Imitation and Flattery
I’ll try something new and sit back and enjoy the view. Because in this case, this IS my circus, and these ARE my monkeys, and they are a rollicking good time! Continue reading Imitation and Flattery
Tag: Motherhood
In the Silence
And it dawns on me. The lesson. These things happen sometimes when something someone says intrigues me so, that I want to ponder it, mull it over, hold it in my hand and carry it like a talisman until its wisdom breaks open for me. Continue reading In the Silence
Sunshine, Food and Medicine for the Soul
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful, they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” ~ Luther Burbank Oh, Spring is just around the corner – technically next weekend. We are seeing bright green grass in our field and these lovely daffodils are in full bloom over at my mother-in-law’s house. I cannot get enough of the changing of the seasons. Just … Continue reading Sunshine, Food and Medicine for the Soul
Learning to Laugh
Always the lists. Give me too much free time between calls at work, and a fairly slow day with no nearby neighbors to visit with, and I used pages and pages of scratch paper to make lists for the New Year. Lists about working out, and menus, and lists of chores and how to rotate them. Lists about writing and making time for the things … Continue reading Learning to Laugh
The Stories of our Lives
It all started with Harold & the Purple Crayon. My youngest and I read the story together in front of a blazing fire and he said he wanted to have this book in his collection someday when he grows up and moves out. I told him he would need his own copy because there are some books I will always need to have on my … Continue reading The Stories of our Lives
Imagining Pictures in the Clouds
My boys and I see pictures in the sky. We see big, bold, ridiculous, pictures sometimes, and we laugh and point. This is beginner imagination building that we have been doing since they were tiny. Now, they can create a story out of thin air. (The picture here looks a little like Olive Oil, from the Popeye cartoons, doesn’t it?) Some of my favorite spottings … Continue reading Imagining Pictures in the Clouds
Mothers
The conflict happens because she’s right and she loves you. And yet, we strive against all her rightness, her great ideas, Her prodding us into things that challenge and define us. She made memories for us, with the books she read us, The games she played, the places she took us, The worlds she opened up to us, The things she made it … Continue reading Mothers
Brains on Fire
I have read that teenagers’ brains want to learn through hunger, thirst, and desire.* This is not something they do on purpose to annoy us. They are chemically altered because of their age and the enormous amounts of growing going on in their brains. They are drawn to things that require everything of them. They are tugged by sacrifice and meaning. They do not even … Continue reading Brains on Fire
We could Hug More!
Another bad thing in a world of bad things. I have not become numb, that is not what has happened. I crumble with each new attack, with each new assault – foreign or domestic. And then I disconnect, and block out the media, and become absorbed in my kids’ interests and the activities we can do together to fill our world with joy. I didn’t take … Continue reading We could Hug More!
Sugar Sweet
It seems I have been struggling under a delusion that if I could just get my house organized Once and For All, everything would stay put. But it is more insipid than that – there is a strand of Once and For All twirling all through my head. If I could nail down my belief structure Once and For All, if I could prove my … Continue reading Sugar Sweet
Inhabit
“At this point in his life, he hadn’t started inhabiting his work, like he did later.” Continue reading Inhabit
Pre-Pubescent Insanity
As we rounded out the year of 2015, the boys and I sat up late-ish to watch Inside Out.
Of course, I’m raising boys after growing up in an all-girl family. It’s like Life doesn’t actually ever want us to feel capable or like we know one iota of what we’re doing. So, I can’t tell you if the interior landscape of boys during the upheaval that is Junior High is anything like that of girls, but I can tell you that I identified with every single thing that movie showed us about how an emotional world can crumble overnight.
Continue reading “Pre-Pubescent Insanity”
Right Brain, Left Bank and Parenting through Teenage Angst
Being on the right side of the brain is a little like being on the Left Bank in Paris: relaxing while watching the passing show, listening to the music on the corner. It’s a place to sit around and tell stories and wonder about it all – and most important, to slow down. Call it crazy or lazy, this wisdom may be found only … Continue reading Right Brain, Left Bank and Parenting through Teenage Angst
Easy, Now, Grasshopper!
It’s Tao Tuesday! As always, I will refer you back to the original page, Tao te Ching Daily, and her series, Tao Tuesday. There, you will find rich discussion and articles from every chapter of the Tao, spanning I think a couple of years. I’m just starting over here, and relishing the discipline of looking at these brief words and finding the wisdom and beauty … Continue reading Easy, Now, Grasshopper!
On Motherhood, Physics and Relativity
Today, while doing chores, I listened to a book on tape from the library called, “How the Universe got its Spots.” (This is a link to the Amazon book, because I couldn’t link to the book on tape for some reason.) The gifted young cosmologist Janna Levin sets out to determine the size of the universe, along the way providing an intimate look at the … Continue reading On Motherhood, Physics and Relativity