A decade later.

 

My inlaws moved last month. I was really struggling with this, because while my husband and I are separated, and have been for years, I truly see them as my family. When I met my husband and he brought me to visit them, they had just bought their house and he hadn’t even visited it before. We weren’t even a couple, though we certainly had flirted with the idea I suppose. It was surprise to me when he said we should take a nap and he snuggled up to me in that bed. So, the home symbolized everything I thought I was or believed in the last 20 years. Later, we would be married in the yard there, our chuppah finally falling over during hurricane Sandy. 

Over the years, my husband and I still maintained a sexual and romantic relationship despite his long term relationship with someone new. He is gay, and while my ovaries felt differently, now that I am in menopause, I am pretty clear that I prefer women. We raised a gaggle of children together, some from my previous marriage, and some from our relationship. I struggled with what later turned out to be a hormonal allergy to progesterone and a chronic health disorder, and he struggle with what can only be described as unbridled rage. I won’t go into the turmoil that ensued, but the last decade was disastrous for our kids and me. Financially, starting over, trying to claw my way to sustainability while watching his fortunes and ease grow has been painful and for years I wanted revenge, or togetherness, or a piece of the pie…. Or whatever I thought somehow I was due… without seeing that I should have been gone long ago. 

I think this year I finally began to understand anything I will have, I will have to build, even now that I am in my 50s and still raising teenagers. Any pain or scars that exist now with me or the children are our job to work through. Closure never comes, not even in the form of watching him make the same mistakes with someone else. And none of it negates the sense of love, safety, and connection I felt at his parents’ home, with them, and the love I feel for the life I helped build even if it has gone forward without me. 

So, a week before his parents’s move, our kids and I paid a visit. We got to meet my children’s newest cousin, and I got to feel part of the family still even without him there. They moved to a much smaller space, so we went through piles, taking what spoke to us and what we could fit in the car. Right before we left, I ran out to the back corner of the yard, were the post holes for the chuppah were just slightly discolored dirt, and I scooped some soil into a jar. 

I’ve since become clear that 2026 is the year this all ends, and we move to break the pieces of this lego tower of a life apart for real. I threw the jar on a shelf in my room and forgot about it… so much so that this last day over winter break I looked at it and thought… what the fuck is that? 

Then I remembered. 

And I paused. 

I wondered if I was trying to hold on or if I was letting go. 

And then I saw it… small and reaching towards that weak northern winter sun, pointed exactly where the sun crests the hill of my stupid little valley every day. A sprout. No, wait two… or maybe even three. Little clover sprouts. And the moss is greening up. And there is an onion grass sprout. What I thought were clumps of dirt or rocks are the acorns I now remember throwing in there. 

Whatever is next is coming regardless of my readiness. But it is green and stretching towards the sun, full of promise that things come and go, but life persists.

And, so do I.

Decembers

It has been so unbearably long since I last wrote, that our entire lives have changed. The kids have grown immeasurably and in enough ways that I can't even begin to list them here.

We no longer farm, or even pretend to, though I often miss that soft clucking and loud quacking that came with having a yard full of birds that would not be retained inside fences or coops. 

The little ones are no longer babies, but big kids with hopes and dreams and ideals, sadnesses and exploding happinesses.  The big ones are wrapping their minds around the adult world with all it's fallacies and pains, joys and love.  Colin and I are navigating the world that seems to have "just happened" in the flurry and flight of the last four years, catching our breath and wondering where the time has gone, and where we want to wake up four years from now. 

Decembers used to be snowy affairs, most years.  The last two, not so much.  Anyone with some science and understanding of natural affairs can see that while climate always contains variations, climate change is no longer a thing of the future, but a cloak wrapped around our everyday.  I'm looking at tall, wet, green grass in the yard, thinking our early October refusal to mow the lawn anymore was silly.  It didn't buy us any time, as we will have to mow back a monstruous green mess on the first dry dry day of spring next year.  We wear sweatshirts and wool socks, wool hats and no mittens, as the damp cool air seeps into our bones, but is never really cold enough for full on winter gear.

I spent the last few weeks before the presidential election in a dreamy state, having just returned from Norway, and being busy with coursework, my coloring book, and window work.  Today, I am in a very different place, with the glow of the fjords far behind me, and the reality of sick kids and crazy schedules meaning I am not flexible in the work world, and the coloring book taking so many edits it is driving me a little crazy. But the upside to all of that is this: I have learned that I must breathe my writing and my art.  It oozes out of me in tears and frustration if I don't.  I am trying to have faith that between Colin and myself the rough patch will close behind us, and my art will find a place in the world that also helps sustain our family.  I've learned that I only learn when things are a struggle, and that I just can't expect to survive in a world where I only have myself to rely on.  While I did look for mentors and help when trying to figure out baby steps in a business, what I realized what that the work itself was still too new to me, and too foreign, for me to do it all.  I admire those who can, but I can't.  I can do the business, and I can do the work.  I can do the art.  I can do the world of insecurity, even, which for me feels like a huge accomplishment because I usually ran at the first sign of discomfort in my life (outside of parenting).  But this time I allowed myself to sustain in discomfort.  But now.... I have to evaluate, and find what is working.  And discard what is not. 

The sky is gray, and the rain falls periodically today.  Despite years of unhappiness in my little valley, I have rather fallen in love with it as of late.  I know what to expect.  I feel the bones of the earth within my skin.  And while I don't adore it the way I had hoped to, I do love my little house and the feeling within my home that wraps itself around me when I walk in the door.  I wear my love of my home inside my shirt, next to my skin, like a warm gold necklace, hidden away under a sweater... it's there for me and my strength of self, not really for anyone else.  As the sun peaked through an hour ago, I ran out and put blankets on the line, the wet earth and green smells permeating the air, even on a December day.  Of course, it promptly rained fifteen minutes later. 

But now the sun is once again peeking through and the rain drops glisten on every twig and branch, every pine needle and cedar scale.  The privet branches are still decked in green and purple-tinged leaves, and the mossy rocks are a brilliant deep woods green.  Magic is too easy a description, awe isn't big enough a feeling. 

I hope to stop by here more often, dance through words a little.  It helps me to keep my head.  And to find a direction in the pattern of these words.  I am so much more whole when I allow myself expression, as if I give birth to each artwork, each chunk of writing, and by giving birth I am ever more myself.  Just like parenting.  Each person that came from my belly is so much themselves, so little me, so little my dream of them, and yet so much an expression of my joy.  I exist in a different plane of reality because they are here.  And my art is the same.  No longer holding it close, but tossing it into the wind to float into the lives of others makes it more real.  Less mine, more me. 

I guess I too have grown immeasurably and yet on a warm December day, I am wholly myself.  Off to wash more blankets and stir the turkey broth simmering on the stove, and to do my homework and some more art.  With gratitude for you all. 

