LOST A SOCK

Happy 6th Birthday, Jack

And Happy New Year, as well.

Our guy is six!  This turned out to be the year of the birthday video, with its origin one afternoon this summer as the kids and I parked ourselves around our computer for more than an hour, watching early birthday compilations and short, random action clips from when they were eating mashed bananas and roller skating.  (Not at the same time, though that would have been impressive.)  They all wanted new videos for their birthdays, and I have now followed through for all three.  I love these for them, because I hope they are reminded that someone thinks that each of them, and their respective stories, are just great.  As the pictures roll through to music I get to say, "That's the afternoon we were driving, and you kept putting your little Tow Mater truck under your chin and calling, Mama, Wook! through the pacifier in your mouth.  Then if the truck would stay under your chin, you would laugh and laugh."  I love their stories, and am so grateful to be part of them.

Last night we spent the evening with my sister and sister-in-law, for the first time away from home with our kids on New Year's Eve, and Leslie was so great to make cupcakes for midnight, when we normally sing our first Happy Birthday to Jack.  She even made a special one with a big blue 6 standing up on it, on a pretty glass pedestal for the birthday boy.  I think he is beginning to realize, now that we have reached the big six (ha) just what a fun day he has to celebrate each year.

Happy Birthday Jack!  We love you!

2011 in the rearview

Initially I thought to comment, Well that went fast, when I realized it was time to recap the year that just started five minutes ago.  But then as the past year came into better focus, I knew that the quickness of its passage was less about its days and moments, and more about the fact that the years--they are really moving.  I love growing, I love getting older, I love my grey hairs and tiny little wrinkles left from smiling, I love change.  Bring it, 2012.

But first, for the short and sweet in the record book, allow me to recap 2011.

We began the year as we always do, on a ladder with paint brush in hand.  (Myself, that is. Not my kids.)  My kids were elbow deep in homeschool, and in a bin of dry rice and beans at the time, and we were eight months into our wait for our baby to be referred to us, from Africa.

This was a path that I somehow knew I would walk, at least in the years after I became a mom, though I never could have predicted our story thus far to present as it does in this moment.  While waiting for our referral, we began learning of so much corruption surrounding the situation in that particular country, and eventually we made what felt like the only ethical choice to make, given the circumstances, and we brought our paperwork back home.  I know with certainty that even now, had we stayed the course in spite of our concerns, we still would not have had our baby home today, and if we felt waist-deep in a terrible situation at the beginning of the year, without going into detail, we would have been up to our eyeballs by now.  Even our own agency, who we once had so much faith in, has not emerged with clean hands, and it leaves me feeling just sick for the babies and children who are involuntarily growing up in the center of this cold and dirty hurricane.  In this way the world appears uglier than ever to me, having joined the scene ready to help a child or children as we could, and then having witnessed such an unfolding.  It left me feeling hopeless for the kids at the center, and so very sorry for the well-intentioned adoptive and birth families caught in the swirling periphery. 

I am sorry to say that I came away from this once-exciting time to experience a grief I hadn't known before- a miscarriage of sorts, only for which there are no pre-determined parameters for how one should expect to feel after spending the better part of two years preparing for and dreaming about this very real baby that would join our family, only to walk away with empty arms.  Adoption is not just a thing that people decide to get into, but something we get into with our whole hearts and with our kids and families and friends and finances.  We create space in our homes and excitedly count down until this little person who already feels like one of us, comes along to finally be one of us.  The process, then, of giving away the toys I had saved, the blankets and clothing I had collected and telling each and every person of our turn of events left me mournful and exhausted.  The winter went long, and it felt dark and sometimes lonely.

I journaled a lot through that time, and searched to find the silver lining day after day, because it was the best of my options.  And I opened myself up to the possibility that I could somehow come out of this experience with greater breadth, and build something from all the little pieces.

By the grace of God, I met a friend of a friend very soon after that, who somehow got me instantly, right where I was, and sat with me in the space where I chose to work through our adoption into its roots.  My sadness for everything that had ever failed was palpable, then.  I saw all of that emotion and heartache, some of which I had carried with me since I was my own little kid, and I picked it apart and allowed it to become something new when it was ready.  I had grown into a better mother for all I had learned, and a better self for what I now understood.  The process, the preparation, the loss and the disaster we witnessed was what we simply had to endure for all that could come out of it and still is yet to come.  

