As summer teases me with it’s end, I’ve been reminded in more ways than I would have ever asked to be that seasons of change and transition are an ever present part of life. I am reminded that even when I feel my greatest want is for things to be the “same” for awhile, my greatest need could very well be a more courageous face off with yet another set layers I need to shed.

I’m talking about finding stability in the midst of seeming turmoil. Of realizing you have a deep fear that needs to be addressed and purged, a fear you would have not realized was such an underlying driving force in your life had your situation remained honkey dory.

(Did I just say honkey dory? You bet ya )

So I hear Fall is the seasonal representation of letting go, of asking yourself what things you are holding on to. I’ve stumbled upon a blog about transitions and have been getting such nuggets of wisdom:

“From a spiritual perspective, every transition is an opportunity for growth. As we learn how to let go into ‘groundlessness’, we move into a more effortless alignment with life. Life is ever-changing, and when we approach transitions consciously and with the intention of growth, we eventually learn how to accept this truth with grace.

This is not an easy task. Transitions require no less than the willingness to die, to sit in the uncomfortable void, and to be reborn. Who would willingly embrace this task? For some of us, we have no choice. Transitions seem to pull us into the underworld and create such fear, pain, confusion, and disorientation that we must seek help. While in the throes of this challenge, this may seem unfair, and we may be plagued with questions…

Yet when we finally emerge from the pain, we see that the struggle was well worth it. For to enter into the death-void-rebirth cycle is to embark on the heroine’s journey. And when the heroine returns from her voyage, she carries the boons—or jewels—of her travels. One of the great boons is that she knows, at a deeper layer of consciousness, that there can be no light without entering the darkness, and that with each descent into her darkness, the light shines ever more brightly. She knows that next time she is pulled into the darkness—which most likely will occur in the midst of her next major transition—she will be able to navigate the journey with grace. She trusts that, even as she cries and rages, she is exactly where she needs to be. She realizes that she is developing a capacity to die and be reborn and she recognizes that there is no greater spiritual task on earth.” – beautifully written by Sheryl at Conscious Transitions

I cling to such a deeper hope these days that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, in the midst of a stormy sea of fear and confusion and pain. Weaker moments come and go, moments of despair that will surely continue to show themselves for the rest of my life. But I’m learning a lot and part of my dread is turning into excitement about the challenge of removing unnecessary things I’ve held on to, of finding a deeper freedom and faith. Of learning about truly unselfish love, hope, mercy, and about my true self that I keep reading about from Thomas Merton (and bare with me as I share ):

“If we love one another truly, our love will be graced with a clear-sighted prudence which sees and respects the designs of God upon each separate soul. Our love for one another must be rooted in a deep devotion to Divine Providence, a devotion that abandons our own limited plans into the hands of God…

a selfish love seldom respects the rights of the beloved to be an autonomous person. Far from respecting the true being of another and granting his personality room to grow and expand in its own original way, this love seeks to keep him in subjection to ourselves… Such love fears nothing more than the escape of the beloved… A love, therefore, that is selfless, that honestly seeks the truth, does not make unlimited concessions to the beloved…

Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God. Hope is proportionate to detachment. It brings our souls into the state of the most perfect detachment. In doing so, it restores all values by setting them in their right order. Hope empties our hands in order that we may work with them. It shows us that we have something to work for, and teaches us how to work for it.

…All desires but one can fail. The only desire that is infallibly fulfilled is the desire to be loved by God.

…Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

So thank You for despair, transition and letting go. May they be gentle teachers – I have much to learn.

“”No matter how together we may appear, even to ourselves, buried deep within our heart is the vague sense that something is wrong, dreadfully wrong…

We live in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live. We were meant to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance. But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves. Deep inside we sense we’re out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never home. When we’re honest, we can see we handle our discomfort by keeping our distance from people, responding more to our fears than to another’s desire for love.

We wish we were better than we are, but we’re not.
…

Perhaps the majority of people who report pleasant feelings with only occasional struggles are … rearranging furniture in the motel room, hoping it will feel like home. When we succeed at arranging our life so that “all is well,” we keep ourselves from facing all that’s going on inside. And when we ignore what’s going on inside, we lose all power to change what we do on the outside in any meaningful way.