Narcissa

Entire technological advances have come and gone since the last time I took the time to write.
Manny is a walking-talking-cussing-grabbing-nursing machine that is teetering on young childhood, babyhood behind him like winter is behind us now... it rears its head now and again like this morning's slippery snow, with the two-inch-tall daylilies poking up, reminding us that a new stage is upon us.

Partly, I have been just too busy to organize my thoughts. Since going back to work full time, for the first time (really) since Aidan was born, I'm just moving from moment to moment, trying to be everywhere I need to be, at the time I need to be there.  As a chronically late, obsessively disorganized, hippy momma... the conversion to obsessively detail-oriented, list-making, stair-stepping, crazed driving social worker has been... well, weird.

But I have alllll the time in the world between home visits and meetings, driving from one end of heaven (literally Eden) to the other end of snowswept Hoth, to think about the world.  Those thoughts and ideas and plans build up, and sometimes manifest in heart palpitations.  Sometimes they  manifest in tears, sometimes in wide-eyed panic.

So despite my desire to swear off the trend of belly-button gazing, contemplating our own reflections, I've decided maybe it is time to remember letting words drip from my fingers is a type of release, a deep breath, a breath IN.

And we all know, come the return of the light, the cheerio of the Robin, the chirkchirkchiiiiiirk of the Red Winged Blackbird, I like to wax poetic, and get all wrapped up in dreams and sunrays.

This year is different for me in lots of ways.

I spend everyday wrapped up in my adoptive history.  Most days it is irrelevent... the types of traumas we see in our clients are far beyond anything I could understand as someone given up as an infant by a teen mom.  But it does mean I spend everyday thinking about identity, attachment, place, community, family...

...and it comes back to this:  We don't know.  We know lots.  But we just don't know.  We don't know why one child shows perfect resilience, and the next one doesn't.

At work, we have an entire library full of resources. But they are just a half step up from the parenting manuals that litter big box book stores.  A touch of medical or psychological expertise topped with anecdote after anecdote and "expert" advice on how to parent.  How to parent a child not born to you.

But the real quantitative or qualitative research on relationships hasn't been done.  We do now understand the basics of DNA, and that there may be much of nature we can't control, but epigenetics are little light switches turned on by our environment, nurture deciding which parts of nature get to shine, and which hide in the dark.

I don't have answers.  But I have ideas.  Questions.  What if we decided parenting was a journey of questions, not answers?

Why is it that we want people to verify what we feel in our hearts?  Parents often seem to know the answer they are wanting some expert to "give" them.  But that answer seems somehow to not be what they want to hear.  They need to take stronger action.  They need to give more leeway.  They need to be kinder.  They need to give stronger boundaries.  They need to give up on all of it, and just love that kid.  There are a thousand things they come to the experts for.  Me, too.  I waffle and cry.  I wonder.   I want someone else to give me permission to make decisions about sports, internet, school, dating, whatever it may be.

But like staring in the lake at our reflections, or endlessly navel gazing.... it is just that, an exercise in self-thought.  It isn't self-love... the kind that relieves heart palpitations.... or self-reflection, the kind that leads to change, it is just staring.  Rehashing.  Seeking outside of ourselves for a truth that only exists within.

Easter is a difficult time for me.  As a minister's kid, I loved the week before the resurrection.  The deep darkness of thought, the night time vigil, the depth of rejection, sadness, and betrayal of Maundy Thursday, the mourning and loss and mother and lover's grief of Good Friday.  The total one-eighty from Palm Sunday with its sunny springy happy sunshine and palm waving and weaving.  It resonated with me.  That depth of rejection.  The darkness of waiting for the angel to come and roll the stone away. The vigil.

But now, as more of a buddhist, or humanist, or even animist, than a christian, I find that the truth resides in pushing away the stone of darkness ourselves.  Opening our hearts and minds to the world, to the spring, to the future.  It's true, sometimes we need to reflect and re-examine in order to remember where we started, but gazing too long at our reflections blocks out our understanding of the world.  We're in the cave, alone.

So I'm going to write here.  And try not to make it too reflective, too dark, too navel-opinionated.

C'mon, Sunshine.  Let's do this.

I love the soft sound of sleeping that greets me at home when I've been out. Gently breathing children, a purr from a cat or two, the groan of the dog as he settles back to sleep after giving me my arrival lick. Kissing foreheads in the moonlight, a grumbled hello and smile in my bedroom. Now, on to tea and a tub... All alone in my own silence.

Moonlight Over My Valley

A bright round light, ghostly white over the vale, ribbon reflecting upward, almost unreal.... A wonder. A painting. A fairytale. Seen from a moonlit nursery window, a taste of Peter Pan. Surrounded by flowered curtains, a taste of Spring in the depth of Winter.

Let there be light!

And she saw that it was good!

A little light on it.

We began our day yesterday tossing firewood.  Seriously.  Wood... from the back end of the truck, trying to put it in the wood pile at the edge of our property.  It was all round maple, so it rolled... and it had snowed over night, so I slipped across the truck bed... tossing the wood to the end of the truck bed, hoping I wouldn't spill over backwards, imagining landing in the pile of trash bags at the inside end of the bed.

As luck would have it, I survived, and we survived th unsanded, unplowed trip up Foster Hill Road toward Hardwick, and enjoyed a warm, delicious, filling breeakfast at the Hardwick Diner.  I know there are other options nowadays in Hardwick, but nothing is ever as satisfying as a plate full of offod made by someone who cares if you come back, and who knows your name.  Well, Colin's name.

We had a family trip to the hardware store.  (Well, four of the six of us, as it is the weekend).  We picked the stain color for the porch woodwork, the wood putty, a few more boards for a few last pieces of trim, and looked at doors.  Doors?  Yes, doors!  Eventually, maybe, we will replace the horrifying, tortured, remains of doors on the bedrooms in this house.  We've had a few changes of mind and heart about the subject, but yesterday's musings didn't bring us any closer to a decision.  Someone will have to just bring home a buttload of matching doors someday.  (Buttload being a technical term, of course).

But the amazing and satisfying piece of the day was... dun dun duhhhhh.... LIGHTS!  LIGHT LIGHTLIGHT!  Each bedroom that houses children NOW has on its ceiling a really and truly covered light fixture.  No more dangling lightbulbs. No more wires.  No more bases without glass.  No more rusty bases.  Just honest to goodness light fixtures.  AND we replaced that hideous lantern thing that greeted us as we came home every day.  Now... a simple black steel jar light.  Which, by the way, is bright enough (light bulb pointing down and all) to actually light the deck and door way. One little light!!  LET THERE BE LIGHT, Momma said, AND THERE WAS!

