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Monthly Archives: November 2012

My baby man turned two years old this September and we celebrated for two days. Started the festivities with a trip to Seaworld the day before his bday to see the “fishies”.  Spent that night at a beach cottage and ate plenty of s’mores. Awoke on his birthday morning as the sun was about to come up over the Pacific, and spent hours playing in the sand. Continued the celebration that afternoon with his first trip on a train. He’s obsessed with “frains” since we live along Coast highway where trains are constantly whizzing back and forth, so he was so pretty stoked about riding one. We rode down to Encinitas to eat at the food trucks, missed the return train, made a mad dash to catch the next one and finally made it home well after dark. Next came presents and cake. Normally the peak of birthday happiness, they were a bit anticlimactic after all the excitement we had already experienced. None the less our Jeremiah opened boxes of toy trains, ate a frosting covered choo choo and went to bed a very happy, tired little man.

Amidst all the activity I think I skipped the fact that my baby has grown to be a toddler. Maybe that’s why I planned all the excitement, for his joy but also to ease me through the pain of this mile marker. A monument to passing time. It seems each day recently brings unexpected new wonders and also steals away something I adore. Grateful does not describe seeing him run and play and hearing his voice sweetly stumble over first words. I never saw my Joshua do any of this, I will never see him grow before my eyes. But amidst the thankfulness for a little boy grown strong, my heart is torn, breaking over each bit of babyhood slipping away. I wrote about this frustrated dance I am doing with time recently, maybe it’s just a realization of how foreign a thing time is to my soul.

The old women, wise men, tv shows and self help books answer to the years flying by is –   Be Present.   Seize the Day!   But these commands have always felt like too much pressure to me. It’s like a sage voice whispering over your shoulder that you have to do it all now and enjoy it all fully, take it all in, never be distracted or disgruntled – no pressure – ha! If I just muddle on then maybe I won’t have to think about the fact that we can’t ever be truly fully present in our befuddled little bodies. We can’t actually seize the moment can we? If I could I wouldn’t be in this quandary. The moments just keep running on, slipping through our fingers like so much sand, seconds like rushing water . . . I just can’t work myself up to that bravado or focus or whatever it may be. No offense to anyone who can, maybe I just need more meditation in my life. But one thing comes clear easily.   Contentment.   To be thankful for, content with the moment I am in, that seems feasible to me. Not a fake, plastered on smile, a manic happiness that  ignores the reality of every minute fleeting and less than it was meant to be. But a sigh down deep, a breath taken in gratitude and released in peace. As C. S. Lewis said – thankful for today’s blooms, not grasping for yesterday’s fading flowers, looking hopeful towards tomorrow’s buds. As I bend humbled and flow toward contentment I will never remember it all. But the blooms unfolded will flicker back to me, minutes and days growing richer as the years layer on. Patches of time, frayed around the edges like fabric worn to perfection.

So as we blow out the candles and move into his third year in our arms, my mind retraces, picking out and storing away what I hope will linger – Little rituals I hope will never fade from my mind’s eye, sounds I long to always hear dancing in my ears, glimpses of truth that make my heart glow warm  . . .

his hair glistening blond, the wind and light forming it into countless masterpieces

give me a kiss I say and he puckers up and leans forward to my lips with a smooching sound

“ree book” and we turn page after page, he never tires of sitting on my lap, lost in story

“DONO” everything good to eat is dono, named after his first favorite – donuts from our donut shoppe. if it’s especially good – “Happy Dono!”

he pronounces happy – “hoppy” and his face lights up like the sun and a million stars. he is joy itself spilling over onto our silly tired old lives

I hold him to my breast and ask about his day just as I did his brother. he nods his head to tell me what he liked and I feel his heart beat content