…

Dogmatism, a demand that we indoctrinate others with our understanding of what is moral, replaces an openness to investigating what God might really want from us.

…

Comforting thoughts about God’s faithfulness can keep us living on the surface of life, safely removed from a level of pain and confusion that seems overwhelming. But God is most fully known in the midst of confusing reality. To avoid asking the tough questions and facing the hard issues is to miss a transforming encounter with God.

…

Life is just too confusing, relationships too difficult, experiences too disappointing, and responsibilities too burdensome for people to easily pretend that the keys to effect living are just doing their duty and denying all that troubles them.

Parents are finding little help in all the popular formulas and principles as they try to deal with their daughter… They no longer feel confident as they do all they know to do.

Men sense their weakness and wish with all their hearts that they knew how to be meaningfully involved with their families. But their efforts to lovingly lead end up in failure. They then retreat to whatever sphere of life offers them a sense of competence, and live without the rich joy of being involved husbands and fathers.

…

We want more, and are therefore vulnerable to following anyone who convincingly holds out the promise of more. We try the latest spiritual fad… and we always come up short. Nothing satisfies, nothing works. In our heart, we know that our latest effort to follow Christ has left issues in our soul unaddressed.

…

Observing habits of self-discipline, orderliness, and general cordiality [bring to mind words like] effective, respectable, and nice. When I look at his life I think, “I should be more disciplined.” I feel a bit pressured, somewhat guilty, and occasionally motivated. The effect of my [struggling friend who responds to terribly disappointing struggle in his life by loving others more deeply], on the other hand, is not to make me say, “I should be more disciplined” but ” I want to be more loving”.

The difference is enormous. Some people push me to DO better by trying harder. Others draw me to BE better by enticing me with an indefinable quality about their lives that seems to grow out of an unusual relationship with Christ, one that really means something, one that goes beyond correct doctrine and appropriate dedication to personally felt reality. The few who report occasional glimpses of Christ that touch their souls more deeply than any other experience of life are the ones who entice me with the possibility of change.

…

An inside look [at our heart] must anticipate uncovering deep, unsatisfied longings that bear testimony to our dignity, as well as foolish and ineffective strategies for keeping ourselves out of pain that reflect our depravity. Each of us is a glorious ruin. And the further we look into our heart, the more clearly we can see the wonder of our ability to enjoy relationship alongside the tragedy of our determination to arrange for our own protection from hurt.”

- (from Inside Out, Dr. Larry Crabb)

After thinking about doing so for a few weeks now, I’ve decided this evening to take some time away from social networks and blogs for awhile, perhaps the month of August, maybe longer. I need to focus on my work, my writing, and Ethan’s kindergarten home school curriculum. I feel the “bustle” of the WWW is zapping too much of my precious mental and emotional resources for these things.

I also hope to do some soul-searching this month, learn a few new skills, gain some peaceful center and find the wisdom to deal with difficult situations I find myself in. That and just kinda… be present.

From a heart overflowing,

“mama”

For the last month I have had my doubts about staying in the Ozarks. With the change of seasons, I’ve felt driven in my search for a “next place” that would have less Summer heat, humidity, and mosquitoes, (and with better soil). You know where all my research landed me? Right back where I started.

All the places I thought I might like better, upon further inspection, turned up similar or worse heats, humidities, and mosquito counts in the summer. And those that didn’t, well then your facing deep, long winters or some other trade-off – at the very least, land that is not in our price range (at. all.)

So many things to think about when your dream is to operate a sustainable mini-farm for the rest of your life

The Ozarks feature, among other things, beautiful rolling hills– very green this time of year. Driving out to Cave Springs to get my mother-in-law from the airport reminded me of that. There are many, many natural spaces we have yet to find time to go explore – so many rocks unturned. It would be silly of me to think we’ve been there, done that, with regard to NWA only 4 months in! Surely I have more sticktoitness than that?

I do miss the city life of Portland sometimes – the tea houses, yoga studios, parks, libraries, biking over the Broadway Bridge (PURE BLISS), or catching the MAX (though I always forget to think about the times I sat at a bus stop in tears of frustration and shivering from the cold because I missed the bus! lol) I also, of course, miss some dear friends I made there and the general vibe of the peer group and inner neighborhoods one could find community in.