"That's good!  That's Reeeeeeal good," Big Momma said (Paraphrased from my favorite version of the creation story... Big Momma Makes the World, by Phyllis Root and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.  If you don't own it, you should, even if you're grown. Candlewick Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2002, my friends).

*disclaimer... I am inordinately attracted to light.  Although Colin was pleased by our work, he was not moved to tears as I was.  No huge life-vision changes resulted for Col as we turned on the power and saw the light... me... I am a whole NEW person.  But then, my first word was (wait for it...).... "LIGHT!"*


We also bought huge roles of coil for phone lines, and phone jacks, because we are indeed in the process of removing cordless phones.  As the research has amassed... DECT phones are out for us, but retro phones are in.  So, scour ye yardsales while ye may, and buy me some phones!  I have one all picked out on Amazon, but I keep hoping I will find the phone of my dreams in a thrift store.  *Mommy!  Hit up them estate sales!  Pushbutton corded phones!  In interesting colors, or not!  Princess phones, wall phones, desk phones... 60s, 80s, 50s... well... okay, probably post-rotary!*  Aidan has patiently horded his thrift store find of a Bart Simpson phone, awaiting a phone line in his room.  I am actually thinking we'll go for it.  We're running one to our current room and one to the Living room.  I'd also like one in each bedroom.  Buuuut, I also want ethernet jacks everywhere.  Because why, you ask?  Because as soon as we have ethernet cables running everywhere, NO ONE will use wifi in the house anymore.  Well... maybe.  But it turns out you can turn your wifi boxes down, and the research is far less damning for wifi than it is for digital phones.

We also made one major life decision.  OK, so it's not really major, but it is a question we have been living with for quite some time.  Wedding related?? No.... Last name decisions??... No... College? Career?? Life fulfillment?? Nope!! (Milo's new favorite word).

We.... picked a color for the kitchen!!!! YIPPEE.  And the hall!  And the trim!!  And the entry way! (well, okay... I made that choice, and I am just gonna do it one day in the spring). The kitchen and hall will be.... uh... I can't find the color strip.  However, it is the same color as the light wall in the living room.  WE decided to go for using that color as a continuous "neutral" throughout the whole house.  I found a kitchen on Pinterest that had the same celery-ish, pale chartreus-y color on it, and I realized This is it.  This has always been it! So, we have committed.  Colin must've taken the paint strips with him to work today.  And we are really really happy.  (And that color will mean you have to be happy!! Really!!)  And I will post my inspiration picture to FB, since I seem unable to do it here.

On more personal, less trite, news, Mr M is talking up a storm.  We heard a word with "ing" attached to it!  Flying!! Flying!! Butterflies flying, and cars flying... Indeed.  New words all the time, and often two words in a row.  And now he is patiently repeating himself, with a stronger and stronger voice, until we understand, especially when it is a new word.  Signs seem to work better than visuals or slow speech for him, and it is really satisfying to watch his brain speed ahead.

Ms. N has a new obsession with records (supplemented by Mommy's buying sprees at thrift stores.  Who can be 10cent vinyl??) and she is listening to a hippy dippy "players" version of Wizard of Oz, and an old library discard of Little House in the Big Woods over and over.  Next up?  I'm looking for filmstrips!  Keep your eyes peeled at library sales for records and filmstrips.  I will take them all!  We're going retro 'round here!

Miss S is trying out for a play called Who Killed Elvis, and is very excited about it.  But nervous, too, and sometimes her nerves get the better of her.  We'll be practicing a lot before this week's rehearsal.  In Burlington, she is playing basketball, and doing really really well.

Aidan blew them away as Grumio in his Language Arts cover of Taming of the Shrew.  HILARIOUS!  I'll post a video of that, too.

And now, alas and alack, I must be but a vision.  A fire, good Curtis, tis but a block of ice out there.

Cold night

You know those cheesy Christmas scenes all covered in glitter? Well, tonight that is what the world looks like here. Cold. And all the trees look dusted in glitter.

Object permanence

This was written last fall... and never finished... but I thought it better to publish than toss.

Must be fall.   Er, well, almost.

Yellow taints many of the tree leaves here, and the mornings are cold and damp, even when it reaches 80F by early afternoon.  Despite the warm weather onset of flies, I long for a wood fire in the furnace (a wood stove would be better), and the smell of woodsmoke in the air.  Sometimes, I get a whiff of it rolling down the valley from one of my neighbors.

And still, we swim and play outside and take walks and get hot, while the task list for the impending school year expands and multiplies and seems to explode all over my brain every time I get to thinking about it.

Yesterday, as I dug through piles of laundry, I began to think about our relationship to stuff.  I know that some of us are find it easy to ignore possessions, although most of us retain a thing or two that brings a state of nostalgia to our hearts.  And others of us hold on to things for some inexplicable reason.

As a child, I clearly remember thinking that all I owned had a spirit, a set of emotions, and that they keenly felt it when I left them out.  I obsessively kissed each of my dolls and stuffed animals the same number of times every night, not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Although this didn't transfer to books or clothes (much), I often felt overwhelmed by the sense that there were feelings floating in the air all around me, some animate, some inanimate, and that I was responsible for how whether those feelings were sour or sweet.  Seems crazy, now, when I think about it, but as a child it was completely logical.  If we are responsible for someone's feelings when we hurt them, we must be responsible for the feelings of everyone/everything around us, right?

Yet, I was barely old enough to be responsible for or understand my own emotions.

I must put forward the background note here, that I recognize that as an adopted infant it is likely I had some hypervigilance  and trauma-based senses at work here as well.  Attachment to objects beyond what is reasonable as a substitute for biological family... blah blah blah.

Yet as a society, we recognize object permanence as a stage of childhood development.  At some point we begin to recognize that if we hide a toy under a blanket, it will not go away.  As we age, we begin to recognize that if our beloved adult walks out the door to go to work, they are coming back.  Unfortunately, this sometimes burns us when our beloved doesn't return, but most usually, it is the beginning of trust as well as an understanding the objects do not cease to exist when we no longer keep our vigilant eye turned toward them.

But where does all this connect to the ideas of desire for objects, need for nostalgia, deep connection to things, the need to gather and hold and retain consumerist pieces of "stuff", come from?  Why do some of us feel responsible for our objects, rather than these objects holding some responsibility towards us?

I haven't been to Blogger in so long the format has completely changed.  *sigh*   Sometimes, you just get sidetracked.  But I decided the time had come to stop using the internet for mental masturbation, and to get to it, write write write.  Or something.

Post-New-Year-Winter always wears me to the edge of my nerves.  My bones feel raw and exposed.  My heart thumps irregularly. I feel expectant.  I feel restless.  I feel bored.  I feel... as if  spring will never ever come.  And this year's Farmer's Almanac is not helping.  Forecasting a cooler but drier spring here, and a colder and wetter spring and summer "back homes" (Up and Down State NY) have me wondering what it is I am expecting.  Rain?  Cold?

