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.

Lady Luck

Grab the two piece out of the closet. Little lemons swimming in a backdrop of blue on stretchy fabric take a bit of attention and care to tug over a one-year-old’s head. By the time my friend showed me how to use swim diapers and we applied sunscreen and found the sun hat and water shoes, I was tired. After we arrived at the neighborhood pool, only a block away from my house, I laid out the towel on the grass and turned to set the baby down while gathering more of the things.

In my turning back, I noticed a small ladybug crawling up near us, moving slowly while moseying about the new terrain of a worn beach towel. In a brief second, lady luck reminded me how lucky I am to have a little one to share in the delight of a summer afternoon.

We splashed. My quads hurt from squatting in a pool filled only with eighteen inches of water. Baby found new confidence in a new space, and I, worthiness in a community space as a new mother.

The lady bug reminded me of the magic in ordinary afternoons. Beauty in baby toes covered in used swim shoes and knees ruffed up by the bottom of a tiny pool. Beauty in the wrestling out of clothes and into wet sleeves and in the lingering smell of sunscreen when the afternoon sun dips and play time turns to nap time.

I want to be present for the lady bugs and all of the beautiful things it takes to get us to where they are – out there in the grass, moseying about.

Keep Pedaling

On a rare afternoon not sprinkled with rain, I found myself walking the loop behind our small office. As I circled south back towards an afternoon of meetings, I heard a woman and a companion cycling behind me. 

“Keep pedaling”, the woman encouraged on repeat. “You’re almost to the top of the hill. You need the momentum to get to the top.”

I walked, they pedaled, and I kept my face forward, anticipating a small child to pass me before I reached my office again. 

Instead, I heard the woman again, saying, “Keep pedaling, you’re almost there!”

As I crested the small hill, my feet hitting grass instead of pavement, I turned, expecting a little boy to be within reach. Instead, a young man with different challenges was pausing on a trike to catch his breath. 

I smiled at the caregiver, and turned again to finish my loop. I was surprised by the story I was creating behind me. Something I imagined was entirely different, and in the difference was delight. 

We all need encouragement as we pedal up our hills. We all need tools designed to help us succeed. And we all need someone guiding us, reminding us that one more pedal, one more push, can help us get to the top.

This year has been one of transformation. I’m seeing things in ways I hadn’t before. Motherhood has given me a new perspective on the ways our world expects us to operate. I care less about outcomes and more about the journey. 

I’m now passionate about the pace at which we move and the space where we allow ourselves time to pull of the trail and catch our breath. I care more about the types of encouragement we give and the unique ways we learn to ride the bike than what’s at the top of the hill. 

In my learning, I’ve also been privileged to go through a transformational coaching program and I graduate at the end of June. If you’re looking for a new partner to join you in whatever transition is bringing you, let’s have a conversation. 

I can remind you to keep pedaling, and that what you strive for at the top of the hill is important, but how you travel, and when you pause to take a breath is just as nurturing. 

Getting on the bike is the brave thing. Welcoming encouragement from others; just as beautiful. And a mid-day afternoon reminder that it’s how you travel, rather than where you end up, beautiful too. 

The Myth of Bouncing Back

Sitting at the dinner table this weekend, Dylan and I were asking, “What the heck did we do last Memorial Day?” Was our house up for sale yet? Had we just been released from an unexpected visit to the NICU? We couldn’t remember. Time and sleepless nights has a way of erasing the days that were painful to live.

By now, people are asking if I’ve recovered from baby’s first year. I’m not sure you recover from the addition of a child into your family. Like all major life transitions, I don’t thinking bouncing back is an option.

I made a loaf of focaccia this morning that turned out perfectly. Crispy bottom, a soft spring in a chew, with coarse grains of salt sprinkled on top. I sliced a square and made the perfect sandwich, munching away at my desk while working from home.

The bread had a bounce to it that made me smile.

The balls in her tiny ball pit bounce when she launches herself, face-first, into the foam pit.

Her toes bounce as she tries to master walking with a bow-legged gait.