Adjusting to a new place is hard, as we anticipated. Things don’t always go as smoothly as we hoped (like opening the waldorf-inspired playschool and having a less than idyllic relationship with my landlord as a result). But there’s a lot to be said for sticking things out, for staying put, and for making the best of where you are.

Sometimes the very things I am moaning about are the things bringing another person joy. The Ozark Homesteader was just writing about gardening in this heat, seeing it as a sort of detoxing season for sweating out impurities. I often come across, in my research for a “better place”, folks dreaming of a place with rolling hills, lakes and fireflies, and I’m reminded that indeed where I am can be any one’s “little slice of heaven” given a positive perspective (maybe even Pollyanna attitude) towards it (just as I did so love the misty rain of Portland that others not from there thought would be a major bummer). That’s why some love Maine, others Montana, others Georgia, others Alaska – I think you gotta soak up the good from where you are and find sustainable workarounds for the rest!

I think the bottom line, or a few of them, is that the region we are in offers the community of family and friends we were hoping for when sitting at our lonely Thanksgiving table in Portland, as well as the affordable land and scenic views we’ve dreamed about. The rest is just not that important.

Our mini-farm (my retirement plan, to be implemented within the next 9 years) is something I continue to learn more about and adjust to my particular area more and more as we recognize the need to stay put to realize our goals.

And many of you are like me – dreaming of the Someday House in the Someday Place living the Someday Life. And that’s all well and good, but know that so much can be done right where you are. From backyard gardens, chickens and beehives; to spending more time with family, writing, drawing, or singing; or learning to knit, make bread, or ferment Mead: many a learning experiences can be had before you are ever on that Someday Land.

Here’s to dreams and good ol’ fashioned contentment!

I’ve been keeping track of my time a bit this last week or so, trying to estimate what percentages of my time is devoted to what.

Here’s what I have found, currently:

- sleep an average of 6 hours a night and nurse about 2-3 times during those 6 hours.

- (spend an average of) 4 hours a day on meal prep, eating and meal cleanup.

- 4 hours a day on house chores and yard work (and still my laundry is piled up!)

- 3 hours a day on direct involvement with the kids (reading, crafts, outings, bathtime, bedtime, etc)

- 3 hours a day on my work-at-home business (no wonder I have so little time for this!)

- 1 hour a day with Chris

- 1 hour a day on email/blog/facebook to catch up with friends and family

- 30 minutes a day on personal needs (shower, brush teeth, get dressed.)

- leaving me with 1.5 hours a day for something to surprise me

For me, this list is somewhat revealing. I have found that I spend a lot of my day on a lifestyle of “simplicity” that is really quite a bit of hard work but very good for me too. I eat well and I move a lot, (which saves me the time and money going to a gym – or having any healthcare needs!), and my kids are happy and healthy, which contributes to my quality of life a lot. And I suppose the house/yard is somewhat maintained, lol. I would like more sleep, me time, and husband time, but I suspect so does every mom! Perhaps when I “retire” (I’ve told you I plan to retire by 35, right? It’s my ten year plan. Yeah. I have lots of those.)

I also get time to watch a movie or knit here and there (though usually only when multi-tasking or coinciding with husband-time). I don’t have much time to call people back or reply to emails, and I get chided for that from friends and family members at least once a day

As I bend down, 30 pound baby on my back as usual, to sweep the mornings crumbs and sticky oatmeal from under the table, summer ants scattering away, I admit to having mixed feelings about how much of my day is spent just keeping us from being under a foot of garbage. Within 20 minutes the sink will be full again with kefir smoothie (our morning snack) remains. The table and floor I just cleaned will have sticky spills of smoothie everywhere and the kids’ hands and faces will need to be cleaned again. And when I finish all that, I’ll have about 20 minutes until I need to start thinking about lunch. Nobody said this job was easy!

I’m blessed to have a husband who comes in from a 10 hour work day and goes directly to the sink to do dishes, then outside to care for the chickens, then inside to eat dinner and do the dishes AGAIN, then help put the 5 year old to bed, then fold clothes while watching a show. Literally, he does this Every.Single.Day. His help is probably why I even get those precious 6 hours of sleep!

Life on the homestead, I suppose?

More posts coming your way this week – much going on up in this noggin’ of mine…

Until next time.