With Colin moving to a full time position at work, and one that has little to do in the summer, we are at least expecting he'll be able to be around a bit more come May.  And that will leave us time to work on the gardens, yard, and outbuildings.  This late winter restlessness always brings some summer planning.  Seed planting.  Thinking about baby chicks, piglets, lambs, and calves.  Who will join Solidarity Farm this summer?  Only time will tell.

And that is the hard part.

Despite all the planning... you can't actually DO anything.  My kids are little enough that even a real walk is unlikely.  By the time you have everyone loaded into snow clothes, someone is usually crying.  I feel this year that it is hard to remember what I must have done to lure the big kids outside when they were toddlers and preschoolers.  To avoid going completely insane, I have done something I never thought I would do... I bought exercise equipment.  I hop on, looking like a crazed middle aged housewife, albeit playing punk or funk or ska, and "walk" until I can barely breathe.  I am hoping for some serious toning by spring.  Er, at least, by wedding day.

As the bones of the trees sit, expectantly, seemingly covered in nerves themselves, waiting for buds and blooms and sugar, I also realize some of this year's angst comes from the loss of two young friends, one barely in her 30s, and one 29 and a father of a 7 year old, who couldn't see through the post-Solstice fog to make it another day.  One death is shocking.  Two is horrifying.  To have been dorm mother to both of them feels like failing... and makes it terrifying to parent the glowing, but growing into adulthood, children in my home who have yet to face the depth of winter as a sad post adolescent.  I worry.  I fret.  I feel those nerves.  I see them reflected in the upside-down lung patterns of the trees.

The sun is brilliant today, despite the cold.  Sunny summer bright.  The kind that promises the warmth of wet soil and lake swimming. There is the promise of tomatoes and lettuce, spicy nasturtiums and mustard greens, kale and spinach, green beans and peas.  Purple carrots.  Summer squash.  Growth in my mouth.  Earth in my belly.  Dirt on my toes.

That is a promise I am holding this sun to, cooler than normal temps or not.  We're going to shake off the raw nerves and eat right from the vine.  Me and Sun and are going to dance across the water, the sand, up the hill and into the cool woods, sugar snow on my tongue and fire in my veins.  I won't need to listen to the weird, pneumatic pumping of my walking machine... I will run in the sweet grass and eat violets scattered across my lawn.  And I will shock these nerves into soothing cold spring waterfalls... and then bathe it every day in the lake.  We'll numb our minds and hearts to the difficulty of January.  We'll feel our feet firmly planted in the earth...

Oh... and today has seemed full of babies about to be born, babies just born, babies here to remind us that the world goes on, and love really truly just grows.  And in my house, puppets and records and little children spin, and I wait... for my big kids to fill my arms one more time before they are off on their adventures for the weekend, and I will lift my pen again.  To put shape and meaning and forward thought to this crazy winter business.

Absent again

I know I have been gone from this for a long time.  The funny thing is the longer I procrastinated, the more I wanted to write, and the harder it has become to sit down and release the fog from my brain.

There is so much narcissistic writing out there, even if it is beautiful, and I just didn't want to add to the clutter.  Plus, the more I read of other people's words, teh cloudier my own thoughts have become, and often in any given day, there isn't enough prolonged silence for me to gather my thoughts from that fog, shake them out, arrange them, string them together, generally make sense of them all.

This warm spring weather has been intense after such a deep, cold winter.  The world seems to have shaken itself fiercely from the frozen tentacles of ice and misery; mud bogged us down as we tried to move forward, then Spring loosed itself with a passionate scream of thunder and an early bloom of lilacs.

From our front porch, where we play, and I sip my coffee (iced or hot), the river glistens and changes and fills and drops and rushes over the waterfall.  During the stupendous thunderstorms that have raked our little rolling mountains, the river (brook? creek?  river-let?) bubbles and rises and engulfs vegetation at its sides, seeming to threaten to run away somewhere entirely unexpected.  All throughout central Vermont rivers have done just this.  But here, the little un-named waterway has yet to be as deep as it was during the mud season floods.  Further down our valley, where it is the Pekin Brook, its course has been re-arranged, and it seems it won't be long before that road may need to wend its way on some other path.

As I say this, the sky has clouded up again, and this afternoon's round will be pushing through soon.  This is supposed to be the end of the humbling storms that began with the tail end of the front that caused all that sorrow and horror in Joplin, MO.  Much diminished upon its arrival in New England, it nonetheless ripped its way into our ground, forever changing the face of the modestly urban Washington County.

Nadia has come home, creemee in hand (soft ice cream for those of you out of the know), smiling from ear to ear that Daddy finally got to pick her up from Preschool.  Bedecked in a dress that used to belong to my friend's daughter she looks a bit ethereal, and floaty, and like she is the butterfly or fairy or dragon she is peppering me with questions about.  The boy babies (well, toddlers, really) are sleeping, and have been for quite a time, which seems about right for the weather.

Until yesterday the yard seemed lost under the exuberance of Spring, with puffballs and dandelions, yellow dock and plantain, nettle, violets, and johnny jump ups running across the yard as if they ruled the place.  It seemed truly wild.  I found a pile of free things, including another toddler swing, a PreK basketball hoop, and a plastic sand box that was not a turtle or a boat.  Although small, this little plastic sandbox is shaped like an old stump and I placed it the shade of the giant maple tree and near the sweet little shade garden some old lady had once planted here.  Now, with rocks surrounding it, and a few flat landscaping stones as steps, its plasticness has faded into the background, while ferns and lilies of the valley invite the sprites in.  Really, it does seem as if the fairies play there.  Milo has found symbiosis with his play there, forgetting me for once, while I fade into the background, one eye turned toward the boys, another focused on the soft, compost-enriched, garden ground as I settle herbs and flowers into the ground in that front garden.  I have waited and waited on tomatoes and peppers, fearing a return of cold spring, and now fear late blight... and will have to treat my soil as best I can to prevent that this year.

And that cold spring will pop its head back in for a moment or two tomorrow, with the high temperature of the day being 30 degrees F less than today.  So while I have come to enjoy the balmy, beach-like feeling of this house this May, with windows open to the wind and lilacs scenting the rooms, we'll get a taste of what Vermont in May is often like, with 53 degrees as the high.  It is a reminder that while we settle into the wonder of the warmth of this year, it comes because of the wildness of climate change... an unpredictable dance of strength across the earth, influenced ever more by things we have yet to comprehend.

The big kids will arrive home in the rain today, I think, and it will be deeply gratifying to bask in the sunshine of them. Despite obstacles and tough choices this year, they have settled in, grown, and truly shine with who they are.  One struggled with a music teacher, and yet still faithfully practices every day.  Another has struggled with friendships, and yet comes home with stories of friends and plans for a birthday nearly everyday.  They play with one another, and their younger siblings, and dance and create imaginary worlds, draw and sing and build and plan.  Sometimes the darkness of adulthood intrudes on their world, and their play reflects it, sometimes in anger or tears, sometimes in decidedly adult themes and obsessions.