And just like that, Spring arrived.

We were okay. We were all okay.  We were built for these sorts of deep life lessons-- a whole Master's Degree, really, on what fear and disappointment and love are all about.  How thankful I am to have come through all of this with a heart open to possibility, though it was no picnic at the time.

It was Mother's Day before I knew it and I was the mom of three amazing little kids, and we spent the morning on a hike, and laying in green grass, absorbing the sunshine.  I will never forget that Sunday morning, because I think it was one of the most perfect, ever, in my book.  I hired our wonderful babysitter for a few hours a week, beginning last Spring, to give me the occasional break that I didn't know I could (should!) grant myself and my kids. I became more familiar with poetry and bounced along on positive, super-fun music.  We had kitchen dance parties in the afternoon and at night, just the kids and I, or the kids and I and Kevin and Sant and Leslie-- all through the house with the music blasting.   

I threw caution to the wind and painted on all sorts of canvases, and put hardwood floors in our house and painted a few walls more.

We saw art.  We made art.

We plastered art all over our walls, and we didn't apologize for the mess.

We hiked,

and we drove,

and we celebrated.  

I felt that I should meet my inner perfectionist, somewhere in all that, and shake her up a little bit.  The world was not perfect, and I was not perfect.  The world was ugly and messy and dissapointing, and I needed to stare into all of that to understand that it was somehow part of something beautiful.  And so with each opportunity, to this very moment, I am asking myself what I can do with the beautiful messiness, and who will still love and accept me should they walk right into it with me.

And the answer, of course, is this little, solid group of friends and family whom I have intentionally placed around myself, like a group of fluffy pillows to pad my falls.  I am blessed.  Not lucky, as I tossed out there in my last post.  I believe, actually, in neither luck, nor coincidence, nor accidents.  I am here and happy and more whole than ever because I chose to experience awe and gratitude, again and again, for all of the blessings that come my way.  I am following my intuition as best I can, always chasing truth and what is real, and facing the hard work as it shows up, so that I can continue growing into the best version of myself-- all of those failings, and all of that messiness included.  There is more work to be done.

I added to my inky collection last summer, the word that hums through the undertones of my life, and five little birds in flight, for the five of us- Kevin and the kids and I, making this journey together.

We traveled a good deal this year, down to Indianapolis to spend some days with these little buddies of ours while their Mama delivered their new baby, 

and with these buddies of ours (also speaking of new, third babies) to Wisconsin Dells for a fun vacation.

We did the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee this year with family, 

in a mountainside cabin with a view and a settling energy I will never forget,

and we found ourselves floating down a river in bright yellow innertubes.

Kevin and I took a trip to Vegas for our eleventh wedding anniversary, 

and we experienced Utah and Arizona, where we hiked through quiet and still, rocky caverns.

I collected twenty-three pages of favorite quotes this year,

and finally figured out a layout and an atmosphere that is comfortable to me, here.

We saw the Dalai Lama speak in person over the summer, and I attended a fantastic monthly Buddhist meditation class.  Each Kevin and I did something we said we would never do again, and spent the last six months settling into churches we both love, each of us supporting the other with where we need to be.  We've gotten involved with a monthly soup kitchen, and we've met more new friends who have turned out to be icing on the cake.

We've created bonds with our homeschool buddies and taken lots of day-trips.  I bought an iPhone, I conquered every version of Angry Birds, I took the kids to see lots of plays and musicals this year.   

Kevin and I saw U2, which was hands-down, the best concert ever (even if I failed to bring my real camera).

I read this year.  I read and read and read and read, 

and it was one journey inward (and backwards and forwards) after the next.

We said good-bye to friends, both very real friends and quasi-real,

and we watched quietly the sun set,

the silkworm dangle,

and the Autumn breeze blow.

We hosted the holidays again,

and counted ourselves so blessed for full tables and full bellies.

We enjoyed the glow, 

remain present,

and bring nothing but hope, bravery, possibility and love to the year ahead.

