21 day challenge

After a day of work or writing I always feel mentally spun-up, like my brain and shoulders just emerged from the Hunger Games arena.  I've been wondering for a long time if it's just the way I am, or if I could more effectively manage my physical stress response throughout the work day.  After all, this is my life (a.k.a. right now) and I'm living it even while at work.  This idea of mindfulness/wonder/awe--more in-the-moment thinking--keeps coming up in my life, and after I see the same idea five different places, I sense a movement beyond coincidence, and in the last 24 hours I feel like the Designer is being a bit conspicuous.

1.

2.


3.  Margaret Feinberg's 21 days of wonder challenge.

C

I have also been wondering how I might put some more life behind this blog.  So, I am taking Margaret's 21 day challenge, and will post each day as I ask to be struck by wonder, to be filled with awe.  Anyone wanna join me?  #LIVEWONDERSTRUCK

motherhood

Time got squishy today
as moments soaked
one after another between new diapers
and laundry folding
and unfolding

Our impromptu dance party
made smiles
and cassaroles
as
Pandora sung
songs we hadn't heard
yet we knew them somehow

In tune together
as we laugh and bounce
and my knee hurts
but I ignore it to bounce once more
speaking cave-man lingo

You smiled with your eyes
for the first time this week
and your self shone through it
and I know her, but I'm still meeting her all the time
when uhh is up
and uhh uh is uh-oh

This blessing tidal wave
washed over me like
clean sheets today
and I can't help but marvel
Through bundled-up cold walks
and belly laughs at each fulcrum
of the swing
each one
after
each one

Picking up your toy carnage
as I did yesterday and will tomorrow
I remember little plastic horsies
lined up on a flipped laundry basket drum
and they were real
as you stopped to see them

As you put your
sippy cup back in the round space of the high chair
our eyes held the same laugh
It had been there all along
but today you found it
and then hah-hah'd its smartness,
and I am meeting yours
it's growing too fast for my slow eyes to catch

You waved bye bye after supper last night
and Grandma and Grandpa were tickled
and my chest puffed out with a mix of
Deep Glory that I haven't felt before.
It's like pride and love shaken together
somehow purple in the way it makes you
strong
and weak
all at once.
I walked to the car on wet pavement with my heels
bouncing a bit
and kept you in my lap.

I know the rules
And the car seat gets used
But last night we drove home together
and you fit there
and somehow I fit too.

shifting perspective

From my podcast on the way to work this morning:

"We're only as great as our ability to negotiate and take advantage of our limitations. . . so I've decided my limitations are not only okay, but they're an incredible opportunity to think about what it is I can do with what I have."

intellect and imagination

There's a song that wants to sing itself through me.
Am I listening
to hear the tune that I might not recognize
as it is different from all other
dances I see and melodies I sway to

it's not this seriousness
it's more yellow somehow
and lives at the intersection
of walking in the cold grass in socked-feet
and sitting on a stump cut flush with the ground
sort of crooked, but almost flat
so I turn to welcome the incline and not totter at it
with my baby curled into the seat made with my legs.

She picks up a pine cone.
I start to stop its move toward her mouth
and then stop myself
and giggle at the pursed lips
that taste woodiness and prickles
as she pulls it away
slobbery
back and forth, taste and away.
We sit as the sun sets
unable to shrug off the thought that
it's indulgent
to soak in this moment
as a slow breath
enlarges the space around us.
We should be inside
shouldn't we
maybe she's cold
maybe I'm cold
maybe we should have shoes on
or coats
or be on the human-made ground
and not this
not here

but we are
and the fragrance of impermanence wafts around us
as we sway to the music of the song that we're supposed
to sing with these lives
in a duet for a moment
harmonizing
as leaves crunch under my socks
and she learns the flavor of pine cone.

firstfruits

I'd plunk her down
On a blanket spread over green grass.
Newborn baby girl, squirm and coo,
So peaceful, idyllic as little one lay quiet beside
mother me, gloriously and carefully planting my beautiful garden. . .

Yeah right.

Charli--poop her pants and smile--Wusk
would look angelic on her little blanket,  
for a time.
But the real pastoral scene came in static bursts
between stoccato steps of momma feet wearing a path in the grass.

I'd begin to dig a furrow - wah!
  Pick her up
  Put her down
Plant some seed - wah!
  Pick her up
  Put her down
Finish the row - wah!
  Pick her up
  Put her down
Cover the row - wah!

Slowly, through action squished between slow stints of consolation
our first garden went in the ground.
Somehow cultivation followed frustration to lead to
Crisp color yums
from backyard dirt, sweat, and patience.

Firstfruits.

awake alive

today I sit

alive

awake

filled with desire

for creating

for living

for being

this me that is emerging

new job

horizon

new home

trusting

new

sweetheart sides

I sit heavy, next to her mechanical bed 

noticing its angle.

Her hospice tongue lulls in her mouth.

Ice will only satiate the need.

I wonder at the tired eyes of my mother,

watching her mother.

His distracted foot twitches as he prepares

to somehow be without.

How will he have tea alone,

without her to share the tea bag?

"Nan and I" starts every story

--A life side by side.

So young for her to marry.

All thought her knocked up.

But no.  Just in a hurry

with the war nipping their heels.

Poor and sick most her life, but with her Bud.

How do sweethearts live alone?

How do they be without?