On Father’s Day, I see a lot of acolades given to dads and husbands who no doubt deserve such honor.

But there is a flip side to this, as with any holiday. There are men who struggle with fatherhood from the moment they wake up each day to the draining energy of a child’s constant needs. Men whose own fathers weren’t there for them, who have no road map and whose own love tank seems to consistently run low. Men who battle ridiculous amounts of personal obstacles to muster up the courage and capacity to share a quick hug with their children; who, despite their deep commitment, love, and appreciation, have great difficulty expressing such sentiment.

I can imagine on a day like today, seeing all the men who make that job look easy recognized feels a little bit disheartening. I experience a bit of this on Mother’s Day – always have. Growing up without a mom, making cards in class to honor them was one group activity I did not look forward to. Now a mom, this day sometimes reminds me
of my own failures in this area of my life and indeed how hard the role is at times.

The truth of the matter is that all of us are broken and bruised. The ideals associated with words like “family”, “mother”, and “father” may bring on feelings of nostalgia and gratitude — or heartbreak and disappointment — or all of the above. (We are beautifully complex creatures.)

It may be that, for you, feeling any sort of personal pride on a day like Father’s Day is totally remiss.

So let me be a different voice today, to tell you that no family is without mess and struggle. That we all have our ups and downs, our hurts to heal and our ideals to live up to.

Take a deep breath and know that God is intimately involved in the business of recovering and redeeming, and personally showing us who the only truly Great Father is. It is in worship that we become our true selves.

Peace and comfort to you this Father’s Day.

To my sweet: I love you more than words. Thank you for every moment that you seek Truth and try harder to rise above the past.

This last week I’ve been reading two very interesting books; Radical Homemakers and Possum Living. Both deal directly with some societal “givens” about the way of modern life and what participation in the money economy in America is actually getting us in terms of progression – both as individuals, families, and a community and nation. How we measure success, needs, wants, status quo, happiness and contentment – so much. In some ways, it’s been taking me to places I’m not so sure I wanted to go with myself.

As a gal who grew up largely in a suburban retirement/tourist area off the Florida gulf coast, the mainstream idea was pretty much the ONLY idea I heard. I understood the message that struggling financially was very embarrassing; having the less than perfect car or periods of unemployment was considered downright shameful. The area was enjoying the facade of the “good economy” and housing spikes and EVERY ONE seemed agreed that the use of debt/loans/credit cards as not only necessary but indeed complimentary to the good life and the American Dream.

I think most of us know the truth now. I don’t know a single person my age without one or more of the following skeletons in their closet: shopoholics, workoholics, debtors anonymous, bankruptcy, foreclosures, unemployment, divorce, the list goes on.

The facade began to shatter for me shortly after our move to Portland 3 years ago. Our debt to maintain a certain lifestyle while in college and barely making ends meet became unmanageable and we enrolled in a counseling service to close our accounts and make one monthly payment with a plan to get out of debt in about 3 years. For two years, our debt payment was more than our housing costs, and that burden fell largely on me, as I was the one with a set of skills, a work-at-home-business with steady clients, and no addiction in my way (though not entirely – my co-dependency on other people’s praise and my workaholic tendencies certainly helped me maintain that role!)

After Chris and I began the process of recovering from a cycle of dysfunction and compulsive behavior (a subject I don’t approach much on this blog but one that is very much a part of our story as people, a couple and a family), we faced a set of challenges financially, including another job loss for Chris due to economic downturn and a “surprise” pregnancy and 2nd child to raise. My own grieving process and healing from all that had happened to us was still very much a part of my life, and is and will continue to be. Sometimes putting all that aside to attempt the daily grind is damn near impossible. I went through a lot of counseling and soul searching to motivate myself every hour I continued to work these last two years – and that was on top of the sheer fact that having a 4 year old and baby to care for full-time is more than enough of an exhausting job as it is!

For my part, I played my role because it was what I was used to. I hate this… but I admit that a large part of my work ethic has been in many ways egotistical, and in other ways simply a grasp for control and security. I often made huge decisions based less on my confidence and trust in God, rather on my survivalist mentality of avoiding hypothetical scenarios of danger that lay ahead.