“pool pool” he calls out wether it is the bathtub, pool or ocean, he just wants to be in the water. little blond head bobbing between green floaties. we climb out of the water, pop him in a towel and I trudge home shivering with my dripping bundle. home and we eat popsicles melting as the sun warms us

he adores Nemo with an undying love that borders on obsession. considers all fishies his brothers and requires numerous stories about “fishties” to be read to him. killer whales and sharks are “rawrs” pronounced with the most adorable growl I have personally ever heard

when a train zooms past he screams “frain frain” and wants everyone to stop and furiously make the baby sign for locomotive with their hands

“dog gee, dog gee. dog gee!” he is obsessed. lives to see them and crawls with his pink tongue out, my pretend puppy

he is a momma’s boy who adores his daddy. in awe  of the big man that is so tender with him and flies a “brrrrrr”, asking for a honk as he drives away in the morning, rushing for a hug the minute daddy walks in the door at night

he thinks his brothers are superhero giants, but also is convinced that he rules the world

when he does need something he says help me in the cutest, most pathetic voice you have ever heard “he me, he me”

he gobbles up little mandarin oranges like they are candy

his favorite is waking up and climbing into bed to “feep” between mommy and daddy, blanket tucked under his chin, he’s actually still for a half a moment

“yummineee”

his munchie little toes are reason enough to live and his tummy sticks out just so

he is a dinosaur/monster fierce, wreaking havoc on all who cross his path in the living room

his soul knows saltwater and seabreeze, sundrenched days and winding garden paths

picking cherry tomatoes and strawberrdies off the potted plants in our backyard. he holds the fruit to the sky, announcing “dono” and quickly pops them in his mouth

if we forget to join hands and pray before we eat he stretches out his tiny fingers and calls out “pay”, smiles as daddy thanks God for the food, for our family and Jeremiah – his face lights up, we say amen and he throws his arms in the air rejoicing

he cares so deeply when anyone gets hurt, gently touches their owie, whispering “uh ow” his eyes and voice filled with concern and sadness for their pain

besides mommy the other love of his life is spaghetti

every night daddy and I tuck his brothers into bed while he runs crazy down the hall, then books in the rocking chair, his head on our shoulder we sing amazing grace, lay him down, pat his back singing give me joy in my heart, a kiss on the head and wonder at his legs stretching ever longer across the sheets

He is more than all this. but I fumble at the essence and scratch down a few bits to return to when he is flown out into life. And amidst diapers and temper tantrums (yes even this angel sometimes has them) tiredness and my constant falling short I revel in this motherhood. I hold my blond boy close and try to walk this journey with him openhanded, so that he may find paths his own. If I could catch up all the perfection I would and strain from it the faults. But I know the only way I will ever keep his heart close is to simply sit in contentment, each moment as it comes.

9-7-12

Time is an unfair friend

It’s insistent march bringing me all that I have and ripping everything away, piece by piece, minute by minute.

I have felt the cruelty of it’s cadence with every fiber of my being recently. It’s more than a reluctance to march in step, it’s a knowing rising up, a certainty that I was made to float free of it’s constraints. It feels like all the movies and books you have ever read of time travel, where the characters get stretched and torn almost limb from limb as they are hurled from one era to another. And then they are there, in one piece, miraculously. And that strain is weighing on my bones, because why is it any less epic that we should travel half a decade or more on this globe, constantly gaining, changing, always losing… til we end – poof – in a puff of smoke. It makes no sense and yet this is how we live. Imprisoned.

The other week I was floating so full of life I felt as if I could step right out of my skin. Eternity felt close, just on the other side of a scarf drawn thin across our eyes. I walked the sidewalk imagining the real me, stepping right out and into all we can not see, right into his arms, into the arms of all who we live apart from. But we don’t join hands between this world of time and forever stretching on. I can’t even grasp a single instant and command it to stay in this world of clocks and earth. If new days didn’t spring up I would not know my children. Yet the sun falling from it’s place over and again steals away everything I call my own. Life a constant mourning of all that goes away. The baby’s laugh as fleeting as a summer breeze. Nothing can we quite hold in our hands, it’s all just slipping through.