And it is here that my brain intrudes on my observations.  My own mind has been dark and hard to figure out this year, and although I find so much to look forward to, I find myself pining and longing... but not exactly sure for what.

Mostly, for silence, I think.

I spend a few days getting through a sort-of biography of the nature writer John Hay.  And that tingled my fingers just a bit, reminding me of this blog, and of my need to shake out the fog.  Not because I needed to turn inward, but because I needed to break free of myself and my thoughts, and see the beautiful world around me.  Wonder in its magnificence.  Exclaim at its strength.  Examine and observe its many facets, whether tame like my pigs ("tame" having shades of definition after a weekend of trying to keep them inside their fence), or wild like the butterflies that N and I watched gathering on a spilt spot of compost juice. As we sat within the pig fence, waiting for the new fencer to arrive from the hardware store with Colin and Milo, at times swatting a nose that dared to inch toward the fence, we watching in awe as the yellow and black butterflies came by the masses, swirling around us, dipping their built-in drinking straw probiscises into the black gooey soil and fruit leftovers, then flying away from us as if drunk.

And I needed more.  More silence.  More watching.

And so I take it.  When it rains, I often just sit.  There on my rustic little porch, with the rain whipping at the trees and the river slowly rising, glinting, and calling to me to remember to watch.

And to write what I see.  

Universe of Pieces

Ducks running in the rain, dipping and sipping in the puddles
Chickens huddled all together
Feathers fluffed and poufed and full
Dog curled up on hay
Piggies running in the rain
Hay thrown from pig to pig
And when tired
A piggie pile under the little pigpen roof

Play yard raked and ready
Temporary fence evoking a beach
Rock piles and wood chunk blocks
Leftovers from construction projects
Pieces of small constructions yet to be
Trikes and horseys, trucks and cars,
Slides and swings
and SAND SAND SAND.

New tv set up
New dvd player working finally
Not for mindless hours
But good today for some Anne
That Green Gables Girl
And a little Otis with our Milo
Just in spits and spurts
Bits and Pieces
While we play and sing and read
A Rainy rainy rainy day.

Runny noses
Stuffed heads
Sore throats even
Lots of apples and tea
Salad and greens
Soup for dinner
Achy muscles
Sore body
Sickness or day-after-work?

Tomorrow
Sun will come
And out we'll go
To play yet another day
More fencing to finish
More fairy houses to build
More rocks to carry
And finally, finally dirt
Where all the snow had hid
This year's potential

Smiles and worries
Happiness and Sadness
Planning madness?
Planning glory?
One and same?
Spring brings trust in self
Trust in the world
Everything works out in the end
Each day is fresh
With no mistakes in it yet

Oh how that light changes

I know... I know... I am always saying "the light has changed."  But it has!  And it is always the first thing I notice as the world takes its subtle shift toward the next season.

A week ago, it was freezing cold outside, but the world suddenly looked different.  The light lasts longer and twilight has made a comeback.  The snow, despite being new and frigid on top, seems to be full of.... well, life.  Movement.  And it is!  The scientist in me knows that there in horefrost in the bottom layer of the snowpack.  The naturalist in me has begun to recognize the cues...and I am waiting, watching as the snow slowly peels back from the tree trunks despite new snow... signaling the upward travels of the tree sap.

From the darkness of late January and early February, those crazy cabin fever days, comes the sudden rush of relief that Spring is working its way here, even if it will take its damn time.  Valentine's Day is always a fun holiday for me to go all out because it signals the real beginning of a New Year... with the dance of flowers and candies and love for one another... a fertility rite for the earth, really...

There are things I miss about winter every year, actually.  The depth of quiet on a silent winter day when all the kids are sleeping and the snow soundlessly floats to the ground outside our plate glass doors, the softness and grey of the world seeping in and making me feel safe, soft, loved.  The ritual and calming quality of trips down the stairs to pile logs on the fire, watching their splinters and papery bark catch and heat us through their sacrifice.  Sledding down the hillside, screaming and laughing the whole way.  And a quiet snow shoe trek to the back woods.

But with February comes the planning... and dreaming... of what the summer might and should hold.  Really, February is month of possibility, the month of dream. A shaman's exercise in floating toward the future.  In March, we begin to get our feet dirty with reality once again, but in February, we are allowed to totally let go.

So, with the last pig barely cold in the freezer, and bacon yet to smoke, I find myself turning toward the next year, catalogs and dreams firmly in hand.  Chicks to order, seedlings to start, syrup to boil, pigs to buy, hay to store.

With food costs skyrocketing, it becomes ever more imperative to produce as much of our food as we can.  This year, we are almost veterans at this farming thing.  Our space is almost "right" for what we need.  And we have made difficult decisions.  Cows this year?  Not if I am starting grad school in the fall.  We are pretty constant over-achievers, super-parents at their most stereotypical.  And so, this year, we accept the limits of our humanity.  And we put off the cows. Trade some pork for beef.  We will do our own turkeys, two sets of meat birds, a larger group of pigs (but only one set, keeping them longer), and our layers and ducks, of course.  We got the cats to battle the mice, which they appear to be doing successfully so far. And the dog... well, we admit he is not a farm dog, and we need a farm dog.  Not one who chases cats and chickens and ducks.  He's great with the babies, fabulous at chasing pigs.  But we need a dog who is bred for this life, and right now, I do not have the time or the energy to get him where we need him to be.  Since he got fixed, he has changed, and is not the dog for us.  This really really broke my heart.  He is no Lucky.  But neither was she when she first came.  So next time (when school is done for me), we'll either get an elderly dog who needs a country home, or a much younger pup who can be trained from the beginning to understand the expectations of life on a farm.

We slowly have become good at what we do; good at growing meat, good at knowing what we need to make life work for animals in the winter, good at the dirty parts like slaughter and cutting meat.  And it feels right. So right, that Colin has decided that his after-after-career will be butchering.  He loves it.  (but don't worry Mother-In-Law-ish, he still plans on Law School....).

The world is changing rapidly.  The ideas we were raised with about how to budget our time, our finances, our spiritual lives, have proven not to hold true for our generation, and likely even less so for the next one.  It is not easy to parent in this climate, simultaneously preparing children for a successful future, and worrying about climate change and things that may make any concept we have of the future completely obsolete.  I find that absolutely terrifying.  My kids will have to know how to provide for themselves.  How to help others.  How to think outside the box.  Somehow, our political climate is fighting against these changes more than anyone else seems to be, denying the changes that are coming.  And rather than choosing to be what saves us, they choose to be what denies us the chance to save ourselves.  Schools are not teaching how to think outside the box, and those that do must suffer their way through failure.  But it is also not teaching gumption.  And we are all going to need a lot of gumption.

