mountains. Despite that tradition leaving when Dad did, I still want a mountain escape each year.

So, we packed up the truck with bags and coolers, and instead of bikes, strapped a stroller into the trunk. With a baby in the backseat, we rode to a different mountain town. The scenery was unfamiliar, as I hadn’t ventured to our destination before. As someone else drove, I could feel a wrongness in my bones. This isn’t where we usually go, my body seemed to be saying.

Of course, we ended up where we’d intended – it was me who had shifted. Our schedule was oriented around nap time, and while we attempted to enjoy cocktails at dinner, I found myself up and down, holding pinkies with a toddler as she said “hi” to everyone sitting around us. Vacation with a one year old looks different. The ice cream we got was at an old soda fountain on the corner of main street, not in the rusty old grocery story on the side of a dirt road.

At night, after putting baby to sleep in my bed, I’d lay next to her and watch her breathe. As the sun set, I’d stay put, with a white down comforter adding weight to my being. I listened as the fan oscillated back and forth, and often fell asleep before nine. Going to sleep in a cool, dark room is a beautiful thing.

In my resting came a level of acceptance I’m still growing into. Things change, this we know, and our routines and rhythms of childhood pulse within us. During the trip, my baby got to explore a different main street, experienced new parks, and dunked her diaper clad butt into the river, splashing as her Pamper’s dry-fit soaked up a significant amount of the Yampa. She doesn’t know the routine or the turns and winds of the road. It’s unclear if this mountain town will be her summer remembering; we’re just getting started. I’m the one who has grown up.

After our time was up, we cleaned up the Airbnb, placing the gold antlers back onto the coffee table. I sat in the back of the truck, and watched the scenery roll by, aching for my dad. The mountains have burned, the rivers are full, these new roads are unfamiliar. Even our wilderness has changed.

Who I get to travel with though, very beautiful. So, here’s to the journey, new bends in the road, and different things in the trunk. Each trip is a beautiful thing.