Christmas 2011

Lucky girl.

Christmasing

While waiting for Santa...

And also waiting for snow...

Some of us fondly remembering those post-Christmas days we've spent on sunny, sandy Florida beaches...

We build legos,

check out local lights,

drink coffee,

get goofy.

Create snowball art!

Which logically involves Storm Troopers in the snow.

Deer watching.

Deer adoring.  They are so gentle and serene.

Playing excitedly in the half inch of snow that stuck around for three hours one morning.  

We are kids sure that this magical time will last forever, and grown-ups remembering what it was like to experience this time of year as wide-eyed kids.  A time that passed so quickly.

Our church Nativity play, at which Mary showed off her striped knee-highs, and took off with a shepherd just after the birth of her tiny soft-plastic baby.  Thankfully, Joseph was willing to hold down the fort manger, and happily accepted gifts on behalf of the newborn king.

More holiday art,

and belly buttons!

Having fun with gift wrapping,

and happily strolling to our mailbox each afternoon to open cards from friends we love.

New year vision-boarding,

favorite bracelet creating,

and adoring the early afternoon sunshine, while it lasts.

I hope you are breathing in the one-of-a-kind Christmas glow, as well.

Semi-annual Somewhat-messed up Completely-accurate and terrible Christmas poem, from our family to yours

I really want to blog again but don’t know where to start.

We’ve hung the garland, trimmed the tree and made some Santa art.

I’m lying really, it was glitter trees and windows with bright lights,

But if I don’t say something here, it could be six more nights.

That’s Christmas-- no. Oh nevermind.  That day is drawing near.

Our car’s broke down, the gifts half wrapped, kick Santa in his… ear.

Why so violent?  Why so mean?  What did that round man do?

Took credit for all good presents now, and ate our cookies, too.

Fold laundry, Donder, change bed sheets Rudolph, is what that man should say,

For we have three young children here who busy me each day.

I like them so, I buy them gifts and take them lots of places.

We pick up donuts, sing Christmas carols and smile our happy faces.

Then we get home, it’s late and then the bath time is a must,

But if you know about little boys, they’re sure that they might rust.

Resist the bath, resist the bed, leave legos on the floor.

Why doesn’t Santa ever step on them, and expletive out the door!?

It’s late and it’s dark and I did not see that sharp remaining block,

I stepped on it, collapsed and cursed, I’m bleeding through my sock.

Oh shit, I say, I’ve got things to do that involve a lot of walking,

My foot is throbbing, I’m overtired and sick of all this talking. 

On Dasher, On Dancer, now Prancer in line behind our sweet little Comet,

Let’s stay away from the public this week so we don’t get the flu and vomit.

It’s going around, I’ve heard moms say, and doesn’t sound like fun,

Kids soil each surface and miss the pot and make me want to run.

Run, I said, not Runs, that’s different, though it accompanies too.

I have three kids so no surprise my poem just turned to poo.

Oh that was gross, I’m sorry friends, do say that you’ll forgive.

Let’s talk about happy things again, like Christmas dinner and gin.

Gin doesn’t rhyme and neither does vodka but it might be what I’m drinking,

If I don’t score more time this week, it’s the only way, I’m thinking.

Nativity play and Christmas break from homeschool are just fine,

Pajama day and craft away and memories that shine.

I hope they know when it’s all done I created this for them,

So when they grow up they’ll do the same and gift me a big gem.

A ruby maybe, or sapphire or diamond or giant loaf of bread.

What? I ask. All one in the same! Do not a sad tear shed!

I’m tired now, for real now, and I have to end this, friends.

Merry Christmas to you, I’ll be back real soon to show you how it ends.

I love you, good night, no I can’t stop, my gosh I’m just like the kids,

I need more water, I have to pee, my bed is full of squids.

Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, I’ll see you all tomorrow.

Or Thursday or Friday or Saturday, in happiness and sorrow.

Merry Christmas to all, I heard him say, the bulky man in fur,

Bring happiness and peace, dear Santa, of these I dream for sure.

Recently...

People who take their own Christmas card photographs are crazy.

Completely.