I bounce her on my knees and in my arms, through sleep regressions and teething.

I bounce in the kitchen, trying to cook dinner one handed as a new toddler asks for crackers with a scream.

I haven’t bounced back. And, it’s not just about the return to pre-pregnancy jeans.

Folks are asking me when we’ll do it again – create another child – and I don’t have an answer there yet.

I’m too busy bouncing in between work and play and her room and my bed and on the floor on my knees and crawling quickly up the stairs. I’m bouncing to catch up, bending to put my hair into a messy ponytail that moves with me, bouncing forward.

May the forward motion be beautiful, rather than asking me to hop back to a version of me that no longer exists – pant size or not.

Others Call It Living

I turned the corner west, towards the mountains, and took a deep breath as the winter sun tried to stay awake, barely past five. With white capped ridges in the distance, I turned the car to crunch over the layers of snow, fallen over the last few days. I parked, and with the door closing behind me, walked into a warm house where my baby had been cared for for the last six months. 

We’re transitioning her to a new place of care this week, and with yesterday’s last pick-up, I was feeling heavy. My feet shuffled reluctantly out of their home, and as baby’s carseat clicked into place, I told her that we just went through our first care transition with her. 

I’m not fearful for where she’s heading next; it’s sure to be delightful. However, the lingering weight came more from a place of longing for days I wished away. At three months old, I could barely care for her and myself. Since, she’s grown, and I’ve grown. 

I’m surprised how quickly this next chapter approached. We’re all bathing regularly now. Baby is almost ready to crawl. She’s moving into full time care outside of our home!

I, too, am crawling towards something new. 

As my birthday approached and I realized while yes, I am aging, so is my mother, and my in-laws, my husband, and my baby too. Marching towards the inevitable, some people call it. Others call it living.

This January has been cold. Hibernating looks different than last year. I find myself in bed earlier, with warm socks on my feet and hands tucked into sloppy sleeves of old sweatshirts. I float in flannel sheets, holding space for the new me that’s emerging. While Covid is still present, my panic around prevention has dissipated. Not all transitions need to be chaotic or fearful. 

I let the embers of awakening warm me.

To be in the middle now, with only one parental layer above me, and now a generation to care for below, brings a buoyancy of a different kind. This floating in the middle feels ladened with responsibility. Motherhood is teaching me to receive with grace, and to hold tightly to the people with whom I get to age.  I am caretaker now, in a different capacity, and I’m also learning to be cared for differently. 

I let the vacillating wishes of time to move faster mix with wishes of longing to grow. I wonder about what’s coming next, while staring in awe, at the little creature we’re responsible for as witness to how quickly things shift. 

We walked through another transition, yes, and I’ve found time to breathe before bed. Living. Beautiful, heartwarming things. 

Self-Soothing at Christmas

My daughter struggles to nap in her crib. She’s been lucky to be held while sleeping and contact naps have been her norm. As I read parenting books and blogs about sleep training, the multitude of advice, best practices, and shoulds are overwhelming. General practitioners tell me to put her down, walk out of the room, and wait for her to cry herself to sleep. We’re behind, according to the internet, in that she ought to be sleeping better on her own by now.

In this advice, my heart breaks a bit. For how many times, as an adult, have I, too, cried myself to sleep? The cause of suffering, of course, is different. The magnitude of pain seems more allowable as adults. Yet, why are we teaching our babies to self-soothe, when quite often the opposite, a compassionate touch, a hand on a shoulder, a warm embrace is what we long for most?

Recent weeks have been filled with attempts at the holiday bustle. We’ve got a tree up, yet I haven’t done any shopping. We baked cookies and forgot to decorate them. I’m allowing traditions to be replaced with other things; mostly contact naps.

Grief seeps into this season in now expected places. I know I’ll want to send texts to Dad, want his perspective on our decorations, and long for his spot at the table to be filled. I’ll get a bottle of scotch to sip on and leave a plate of cookies on the shelf for him during Christmas week. While friends donated in his honor this month, I longed for his advice in negotiating dynamics at work and a shoulder to lean on as my grandmother’s house was sold.