But who would want to live in a stale moment? The leaves fall and new winds bring seasons as they should be. A string of family photographs. memories filed away, thoughts, sensations piled up and forgotten. My heart torn to see the days fade like old film and thrilling to hope of what may come.

My baby turned two and all he wanted to do was go on a train. We hurtled through night and day. Looked out the windows and saw only ourselves and streaks of light like nymphs racing into eons. I want to hold him to my breast forever, how can I survive the day he no longer climbs upon my knee? I’m afraid to know him as a man. Who will he be? But I long for him to wrap strong arms around me and tell me he remembers our story and that it is a good one.

And deep inside I know the saying is wrong. They say you can’t take it with you. I know it’s all coming along for the ride. As we whir past train stops, I know the bad and the pain will fade away. And I will be left with the good. He has given it to me. The beautiful moments are forever mine. Nothing else will matter.

9-7-12 . canon ae / tri-x

 

As the photographer, there are very few photos of me with my children. So my sweet man is learning the camera to make images of us together. I just got back the first roll of film we shot together, on our baby’s birthday. Seeing this image was beyond words for me

This image means everything

When I am afraid there is nothing I will look at it. When I want to wish away the past I will look at it. When I fear the future I will look at it. When my face is full of wrinkles and my children stand grown I will look at it.

 

What miracle that this child was given us. What magic, my man catching in a moment all that cannot be spoken

“The little ones leaped and shouted and laughed and all the hills echoed” – William Blake

 

canon AE1 / tri-x . taken by my love as we walked to eat by the sea on Jeremiah’s second birthday . 9-7-12

 

“Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.” – J R R Tolkien in a letter to his grandson

I never dated the man I am married to. We didn’t have money for fancy dinners, movies or anything that resembled a “real” date. Instead we did life together. We worked our way through college, studied hard, worked out, made mistakes and survived a lot of drama together.   and then we got married.   and then we had kids.   all in pretty short order.

and now I have been married for ten years and we are raising three children and a son waits for us in heaven. Sometimes I wonder how all this beauty happened and sometimes I am stretched thin and all our sharp corners rub each other raw. When I walked down the aisle of that white country church I thought all our angles would fit together, the notches would interlock and we would complete each other and become a towering, shiny new creation. After jostling up against each other’s daily moments and living grief each in our own way I realized our differing shapes seem drawn to stab the other just where it will hurt. Instead of the puzzle pieces fitting easily into the slots I assumed they were made for, sometimes the holes remain open and empty.

These seem harsh and ugly words, but if you have been married more than a few seasons I doubt that you could call them untrue.

We  talk and talk of how to care for our little ones, what the next step is . . . jobs and school and homes . . . and then the other day we sat over steaming cups and gave voice to the shift that the years have brought. As the coast changes with the rhythm of waves pounding, so have we. And we gave voice to the questions, THE question . . .

If we met each other today, would we marry?

If we knew then what we do now, would we do it differently?

Grasp all we want and time travel in our minds, there is no answer to be had. Our souls are mated and we walk this life together.

Like rocks on the beach we are smoothed by the waves of each season and each other. The stones silken and rounded by years of cleansing, crashing down on them, They chatter and sing, dancing over each other, laying out a firm carpet before the sea. They are a seat before forever stretching on to beauty, a floor made of pebbles worn raw against each other. Upon these time worn treasures, fires are lit to guard against the dark, to give comfort while the harsh winds blow.

I know no other to live life with than the man I married, as the waves turn us round and round, caressing each other into flowing lines of eternity

 

(and now we are trying to go on more dates, which is lovely for our souls. these images were taken one Friday when we got a babysitter for the kids, ate at the foodtrucks and went to an art opening and music show at a new gallery in town. it was a good good night)

9-29-12 . 28mm . last light-street lights