Totally.

I have done this on and off since these boys were babies.  Not last year, yes the year before, yes some others before that.  Almost always I am fully exhausted by the end of our session and weeping a thousand bitter tears for babies vomiting mid-shot (true story) and why they cannot just sit still and smile, just for five minutes.  

I have been told that everything gets easier as we depart from the baby stage, and I have called every person who has imparted that wisdom upon me a stinking fool liar because it does not become easier, only different.  

Christmas photos, thankfully, are somewhat easier.  

So that's something.

Mostly something.

Sometimes we get nutty.

Super nutty.

And also theatrical.

Super theatrical.

Um.  Forget everything I said up there.  This is no easy task.  

Shout the words stinky fart.  That'll get them laughing.  

...if not wrinkling their noses and excitedly waving hands near their faces.

Then I can pull something off.

Way back when we were childless and sleeping Saturdays until 10am, I never really thought about what my kids would look like.  There was really no way of knowing who, or how many, or what their personalities would be like. At least, I guess I assumed that they would be very similar to Kevin and I, and each other.

This assumption was completely incorrect.

Each of my kids are competely different from each other, and deep and intelligent and observant.

And hilarious.

Yes, that.

Lose the glasses, add the scarf.  A miracle of God, truly, that this child is clothed at all.  She does not live like this.  Hence, the brand new short haircut.  More to come on all of this, later.

Also to come, the possibility of a post filled with Christmas pictures from the beginning of this blog.  Set to Kenny Roger's Through the Years.  Because I know Miranda Priestly up there (The Devil Wears Prada, and you're welcome) totally threw up in one of my kitchen floor shoots, and pitched a mad fit another year.  

At least this year was smooth.  Mostly.

I totally promised them ice cream.  I won't lie.

Merry Christmas!

Scenes from a Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Week, Haphazard Edition

I keep thinking I want to post a spattering of pictures from our last few months of school.  I will get to them, I think, and then the day goes long, long, long, and better luck tomorrow.  

No luck.  

Here's my quick blurb.

We have been spending time at the Indiana Dunes with some of our homeschool buddies, and our kids have taken well to to the art of the camp fire, and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.  Above, Marin collecting long, thin sticks that can poke through our treats for the fire.  Below, cold, bare grey and brown tree branches.  Lots and lots of branches.  We are again down to the blue sky for color, when we can see it.

We are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this week, with plans for a perfectly set table for twenty.  My sister-in-law's family has flown in from across the country, for the week, and I sometimes marvel about how families are made.  There was mine, and his, and hers, and ours, and some others here and there, and eventually we were planning Thanksgiving together as one big happy, and I love it.  I would love for everyone to bring a friend, and another, and another, until we are all very comfortable and filled with stuffing and pie, and feeling well loved.  I am so thankful for all of these people who walk our journey with us.

We are finishing up our unit on the Human Body in Science.  Nerves, followed by muscles.  Next we will delve into heat and its properties and producers and the way it travels.  Conduction, convection, radiation.  I need to order all those books from the library.  

My kindergartner has become the king decoder of words that end in "silent e."  One moment he was slowly decoding every letter of every word, and the next moment, it seems, he had turned the lock with a key, and got it.  Magic.   

He has also discovered the fine art of end punctuation.  It lives everywhere.

The kids needed haircuts, so I plopped each one up on the bathroom counter tonight, and trimmed away before baths.  Then I cleaned their ears and trimmed their nails and smelled their fresh little heads.  I love it when everyone is all squeaky clean at once.

My oldest guy and I (much too old to have his nails trimmed and his hair washed by mom) sit on the couch for a small, quiet fraction of most afternoons and read US History together.  We read from our Smithsonian History Encyclopedia, digging up the details on Anne Hutchinson and the Puritans and William Penn and his Pennsylvania colony, and all the others who braved their way over here for something so important as freedom to worship in whatever way they preferred.  Sometimes when I think we have read enough for the day, I suggest we bookmark here, and then he asks for just a little more.  This, too, feels magical to me.  