This year’s grief expands as we have another empty seat at the table. I wish Grandma could stand at my stove top, and teach me how to make our German cookies that she taught my mother to make. The weight and opportunity of carrying on tradition is ladened with loss. In our mixing of sugar, flour and dough, we have sprinkles of old memories. With each turn of cookie press, I remember laughter at smoke-filled kitchens and crinkles of crumbs falling to the counter. To carry on what she started is both a beautiful mix of opportunity and responsibility. There is space for the missing to take different shape.

When illness hit our house last week, with changing child care plans and overwhelming amounts of snot, I was hit with an incredible ache. If Dad was still here, we’d have one more person in our back up child care arsenal. Instead, I took a sick day, and allowed myself to rest, with baby on my chest. As baby cried from exhaustion, I, too, wept and rocked myself saying “It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok.”

Sure, I’ve learned to self-soothe. Yet, I still longed for a warm hand on my shoulder, for someone else to get me a tissue, for the cause of the pain to dissipate.

I’m not soliciting parenting advice, nor am I sharing another “should” for those who are trying to get their little ones to sleep. Instead, I’m wondering why our culture starts us off, at such a young age, by encouraging us to cry ourselves to sleep in the dark, when perhaps instead we need comfort and connection. The world is overwhelming for all of us at times.

The holidays come with a jumble of joy, aches, wishes, and wonder. We’re all familiar with the ways in which our stories fall short of the Hallmark versions of reality depicted on television. Whether you’re sitting in feelings of joy and connection, or weeping in the dark, I hope you’ve found people to lay a warm hand on your shoulder. I hope you remember to whisper “It’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok” Self-soothe if you must, and I hope instead you can ask for comfort.

Experiencing the gift a snuggle, the glow of Christmas lights, and the choice to nurture and be nurtured are beautiful things.

Hands Deep in a Bowl of Dough

In the early years of my grief experience, I recall standing at the granite counter top with my hands deep in a bowl of dough. I was drinking red wine and rain was falling, I had jazz playing on my phone. It had been about six months since my dad passed, and I remember thinking to myself, whispering even, “I think I’m feeling happy again.”

It’s courageous to whisper these words.

Brene Brown reminds us of the risk of foreboding, how we have been trained by movies and culture, and sometimes life itself, to prepare for the next car crash, the next death, the next shoe to drop.

I also recall hearing that we, as humans, are bound to experience a major loss every seven years.

In a recent conversation with my mom, she nodded to that statement, and ticked off major life events that caused disruption in her life, every seven years or so. Was the truth there because she was noticing, or because we are bound to try to repeat our experiences in a flow that’s calculable?

I lost my grandmother six years and nine months after my dad passed. And we had a baby, disrupting my sense of calm and confidence I had worked so hard to cultivate since, just a few months before that. This year has been a blur.

And yet, once again, six months after the disruption, I found myself standing at a counter top in a new kitchen with my hands in a bowl of dough. I was dicing up butter and mixing flour and salt to make a pie crust. As I kneaded the mixture, I had jazz playing on my phone. Rain wasn’t hitting the skylights, but instead, a child cooed with her father on the floor. My child. My husband. The man who helped me to bring life into the world.

I dared again to whisper, “I think I’m feeling happy again.”

There are moments that shake us, shape us, and leave us wondering who we will be next. Like snakes, we step out of shed skin that’s no longer needed and move into bigger versions of ourselves. Do snakes feel pain in the shedding? I believe humans do.

In the transformation, the movement of days into nights, and turning of months into years, we have a brave choice to believe we can be happy again. The process takes a long time, and yet, the formula seems so simple.

Surround myself with people I love, with simple ingredients, with time to stand at the counter. I can focus on the next big disruption, or I can focus on the pie crust and what it will mean for a simple dinner at home.

I’m whispering “I think I’m happy again” and that is a beautiful thing.