What I am today builds on what my parents sowed within me.  Independence from the system comes from my mom's garden, the corn in the front yard (remember when mom's garden was on the garden tours of Rochester?? SO cool!!  Corn surrounded by impatiens.  An entire wooden planter of lavender.  Tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, asparagus, and dill in a planter running the length of the driveway.  Perfection of true gardening surrounded by fake flower gardens and people with chem-lawned yards.   Remember the little yellow signs that said "This yard is safe for children and pets" to battle the ones with ChemLawn signs???)  Yeah... this is where I learned to buck the trends.  Although, it might be a bit in my blood, too... that red headed firecracker of a birth mother must've had some serious influence, as well.  And my commitment to society as a whole, to the world beyond myself and my children, my teacher-ness even, comes from my father's example in his life.  More than just a local minister, his church is not a platform for spewing venomous exclusion, but instead a place for anyone and everyone to be, to connect, to find refuge and sanctuary.  And I hope that I am able to live up to his example.

Being a parent is hard.  Really really hard.  As a child, I did not make it easy.  As a parent, I am sometimes left bewildered by my own children not making it easy.  And totally overwhelmed by my love for all of them, constantly enamoured by them, shocked by their ability to surprise me.

But Spring comes.  And it provides renewal for everyone... the sinner and the saint.  The imperfect reality of all we are.  It is absolutely freezing cold today.  It is sunny and windy.  But the ice in the heart of those around us (as Angaangaq would say) is melting.  Opening.  The Middle East is calling for democracy and the beauty of the human spirit to be recognized.  As we here debate cutting programs and budgets, without the mention of the US sacred cow -the military and the wars we wage- I meditate on the idea that hearts open through the cries of hearts around the world.  Maybe we will hear the cry for democracy... real democracy... and join our brethren in its call.

But for now, I must change bums, walk the dog, and got get the CSA share of veggies.  Because basic life goes on, and I am but a player on its stage...

The winter is finally settling in upon us, although storms are still heading south of here.  The promised big storm of Wednesday is now forecast for Northern Mass, leaving us stuck in an arctic blast of cold air.  And although the snow falls south of here, the winter progresses on, cold and a bit barren, and more like the Arctic after all...

The windows for the porch just arrived, and we'll be readying ourselves for the spring haul-over of the front porch, building a play room/comfortable space to watch the world go by.  As the Allen Lumber guys unloaded window after window after window, I realized how nice it is going to be to sit in that room, when it is a real room, with that cup of coffee or tea, staring out the windows at this little valley.  The most picturesque views of the world from here are to the North, and consequently, not ones we can see from most of the house.  Aidan has the best view, and when we someday replace Milo's window, so will he.  I often think of writing from Aidan's room, sitting where I finally put  his desk, hoping the view would inspire him to draw, or work on his school work, or do anything that isn't related to staring at his Ipod or the computer.

We're settling back into our routines after the start of the new year, and I especially am finding some satisfaction in working out in Greensboro.  I am glad I don't have to go every day, and that I don't have to get sucked into the drama of a small work place, although I still hear a lot of it from there, from Sterling, from the Center for Northern Studies.  But from my safe, quiet, little perch at home, I get to go out into the world once a week and enjoy the company of others.  And do what I do, and what I do well.  It is such a stretch for me to provide childcare at home because I want the comfort of a classroom, and supplies, and "areas of interest" and coworkers.  And it is sometimes frustrating for me there to see people have all those things, and not make the most of them.  But mostly, it is an enjoyable, sweet time.  When I don't think about having to get up at 5:30 to be there by 7, and when I also don't think about the fact that when I leave, I have to get the big  kids to Waterbury to meet their dad, so I won't actually be home eating dinner until about 8pm... then I have fun.

But it is when I don't overthink having to go out to do chores that I have fun doing them, too.

This weekend, Col was battling a nasty cold (mine has stayed in my sinuses where it is pesky, but not awful), and so I headed out to do chores Saturday morning with a sled loaded with two 5 gallon buckets of water, one of compost, and a 50 pound bag of organic piggy grain.  Usually I slide it in the deeper snow, but that day, for some reason, I just chose not to for some reason, instead letting it glide behind me in the track we've dug to walk to the critters.  The snow was nice and bright, glinting blue-white in the sun, and a bit slick.  I was wearing ordinary mud boots, rather than my insulated ones with deep treads.

I'm sure you see where this is headed.

Usually I stop at the top of the short, but steep, little hill to the pig pen and just carry the buckets down.  Sometimes.  I stop the sled against my heels on the way down the hill, sliding down in little 4 inch increments.

Now I know you can see where I am headed.  And you're right... it is straight on my ass.

The sled seemed to pick up speed just at the moment I realized I should stop it or there would be water and compost everywhere.  I stepped in front just as a big truck began driving by, and in swirl of snow and water, I was there, keister on the ground, arm in the water bucket, wrist sprained, and feet in the air.

Go ahead.  Laugh.  Really... laugh hard.  I understand.  It was freakin' hilarious.

But I still had to gather eggs, lift the five gallon buckets of water nearly neck height to dump the water into the pig's water bin, and empty the grain bag into the feed bin... and scoop grain out to screaming ducks, squawking hens, and rooting, snorting pigs.

With my sprained wrist.  On my right hand.

Whoops.

Did I mention the thermometer said "-0.9"?

And that I wasn't wearing any gloves?

Yep.... It was COLD.

Colin's fevered hands came in "handy" when I got in, and he wrapped his palms around my aching wrist, while I tried not to laugh and cry at the same time.

Sometimes I think it is funny that someone who thought she'd be an academic in some New England/Atlantic city is upside down on her arse on a rural Vermont mini farm.  The hip-hop loving Syracuse tough mouth is surrounded by the whitest people ever in the snow with pigs snorting in her ears.  (I swear they were laughing at me!)  The writer, artist, foreign-language lover, is wiping baby butts and chasing chickens.  Who has time for art and language?

I'm not sorry.  (Ok, usually).  And I am going out to stand on the porch, and look north to our beautiful view of the valley, and dream of time to write.

At 11:53 in the morning, the sun has dipped low enough in the sky to almost shine directly into the kitchen, bouncing bright ball on the rippled metal roof, shining into this room, shining into my heart.

Holidays really rip at me, in a way I never could have understood as a child.  I couldn't understand the complaining and moaning and loneliness inherent in the holiday season... I loved them.  All the excitement and tradition suit me well.

This year, I find myself feeling a bit broken hearted.