The last time I steam cleaned our carpets, late at night, I woke up in the morning to find dog vomit right in the center of the hall floor.  I cleaned them again last night, and would appreciate if they could remain clean for at least a few days.  It's a shame that more of the various liquid-spilling individuals in this house cannot read.  I might post an effective note. 

I have cleared our calendar from this morning until Wednesday night, so that I can focus on school, and Thanksgiving, and a website project for a friend.  This is equal parts exciting and red, bumpy hive inducing.

The kids are all sleeping, and Kevin just arrived home.  He offered me his peanut butter and apricot jelly sandwich special, and now we commence watching The Fabric of the Cosmos.  After that I will take out half of my new pile of reading material.  Or at least, drift off to sleep trying.

Happy Monday, friends.

Waking up in Vegas

Earlier this month last month I started to get on a blogging kick and even considered NaBloPoMo, a commitment to write every day of November.  Alas, we took a trip and returned home seven days ago already.  We arrived home from Vegas at 3am Halloween morning, grabbing just a few hours of sleep before it was time to carve pumpkins and get everyone ready for trick or treating.  Since then, I painted my family room, got the kids caught up on school and a couple fun field trips, went on a major post-Halloween sugar binge, conquered both Angry Birds and a mountain of laundry, read a fantastic book and ordered my East Africa travel guide, to help myself think.

So yes, we took our trip.

Vegas was pretty neat to see.  

We were celebrating our wedding anniversary, so my wonderful husband took it upon himself to have special surprises built into the trip, like a massage down at the spa on our first morning, chocolate strawberries and champagne, and a marvelous anniversary dinner.

A dinner that included three varieties of mashed potatoes in pretty little cups, steak, lobster and creamed spinach.  Fun.     

(Also, writing the word Fun just after the words Creamed Spinach totally made me realize I am rocking my thirties.  Or my eighties.  Whatever.)

Vegas is one of Kevin's favorite places.  He loves the history of downtown and the architectural influences of each of the hotels on the Strip.  He knows what time certain fountains go off and who houses this art or that, and where to play good Blackjack and where to play cheap Blackjack, and where Dean Martin ate cheeseburgers.  And so while normally I am the trip planner of our team, this one was all his.

We walked and walked and walked.  I can tell you that I don't think we missed a single stop because that man was determined to show me everything.  

My favorite was this hotel, The Palazzo, and just as I was oohing and ahhing over how they pulled off Fall leaves in the middle of a desert, he told me that this was where we had our original reservation, just before he changed us to Mandalay Bay.  Oh well. 

Mandalay Bay was a great pick for my first visit because we were near the end of the Strip, with a view of the whole thing from way up on the 38th floor.  We stayed at THEhotel, which is kind of a big deal to them. THE word THE.  It's in capital letters on their pens, their towels, their shampoo.  On every paper, every sign on every wall.

I walked around the whole first morning proclaiming that I was getting out of THEbed and drinking THEdietcoke from THEoverpricedminibar and getting in THEshower.  Would he please get THEcar from THEvalet?

Am not kidding.  THEbig deal.  THEtp.

Am so glad I did not have THEexperience where I forgot to remove THEsticker.

We rented a fun car on our trip, which Kevin originally thought completely unnecessary, until I reassured him that if we were going to be so close to mountains and landscapes, I would probably need to climb on them.  

Which brings us to my favorite part of our adventure.  

Sorry friends, I do not enjoy gambling, or smoking cigars or drinking much, so while the Vegas sites were fun to see, the desert mountains were where my heart was.  (My vices, just for the record, include mashed potatoes, heavy caffeine and now banana splits the size of my forearm from Caesars Palace, all of which we indulged in while in the city of flashing lights.)

In our quest to see all fifty states together, I was aware that Las Vegas is in the Southeast corner of Nevada, quite close to Arizona and Utah...and we need all three of those.  Originally I had hoped that we could actually make a trip within a trip, out to THEgrandcanyon, but I knew we would not be able to dedicate enough of THEtime to do it THEjustice (heh, sorry!) so we decided to head up through Arizona and into Utah for hiking in those gorgeous red mountains.  

All lava rock, in such enormity- I had never seen anything like it.  See the two tiny cars up ahead in relation to the rock?  Compare.  