I am so much like the women of the old testament who knew God had a plan and promise for their future (such as bless them with children), yet they were too impatient and unfaithful to see what God had in store for them, so they contrived their own plan (like having their husband sleep with another woman to bare children) – only to later regret it and find ever more bizarre modes of behavior to continue to live as though they are the author and finisher of their own story. The good news is that God always seems to work out the story, even the marred ones these women created, for His purpose. Every step we took out of preliminary REACTION to a fear based hypothetical DID some how have many positive repercussions and invaluable life lessons and amazing people along the way. But by the grace of God I stand…

This week has been so hard for me. I’ve asked myself things I’ve asked myself SO many times – but this week the answers are coming in… maybe you just have to be desperate enough to hear them. Or maybe hearing God reply when you are finally too fed up with your own excuses. Here’s an example:

“Why are my kids so draining?”

“Your kids aren’t what drain you. Your anger is what drains you. Your reactions drain you. Your unrealistic expectations drain you.”

Ouch.

On the eve of Chris finally finding work, something we wrestled with all year, all these scales are falling from my eyes. It’s breaking me. Hard.

Questions about whether or not my work is meaningful, if the services I provide are in line with my values of ecological sustainability, social justice, family, and community (a part of Radical Homemakers which I just can’t shake). Fears about the what if’s, i.e. what if I take risks and make space in my time for more lofty goals and dreams to emerge — what if I risk being broke (and anyway, what else is new?;) ) to pursue a LIVING (not just a paycheck) that integrates my family life, helps my community, and gives me a sense of fulfillment of my creative human potential?

I tried to work this out with my own carefully researched plan (there goes that old testament woman thing I was referring to). For months I’ve been hard at work to open a Waldorf-inspired part-time playschool for preschool aged children. Oh, the countless hours I’ve poured over books and recorded seminars and sheet music and my garden… I thought, for sure, this is the only thing that I can do that doesn’t take away from the life I want to give my children yet brings in the income necessary for us to finish paying off our debts and buy some little parcel of land somewhere in which we can live out our (my?) dreams of a little homestead that requires little or no participation in money economy to operate.

But that was shot down this week, big time, in a way that I am still puzzled by and not sure where to go from here. The verbal agreement of my landlord, the scale-tipping fact that I used to act on signing a lease on this rental home, was renigged, and I am left wondering what it all means and what I should do now. This was my plan, my eggs in one basket, to get out of my jobs working late at night and spending my whole day tired and worried about deadlines (deadlines that, to me, were arbitrary save the “fact” that I “do not let people down”).

Chris can work 50 hours a week with this new job, but if anything has been learned these past 5 or so years, its that there is no such thing as security – not in those terms. We are both hard-workers, but different things make us tick. And whatever did it for me all these years, it’s not doing it for me anymore. I see my children, I see the sunshine, I see the world, and I want to be with it all. All the time. I can’t find the energy to spare for activities that drain my reserves and return only the monetary cracker here and there.

Thankfully, I’ve learned a few other things. Or rather, am in the process of learning.

We can live on very little. That’s one thing. Being thrifty and learning new skills, we can now live on less than half of what we used to need in our budget to make ends meet. We may not have lots of leftovers to sock away funds for our dream home, or afford health care, but we do live “the good life” in many ways. We choose to allocate funds towards disease prevention (i.e. nourishing, nutrient rich fresh meals), we spend more time together and in the earth, and less (or no) time in cars, malls, and in front of tv’s. I must remind myself of these things from time to time, otherwise my list of shortcomings feels overwhelming to me. Maybe not by societal standards, but by standards far deeper and wider and richer, I feel blessed.

So. I don’t know. I don’t know how long it will take to, in the words of Kierkegaard, “with God’s help… become myself”. I could go all philosophical and point out the theory that we ARE what we are. How can we be what we are not? Still, with a view of a Creator, I cling to the hope that I can change:

Learn patience, contentment, grace, love, humility, stewardship, integrity, and peace.

I don’t know how long I will be able to plug away at work in the money economy. Perhaps if I can see it as a means to an end, I can muster up the motivation and see the sacrifice of my time and family as worth it. I don’t know. I am learning, however, that many folks before me have blazed the trails of an alternative means of living on this planet. They have been able to see beyond a life of fight-or-flight decisions and future-worry that is not only counter-productive, but admonished by Christ himself. They have found a lifestyle that is largely self-sufficient, community building, and good for the earth.