In Craftsbury, we had this whole week off from school, which allowed me to take off with the kids, see who needed seeing, and head home.  We could fit in a Christmas and Thanksgiving all at once.  A few birthdays, too.  And use it as the head of a winter-settling-in; the end of seasonal migration, if you will.  We could get home, have a home Thanksgiving, and crochet ourselves into a warm winter season ahead.  In the trouse, we'd load up the stove, and it never went out again until March.

Instead, the kiddos only had today to get ready to go, to clean, to organize their lives for the season ahead, to see friends, to cook, to do what they need to do.  There is only a tiny bit of time for extended family, and we had to pick whom to see.  We've scheduled our holidays as if we are putting together a paint-by-numbers masterpiece that excludes emotion by definition.  This year here.  That year there.  Did we leave out a family? A Sibling?  Friends??

And my big big boy, who seems so ready to rip away from me a bit, crumpled, his soul burning in the family-centric holiday season, the warmth hurting rather than soothing, as he finds himself torn between families.  His heart broken, unable to express it except to say he needs to know he was born in love, and that love abides, even in a broken bond.

And that, my dears, brings me to tears.  That brings me back to the burning pain of adoption, and attachment, and fear of screwing up.   Guess what??  I screwed up!

Reading an article where Erica Jong railed against attachment parenting, I realized that our Western definition of attachment is weird and stilted.  Liberated women and feminism and mothering and attachment and individuality and community and family should not be so narrowly defined, so antithetical to one another.  Combine this with all the coverage the "family and marriage" Pew Study are getting, and I find myself feeling irritated and angry.  Family is as family does.

And gratitude for what we have, and who we chose to have, should be top of our lists from this season.

So here it is:  my heartfelt gratitude.  For family.  For friends.  For life.

I'm even grateful for the finger marks and dog nose smudges on the sliding glass door.

And oddly, as we look ahead to the next year, I find myself grinning as we plan and collaborate and scheme about the porch/playroom in the works.  We'll be knocking out the wall to the art room, which sort of makes me sad, except that I guess we'll have space in the playroom to store art supplies anyway.  And why not?  What better use of that space than to fill the air in our house with the joy of playing kids, games, movies, and a view of this gorgeous valley!!

Lots to chew on

I have difficulty sitting still.

Or keeping my brain still.

Or not daydreaming about "the next big step" in my life.

What-ifs and shoulda-couldas abound in my daily thoughts.   Melancholy can set in and smolder for hours or days or even weeks with such great tinder.  It can even blaze up at the most inopportune moments, usually aimed at a child or a partner or a pet.  Often with deep accuracy.

So it with that history in mind that I write to myself, mostly, but all of you as well... about staying rooted.  Rooted to place, to personal history, to choices long since made.

The tamaracks here have finally exhausted their deep orange blaze of late autumn, leaving a pale brownish-orange in their place.  The last color in the woods consists of the deep reddish oak leaves on the warmer hills, and the orangey-brown persistent leaves of the beech.  Want to know if you harbor bear habitat in Northern VT?  Walk around in early October, looking for large beech stands.

Why the change of subject?  Just that with this understanding of the place around me, however new it feels (there are stands of oak in the more southerly parts of Calais, not so much in Craftsbury), creates a sense of place, a sense of timing, an understanding of where I have chosen to be and live.

I spoke with a good friend recently about those choices.  We waxed poetic about our lifestyles, and yet, by the end of the conversation, both had tears glistening about the fact that we chose a harder life than we might've.  We chose to do without, chose to live in places where work and education can be hard to pursue, especially for mothers.  We chose to live 25 minutes from the nearest grocery store, and to have to choose between grocery-store crap, or not having enough funding to get through the month if we head to the co-op.  We chose to live where it is cold and hard to heat one's home, where you need two, abundant, distinct sets of clothing for the cold part of the year and the warm.  Where roads beat the shit out of cars, even when you can afford to care for them.  Where communities can feel simultaneously inviting and isolating.  Where schools are small, choices for education limited, and frustration can run deep.

Life in a condo never sounded better.

But then, life in a condo doesn't allow for different choices.  My parents have to watch as the hired "landscaping" company dumps tons of un-needed nitrogen based fertilizer all around their end unit condo, watching it flow into the crappy, weird looking pond with no riparian zone, where it results in huge algal blooms.  Those, in turn, attract geese.  They poop.  They are a nuisance.  Then someone must be hired to chase them off the pond.  And once a year, the pond must be "shocked" as if it is some weird sort of swimming pool (except that no one is ever allowed to do that ).  I won't even get into how close this ridiculous cycle is to a local salmon and trout stream, and an estuary for Lake Ontario.  Common sense never plays into how this could be handled.  And my parents have to make their opinion known, do the best they can to get common sense into the equation, then watch as the procedures happen all over again.  (Not that it isn't fun to watch the dude in the kayak with the dog chase geese).

But here, I watch life turn more slowly.  Just to the south of us, in Montpelier, life speeds up... with a touch of self-righteous glam in certain circles.  That is alright, and it is still fun to have a "night out on the town" for date night once in awhile.  But really, the glow of a city is still the rat race-y cycle of life I can live without.  And it isn't nearly as diverse or interesting as a big city.

So recently, I have found myself engaging with people and places closer to Craftsbury and the home that we built for ourselves there.  But I know in the long run, I have to accept that we are also building a community here in Calais.  We're not so far apart, and many of the people we've know over the last 8 or so years, appear in the periphery of our life here, fading in and out  as we build a circle of friends here.  Part of learning to live life to it's fullest is to understand your place, where you are, what your life is like, and what direction it is heading.  Like simultaneously paddling the boat, without ever leaving the pond.

In a moment of sheer panic this fall about my life: career, education, what-have-you... I freaked and applied for a million jobs.  I even got offered some.  But in the end, most didn't pay enough for me to take them, or even to pay for childcare, and I regrettably had to turn down even a dream job.  I made the final decision today.

But in all of that, I also put the "old" childcare center into my routine again.  It felt very much like coming home.  And like, somehow, I was not the kid I had been when I was there before...

Before I longed to jump in with both feet, as if rather than getting wet, I could walk on water... skate across the issues and daily struggles any place has.  Ambition, maybe.  But now, I just feel like getting wet is just what I need.  I'm good at taking care of kids.  What difference does it make if I am a teacher, a director, an assistant, or just a sub whose there when I can be.  It is a place to offer what I do best, a place I know well, a second home, if you will.  Maybe someday, I will even get to go back full time, drag my youngest two along, and be one of those mommas whose kiddos all went to the same school. Frankly, I should get a car sticker for preschool... proud parent of....

I guess my point in this disconnected conversation is that I am happy with where I am and what I am and what my life is about.  It's not easy, by any means, and often we have to finesse and massage our life to make it work.  But together, Colin and I, and the kids too, we cobble together a life that makes a pretty comfortable shoe.  Ya know, since I'm the old lady with so many children...