Fantastic.

So we made it through Arizona and into St. George, Utah, and I spotted a white church in the distance, which is one of my favorite things to photograph.  This wasn't any white church, though- it was a Mormon Temple!  And we'd never visited one! (Life List #61) There was a wedding spilling onto the perfect green grass of the front lawn, beneath the endless blue sky, and then this pristine, white building.  It sort of reminded me of winter mornings when you get that massive snowfall overnight, and then are lucky enough to wake up to bright blue skies over all of that bright white, untouched snow.  This was that. Church-style.

We moved on to Snow Canyon State Park, then, to hike.  I was so taken with the red rock, experiencing nothing like it near home.  It was so brittle and porous, with randomly scattered piles of deep black basalt rock here and there. Even all of the plants were completely unfamiliar to me, hardy and spikey and just completely different from the Midwest.  I loved it, and this is what I love about travel.  It changes you, and broadens your mind and deepens your understanding of the world.

The rock was somewhat unfriendly to the touch, reminding me a bit of chalk, which is not my favorite texture.  So this hike was for looking.  As we went along we kept finding the most incredible formations, and naming them like kindergartners identifying cloud shapes in the sky.

Owl!  

Elephant!  

This is how people stay married for a hundred years.  We entertain our quirks. And eat creamed spinach on our anniversaries.

This is my favorite shot from the Utah part of our trip- it sums up perfectly what the atmosphere was.  It was quiet.  It was awe-inspiring.  It was enormous, and dry and seventy-five degrees without even the slightest breeze and you got the feeling that things were simply permanent, and unchanging.  It was the kind of silence and stillness that allows you to stand right in the middle and not even have to breathe deeply to clear your mind.  You are just clear and quiet and synced with this stable, untouched section of the planet.  And you realize that it is you that is moving, all of your blood and your systems and your whole existence contained within your physical being, faster than any of this. You are transforming so quickly, and you will be gone and all of this rock and sand and dry desert heat will remain and outlive you.  And it is perfect.

You love my quasi-spiritual nature-hiking rants, don't you?

Late that night we returned to the glitz and the party in the downtown section of Vegas, which is Kevin's favorite.  It was then that my brain registered that it was Halloween weekend and the tourists?  They were costumed for it.  I think it was some of the best people watching I've ever done-- Snoop Dog, Beetlejuice, Kiss, The Pope smoking a big ol' cigar, and even a real wedding where every member of the wedding party, including the bride and groom, were made up like Zombies.  This was all so much fun to observe.

This is where a Zombie and a guy dressed like Tom Cruise from Risky Business take pictures of the Zombie wedding.  Oh Vegas.

I will be back send my husband and his buddies back to see you someday soon.

Of Autumns Past and Present

I was talking with someone the other day about Fall.  Who doesn't love Fall? She was telling me that Fall seems to be her creative time, and I took that in.  My mind went to early January, which is naturally my creative time, and then I had to think about what Fall is, for me.

And I got it, easily.

Exploration.

Amazing Colorado

Wyoming Calm

White Mountains, New Hampshire

Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

Connecticut

Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

White House, Washington D.C.

Oh my God, Kennebunkport, Maine

Awe-inspiring Mr. Lincoln

Jack Kerouac's grave, Lowell, Massachusetts

Beautiful Lady Liberty, NYC

Rustic Southern Michigan

Air Force Academy, Colorado

Historic Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Up-all-night Times Square, New York City

Indiana Dunes State Park

History

Mystery

Spirit

Simplicity

Love

Release

I entered a brand new place this season, this last week.  It is dark and beautiful, exactly like this.

It is a place I did not see coming, nor did I fully understand that I was headed to, until very suddenly I stood at the edge of this brown, twiggy, comfortable nest and was thrust upward and outward by a burst of air.  There I was, looking for something to set my feet on, though there was suddenly little familiar.  

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart).

I experienced a loss this week, a person very close to me who moved away, across the country.  I've had her nearly my whole life, to walk arm and arm with on the breezy Chicago sidewalks to get stir-fry and later, giant cups of coffee, and drive up and down Lake Shore Drive together in every season with the very best music playing like our soundtrack.  But the time came.  