That is the journey I am on. But here, in this post, I suppose I am lamenting my “two steps back” that are inevitably part of it. We have been given MORE than we deserve and have often squandered the generosity away by jumping the gun and looking like fools out there running, thinking we are ahead, only to realize too little too late what we have done.

Ah well, I guess I am no better than any one else, am I?

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim
My coming, the swarming of the bees.
These are my heralds, and behold! my name
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees.
I tell the mariner when to said the seas;
I waft o’er all the land from far away
The breath and bloom of Hesperides.
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This week has been absolutely full with a teething baby-turned-1 year old (sleepless nights, oh my, the fatigue!) and when not tending to children we’ve been busy planting and readying the yard. We put in a 20′ x 4′ vegetable bed in the backyard, continued to chop away at overgrown honeysuckle TREES (yes, they are huge here! and very prolific!), clear out lose branches from last Winter’s snowstorms, and plant two garden beds. In the front yard, we’ve put in a small 3′ x 8′ vegetable bed and planted flowers and a dogwood tree at the front of the walkway to liven up the curbside a bit. All of this is preparation for some special plans that are shaping up, so despite the recreational connotation of gardening, we are indeed working hard towards an important goal too. This weekend we’ll celebrate May Day very casually, a backdrop to the prep work taking the forefront of our activity this month. Sunday plans include finishing the chicken coop and next week the arrival of our starts to get the veggies in the ground. (Phew!)

I’m struggling with my need to recuperate and refocus before changing gears career-wise, while faced with the reality of lose ends I must tie up before I am free to pour my whole self into my new venture. Also, the “Position Filled” responses keep coming in on job ads Chris has applied to, reminding me to keep surrendering my worries that work opportunities are still scarce for him. I’m trying to stay positive and present while shedding some baggage. My heart aches to focus solely on my role as wife and mother, a role that I have often sacrificed in the name of survival – attempting to be the main bread winner AND childcare provider for our family for the last 4 years. Until recently, I would not have entertained the thought of letting go of this role, largely out of fear, of loss of control, of being thought of as unwise. The shifts in my focus have been culminating for about 3 years now, (beginning homeschool of Ethan, having a second child, and leaving a city I otherwise loved in order to pursue a lifestyle that would allow us to switch roles) all have been building to this sort of climatic moment when we must make some more decisions.

I see so many “signs” around me that I am right where I need to be, and that is encouraging. I have a deep sense of the importance that taking a leap of faith needs to be whole-hearted as well as mindful. I see a future in which I am not up late at night working anymore; I have more energy in the morning, am free to focus on the relationships in my life and create a home for my family without the stress of multiple deadlines and the guilt of having so little left to give.

With this, I also plan to take OFF my plate any thing that doesn’t need to be there. Writing for this blog is one of them. I plan to continue writing and journaling privately, and instead using MamaSeasons as more of a photo blog. As a person who has always found over committing to be a very tempting way of life (!), I’ll have to exercise a lot of discipline to let go of the excess and streamline my time. I just keep telling myself: the kids are only young once. Right now, creating a loving, balanced environment for them is my top priority.

Ok, I suppose I have rambled long enough! Have a Happy May Day, everyone! May your May hold promise and purpose!

*First, a little business: Sarah- you were the winner of “Families, Festivals and Food”! Get me your address and I’ll get it in the mail!*

Life is mysterious. I know – how profound. But for real. And irony sure seems an ever present element in the journey. The criss crossy topsy turvy Oh-The-Places-You-Will-Go-Dr.Suess-ish-ness… I don’t even try to figure it out much anymore. The last 2 years of my life have defied or exceeded all of my former constructs. I am more convinced of the creative brilliance of the Creator of the Universe and less of the textbook, Sunday school “god” than ever before. I also get more angry and confused about it all. Sometimes it’s as absurd as growing and shrinking upon a bite of this and a sip of that down in that hurried little rabbit’s hole.