Difference is, I know what to do.

Catch up time

Hello lovelies, one and all...

I know, I know... "Where ya been, gurl?"

Far too busy for words, I guess.  Especially these words.  But now I am resisting the urge to rearrange the books on the shitty Big Lots shelves, or to go deal with the brussel sprouts before the chickens do, and I am writing to you.  Well, me.  Or whomever it may be.

I went on a thrifting splurge last week which produced several fabulous items for the ease of my life.  Colin already dropped the inner glass thing to the Pyrex coffee percolator, so we can't use it anymore.  And all my Ebaying and craigslisting has only turned up the stems for smaller pots.  So first order of business was a plug-in fifties metal percolator.  Which promptly reminded me of what old office or church coffee tastes like, and why kids didn't like coffee.  Ick!  Colin actually says he prefers it.  I think I would rather eat mud.  Off the bottom of my shoe.  From the pig pen.  One bonus:  coffee is still warm four hours later when you forgot all about it and didn't remember to finish that cup sitting on the counter.  You can turn your left ankle out, cock your head to the right, put on your best Stepford Wives' smile and pour yourself a big ol' cup o' sludge, dump in the nutmeg and half-n-half, and if you are lucky, you remember to choke it down before it too cools and you have to do it all over again.  But damn, that coffee pot looks cool on my Formica.

But the thrift store yielded far better results this week.  A sweet pair of vinyl and faux sheepskin calf-height boots were a tad too small for me, but look smashing on Ms. Sage.  I loaded up on unworn shirts and a sweet pair of "job interview" capri pants.  (I have been offered a million jobs this week, and desperately need to decide what I want to do... and how much I can afford to be out of the home;  I know this leaves you all salivating for more details, but I am not clear-headed enough on the subject to discuss it.  So there.  I'll let you all know after a really long car ride.  That always clears my head).

Two sets of cafe' curtains made  the removal of those hideous, busted, lead-ridden, and dangerous vinyl shades finally possible.  I hung them on expandable curtains rods I bought at Big Lots in a moment of optimism... that I would just find  the perfect curtains/shades/whatevers for the room instantly.  And I did!  They are whitish (not really cream, but not perfect white, either... I know, you just had to have the details of hue, didn't you, dahlings?).  And I have hung them 3/4ths of the way up... providing us with light and privacy. Of course, I open them in the morning when light is pouring through.  They soften up the living room, and it is ever so much more pleasant to hang out in here.

Especially with music on the stereo, and Nadia's bear cave under the circle table.  She has been dreaming and talking about bears a lot lately (as have I), so we got a book out of the library about bears, and I threw some blankets over the round table in the living room, some cushions under it, and BLAM!  BEAR DEN!  Add teddy bears for bear cubs and a seal on the blue "ice" of the LR rug, and you have Arctic bear play for hours. Pretty dang rockin, if I do say so myself.  Add stories and songs about bears, and what do you need preschool for??  Ya got me!

Laundry got caught up, the roof is on the barn, after much in the way of trials and tribulations and RAIN, and the house is in mostly working order.

Aidan got his early birthday/Christmas present... an incredibly amazing Magnavox stereo cabinte from way back when, with a record player and radio.  He's spent hours playing old jazz standards.  Gotta love that kid! And now he wants a Mob-themed, 20s birthday party,  (Can you be a flapper Mom?)

Well, babies are disintegrating all around me, so it is time to go be the grown up.  I'll write more later.

Maybe!

September

September rollllllls across the hills now, a soft, gray, foggy blanket that covers our valley and makes me forget there is a vista just at the top of the hill.  Even if it also has a big ugly house up there.

The kiddos are in school full swing now, and have each had a sick day already.  Any time  Big Man needs a nap... twice in one week... well, he's sick!  Babies and children, toddlers and grownups, have all had boogery noses and coughing fits, but it seems to finally be evening out... like a hilly horizon settling into the plains.

N is running around today, happy to be home, after her first "full" day at school (she stayed for the afternoon this week at preschool, and rode on home with big sister on the bus at the end of the day), wearing hand-me-down Santa dress, pink and brown striped cloth tights, and dragging the old wooden sword... YEP, that sword that's been around since Aidan was three... as she walks out into the cool, cool September air.  Every walk we tried to take today was thwarted by the rain, and finally I gave up, packed the babies into the car and drove sllllllllowlllllly  down Dugar Brook Rd, used a snack as an excuse for a destination at the Maple Corner Store, and wound my back again.  Babies asleep,  we left them to their dreams, and headed off to the couch to read library books... funny stories about Mountains of Quilt and Rosemary Wells illustrated nursery rhymes.

As the sun and clouds play peekaboo over our little world, and the weather wreaks havoc on my sleep (too warm to really have the heat on, too cool to sleep real well without a million layers), I find time to think about happiness and joy and beauty and perfection and sadness and grief and love.

All at once?  What are ya, crazy?

Well, no... maybe... I just... just... just find the world so breathtakingly beautiful this time of year, and my evolutionary need to hunker down and find spirit rest bubble to the surface, much like I did in a cold swim a few days ago... in my little local pond, which is only Mirror Lake to me when it is fall and still and quiet and the summer people have all gone home.

Here, in this time of year, in the harvest season, in the reap-what-you-sow moments, I find perfection and peace.  It manifests in little ways: the dance of my big girl across the upper floor of the skeletal barn as she laughs and glories in her body, the wind, the music in her mind; my big boy gathering supplies for his next creative endeavor, scavenging and deftly slipping under the radar as he collects and hordes, a magpie in disguise who displays like a bower bird in the end; Little Miss N running past with her overalls and mudboots on as she chases butterflies and then runs to help Daddy hold the measuring tape; Milo man grinning at me as he bounces up and down, so proud of his new standing skill, and saying "th th theee", his tiny tongue held against those barely visible new top teeth, a new sound possible as a result of the horrifying pain (amongst other symptoms) of teething.  Colin whistling as he works, the barn slowly taking shape from an idea in our heads.

Of course, in this time we also tend to look back, to see the beauty in yesterday.  That's the time when we see only what we could have done better, what we would have done, if we only knew then what we knew now... the regret of what we have yet to accomplish, the depth of the sadness over our losses.  Here is the time I remember the last time I hugged a grandfather or grandmother, the soft sadness of the loss of a dream, the regret over the pains caused others.

I heal these wounds through a walk pushing the stroller, a cuddle of a child in the middle of the night, a nice word softly spoken about those I once injured, a memory shared, and dinner on the table (an art of love, a painting of my soul, a dream of a life I know not)... and in those moments find a quiet breeze lifting my soul, my heart opening to the new, the beyond, wrapped in the beautiful gift of right now.  Here.

It has been a long and beautiful, but never long enough summer.