Then I heard just a day later that our once-home, our high school, was closing.  How appropriate, I thought.

I have moved out of my childhood home, my state, my first little house with my husband and babies, have graduated from schools, changed jobs and grew apart from friends, just like everyone.  This one feels different-- sharp and dull at the same time, leaving me to ache.

And ache, and ache, and ache.

I just want to pull off the road and stop moving for a few minutes-- sit in the grass and take it in.  Honor it.  I've sat quietly with my head on Kevin's shoulder, slept in, carbed out, read my favorite poems and quotes, played Adagio in G Minor on repeat, and now this one.  Just for a few more minutes, until the world makes sense again.  

Everything is going to be okay.  Everything IS okay.  Of course it is, I know that.  We are each moving in the exact perfect direction.  So my life will involve more airplane rides, and the California sunshine and mountains and the Pacific Ocean.  Like that's a bad thing, right?

This weekend as Kevin and I and the kids went out to Notre Dame, while we were eating our picnic peanut butter and jellies on the soft green grass under the trees, I was looking up and watching the leaves fall.  I was thinking about this past Spring when I watched them all blossom and grow in.  They were yellowish babies and flowers, and green and alive and delicate all summer. They saved the best for last, I think-- each one changing to glorious reds and oranges and bright yellows like the summer sun.  How does each one know when its moment has come?  When it is time to release from the tree that grew it?

Off on its own after that familiar sway in the wind all Spring and Summer and early Fall.  One big opportunity to really fly before it reaches the ground.

Before it reaches these guys, to eventually become the very soil that will nourish the tree from which it grew in the first place.

I have been thinking a lot about how everything moves in cycles.  I am working on the Rock Cycle with my kids right now in Science.  (Who knew there was a Rock Cycle??)  Last year, the Water Cycle, the Seasons, and so on.  There is familiarity everywhere, over and over again.  We're looping, and without so much as my asking for it, the next perfect thing shows right up.

I remember being a kid, growing up in our South Side Chicago church.  We practically lived there, I thought.  (We did.)  I knew the leather kneelers and the patterns on the floor, and the red carpeting and its texture which was somewhat puffier on the altar than it was in the aisles.  I still know the smell of the finish on the old wooden pews and the way the sunlight would come through the enormous stained glass windows during certain masses, and afterward.  It is what home felt like.

The time came for us to leave there just as I began college.  I grew up and got married and looked everywhere but just couldn't find the place that felt like home.  I left the religion altogether and thought for sure I was finished with any sort of building that could hold such a great, big, fascinating God.  I was as finished as I needed to be, and for as long as I needed to be.  I thought maybe forever.

It is really important to grant ourselves all the space we need, sometimes.

It allowed me the freedom to walk through every kind of church-- great big buildings with crosses or Buddhas, green, crunchy forests of old, knowing trees, and the relaxed breathe in, breathe out of my favorite, quiet meditation spot. It was perfect.  And then within a few years, or ten, we cycled back.  We branched out, and we are settling in.

A couple weeks ago on a Sunday morning, as we drove up the block in front of the church we joined earlier this summer, Marin said something from the back seat of the car about our church.  And it felt like...something.  Maybe the grain of the pews make sense to her little three-year-old mind, or the cool morning light that enters the blue stained glass windows.  Maybe familiarity is growing and we are circling back.

Maybe, I hope, this sort of ending too, is actually the very small, still unfamiliar beginning of something enormous and beautiful that I will come to understand, and curl right up into.

Five more minutes of quiet, hanging here like a silkworm on an invisible, yet strong, stable thread.  Remaining still until the breeze blows again and the ache subsides, reminding me that everything has always been perfect.

This entry brought to you by the colors red, yellow, orange, green and blue. And a smidge of purple. Brought to you by...Fall.

Friends!

It has arrived.

Everywhere we go I am watching these leaves turn brilliant hues.

First it's those beautiful baby Maples that go orange and red.  That is where we are this week.

And sweet yellows.

We are also in fall football-- nine through eleven year old flag football for KJ, and Notre Dame, and the Oklahoma Sooners.  And occasionally, Da Bears.