Some of you are nodding and the rest of you, if you are still reading, have glazed over eyes. I guess my mind has been full as of late. We’ve gone through a lot of changes and more are to come. For me, I’m trying to make decisions about what to focus on for awhile, even if that means sacrificing financial security. As I type, Chris is out applying at a new “green” home building retail store that just opened here in Fayetteville. The hours are perfect and his experience is so well matched, so yes, we are really crossing our fingers and saying our prayers. But he has lots of applications on lots of desks right now and who knows what the right thing will be at the right time. So we are playing a bit of the waiting game, while my own aptitude for pressing on as a work-at-home-mother with two young children in my care full time dwindles. My prayer right now is for a period of refreshing and refocusing to come, and soon!

Ok, I digress with a slideshow from Earth Day with my parents here in Fayetteville with us (sooo nice!):

If you see elements of garbage in you, like fear, despair, and hatred, don’t panic. As a good organic gardener, a good practitioner, you can face this: “I recognize that there is garbage in me. I am going to transform this garbage into nourishing compost that can make love reappear.

…

When you sit at a cafe, with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you’re not really drinking your coffee or your tea. You’re drinking your projects, you’re drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your tea and you coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self, and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. This is genuine tea drinking.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Anger”

Thich Nhat Hanh has been teaching me about mindfulness as a tool in embracing and balancing my anger. It’s certainly no surprise that I get angry sometimes, we all do. Self-care, aka “me time”, is so very hard to come by as a mom with young one’s, and that reality leaves me often drained and tired. It’s called being a mom, right? For the next two days I have about 20 projects on my to-do list, ranging from LOTS of work for 3 various clients and things I can’t continue to put off (like filing my taxes, writing so and so, calling that credit agency, UNPACKING MY SUITCASE from my move a month ago, finish painting the office, start the rest of the seeds, order my bulk foods and let others know about the new Fayetteville drop, find a futon so we don’t continue sleeping on the floor, finish a logo for dad, email my uncle, getting FOUR packages in the mail [first must finish the sewing on one of them]… should I go on???) Amidst all of these projects, I also have worries; trying to plan a trip to see some family in Louisiana, concern over a family member who is in a bad way right now, relationships that still need to be tended to and mended, and the ever-present fear that I’m not giving the kids the childhood they deserve…

But tonight is the only night of my entire week that the house is anything close to still. Chris is gone, Ethan is sleeping (sometimes so is Ver), and each week I find myself tapping into the things I truly love: I light candles, I have a bowl of homemade chicken broth, I read a little from my book, I knit for a few, I sip a glass of Pinot Noir, I hum as I wipe down counters, do dishes, hang clothes, so on. The house is quiet and smells like the sage bush that is burning. It is relatively clean and orderly, and I am in the present. What I do is present and mindful. My prayers are free and full of surrender.

I like Wednesday nights. Even if I have to work, I bask in the solitude and am grateful for the renewal.

The rest of the week is nothing like this; a sharp contrast, in fact. It is loud. We all too often find ourselves exhausted from pushing each other’s buttons, suffering as we punish each other with threats (i.e. “stop running in the house or you can’t have any blueberries!!!”: this threat happens with more animosity and more frequently than you can possibly imagine!), and making countless excuses as to why we can’t be present with each other or ourselves.

Moments of compromise, hugs, mediation and communication DO happen – a lot actually. Yes, my entire day is devoted to the kinks that are being “family”. Work and homemaking and marriage and motherhood are all integrated into one big goopy mess from the moment that I roll out of bed (or before, as Ethan is banging on my door, Chris is hinting that he might explode, Verity is nursing and wetting the sheets underneath me, and I lay there: OH MY GOD. THIS IS LIFE???) and this is before 7 am. Yes, work-at-home-motherdom in all its pros and cons. Or am I focusing on the cons for the moment? Forgive me.

This is why the hour I have to myself for the ENTIRE WEEK is so savory to me. Some people get this solitude 99% of their daily lives or in the very least while in their daily commute in the car — but maybe that keeps some of them inflexible and unadaptable to life’s chaos and inconveniences. I am grateful for the character building, challenging tight rope that is full time motherhood, for those reasons. But every one needs the silence, the reflection, the mindful energy. That is how we stay balanced and tap into the parts of ourselves that are centered and steady.

My prayer is that I can bring about the inner-peace and calm of this one hour through out my week, in the midst of work and house projects and life with 3 other full-time family members. The husband just walked in the door five minutes ago and already the home is filled with needs, ideas, and chatter. The bubble is burst

And so, goodbye.