Meet Me There?
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash

There are scenes in movies at the end of a story arc, when the main character has conquered a challenge and they re-emerge in the world. Encouraging music plays. Resolution is found. 

On Friday, I drove over to the plaza near where I live, parked, and locked my car. If I was the heroine of a movie, the uplifting music would have started up. Perhaps “Walking on Sunshine?” 

The sun was shining on an October afternoon, a slight breeze warranted a sweater, but the rays warmed me as I squinted through sunglasses trying to find a friend. Someone was playing a piano nearby and a baby crawled near its mother. The tinkering sound of moving chairs and chatting people reminded me what being among people in-person actually can be like. Breathing in the fresh air, I was filled with gratitude to be in the light.

In many ways, it feels like I have survived the Covid era, and can now emerge. Perhaps, the tension of the last few years has come to a state of resolve. My baby is no longer a newborn. I’ve remembered how to make eye contact. I even got on a plane. Standing in the plaza that day, watching people swirl around me, I was touched by the goodness of ordinary life. I’ve missed being in the flow. 

At the end of the movie JoJo Rabbit, *spoiler alert*, the main character comes out of hiding and dances in the street. Walking down alleys towards a lunch date, I also felt like dancing. 

Many of you may have been dancing for quite some time. But for me, a sensitive person with an active, anxious mind, the last few years felt threatening. The thought of losing someone again, the fear of getting sick while pregnant, and the weight of passing on an illness to someone I don’t know who may be caring for others all felt like too much. I thought if I just stayed home, if we just followed the rules, nothing bad could happen. 

Life has reminded me, again, that self-preservation is not the key to a fulfilled life. People we love still die. Our friends still suffer. Being present with sorrow, in tune with our achings, will remain a choice. 

This denouement bump may be resolved, but my story still continues. It is time to remove the heavy shoes made of pandemic fears, anchoring me to a recent past filled with fear. Instead, I’ll take up my dancing shoes, and head to the square. Whether we’re weeping or laughing, swaying in sadness or spinning in joy, I can choose to be in the flow. Meet me there, where we can be together? What a beautiful thing. 

And a Squirt of Whipped Cream
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash

Losing someone is rarely easy. While their spirits may seem to evaporate into the liminal space, people we love who move on leave a lot behind. I spent much of this weekend amongst my grandmother’s things. Cups and wooden salad bowls, serving platters made of milk glass, worn handmade blankets and quilts, dishes with the farm scenes painted on ceramic.

While they moved her to assisted living weeks ago, they only took the essentials. Her navy blue, floral couch was gone, but the drapes that hung in her house for my whole childhood stayed. The china cabinet may have been picked over, but the sturdy structure still stood, watching us move through half-empty rooms, selecting what we hoped for and reminiscing at the dining room table. We flipped through photo albums and I saw faded pictures of relatives I’d never met nor heard of. Legends of old uncles with problems during prohibition, or ties to old business, were stuck among crinkly cellophane, protecting both stories and their sepia-toned faces.

As I lay on the floor in the basement, I said “You know what I hate about dead people? They never come walking through the door when you want them to.”

I knew my grandmother was going to pass. She lived a long life, close to ninety years. And yet, when I found out her spirit had moved on, it still felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Maybe that’s what they do when they die – take the air with them into wherever comes next. It takes awhile to catch your breath.

This has been a summer of transition and shifting. We moved. We had a baby. We are growing into new roles and letting go of others. If all of your grandparents have passed, are you still a granddaughter? Or does that role now become my new daughter’s?

We’ll say good-bye in formal ways in a few weeks. And in the meantime, I’ll tuck a juice glass of her’s in my cupboard. In the morning, I’ll remember Lender’s bagels with blocks of cream cheese wrapped in foil, served on a small ceramic plate with a farm scene painted on top. I’ll remember Kraft singles, and dessert with Reddi-Wip out of a can. Because, as Grandma would say, life is better with a little squirt of whipped cream.

Being amongst her things, evoking memories, remembering stories, preparing to say good-bye, even when it hurts – all beautiful things.