That is, when I am not loading our crew into the car, seeking out wooded trails and reflective ponds, and festivals where the sweet smell of kettle corn bounces along on the cool Autumn breeze.

Have I ever told you how much I love Fall?  That it is my season?  Don't worry.  I will share with you.  Everything is better when it is shared.

Go pop yourself a big bowl of popcorn, slice a couple apples and drizzle a little caramel on top.  Sprinkle that with a handful of dry-roasted peanuts.  Then grab a cozy, hooded sweater and come back here and get dreamy with me.  

Go ahead.  I will wait.

Perfect, right?

We purchased a family membership to the Chicago area Arboretum & Botanic Gardens this year, because when a family of five pays admission for a one-day visit it is well within common sense to get a membership instead, visit just once or twice or fifteen times more within the next twelve months, and deepen the discount.  Most especially with the way we hands-on homeschool, this makes sense for our family.  

It gives us lots of excuses reasons to return, as often as the mood strikes us.

In the last few months I have been playing a lot with light-- the late afternoon sunshine in this season, and the way it sits on flat leafy surfaces, and lines the pointy edges.

I love the way it filters through the just-thin-enough leaves and creates shadows of neighbors in the overlaps, and spotty bokeh backgrounds.

Especially fun throughout this summer and fall has been my ability to let go of the need for still days, and photograph with the wind.  I like to study the outlines of background twigs and leaves in the shot to get a feel for the energy of the trees.

Energy what?

We have been getting all kinds of weather during this time of year, and one day find ourselves in coats, gloves and blankets on KJ's football sideline, and practically the next day all three of my children are in the backyard sunshine in pairs of shorts and nothing more.  (True story.)  (Today.)

This feels like the time of year to pay attention, slow down, and look closely.

And to be outside as much as possible.

Yesterday morning we went park-hopping, from one to the next for a few hours until we really needed to get focused on written school for the day.  I was able to move around with my camera nestled in the nook of my right arm, and my kids had the opportunity to explore, and visit all sorts of different hills and sticks and playground equipment.

On our last stop, as I cleaned up from our picnic lunch and my kids played at the butterfly park, a man who was there watching his grandaughter started a conversation with me.  He was friendly enough, talking about his own grown children, and then noticing that I had older kids, he asked if we homeschool.  

This is the funny door to walk through, as a homeschooler, because you never know quite what will be on the other side of it, with a stranger.  Almost always it is assumed that you and your children are shut-ins, as was the case yesterday.  The man went on for quite a while, about how he has lots of friends who homeschool (exactly like people who attempt to cover over racial biases by bringing to mind all of the fill-in-the-blank friends they have) and the most important thing that I should remember is to take my children out places.  You know, so they can socialize.

I always get stuck here, in a conversation, part realizing that I have no need to justify myself, my choices or the regularity of our outings to anyone, but on the flip of this, also understanding that our family is an example of effective, adventurous, wonderful homeschooling, and that with each conversation I have the opportunity to add to its good name or not.

I carefully explained that homeschoolers traditionally get a bad rap about socialization, from the fringe people of our widely assorted group, and that this is untrue of homeschoolers, in my experience.  We interact with all sorts of kids in all sorts of settings, blah blah blah, and we think outside the box and learn from the world, and all cultures and skin colors are beautiful and gay people are regular ol' people, too.  Okay I didn't go that far.

The guy was clearly set in his judgments for what our group is like, and waste my time no further, we were off to find more Fall.   

Nothing like a little digression, eh friends?

I hope that you are enjoying the pretty leaves wherever you are, and celebrating who you are and what you love in this moment, in whatever form that may come.

Nine?! ... Nine!

Happy Birthday to my energetic and funny, super-intelligent, bird-lovin', football playin' boy.  He specifically asked me to make him a new video for his birthday, to which I replied that I just made him one...recently?  And then I realized it was for his fifth birthday, which was now four years ago.  Time flies, and I am forever grateful to be raising this amazing, unfolding person.  Happy birthday, buddy.  We love you and are so proud of you.

...and now in exchange for this lovely photographic compilation of your life, I would like you to stop reminding me that you are half way to college.  Thanks.