Just when I was tired of the rain...

You know when you wake up happy it's spring; warm air, sweet fragrance, chirp of birds and long, sunlit evenings. I love spring for all these reasons and I love sunlight. Too much gray of winter and I am ready to pick up and move to the beach. It's just easier for me to rise in the morning, flow through my day, feel more creative and savor the evenings of grilling out and playing. You know how great that feels?

***Yeah, well not today.***

I have never had so much disdain for the color yellow as I have had this past week. I know the importance of the cycle, and without it our world would not exist, but it's laying on thick and it's suffocating.

POLLEN

I am affected and it's making me dizzy, unable to concentrate, wishing I could circulate a hose through me I am so thirsty and then sleep in cold air conditioning. At night, it looks like frost but not that fresh, deep breath feeling, but more like breathing dust...as if there is not enough dust in our lives that we need a little more.

I'm just saying- everything wake up, grow a little, and as my brother put it, "by summer everything is just living and it will fade." Nicely put! I'm ready for the living days and to move past the yellow, sleepy days.

Silly rant, but I'm telling you it's bad and makes you feel a little loopy. hee

A month and a day later

A month and a day later you were born after me. Your grandparents were born a month apart, in the same months as you and I. You were born in the same hour as our son. We lived 30 miles a part during our childhood. I think about that often, what we may have been doing at the same time while growing up. Maybe I was dancing and you were playing basketball, and how we might have been friends if in the same school. Sometimes I think what if I had passed you in a mall or someplace but didn't notice because I had never met you. Similar to how you were in a fraternity, (I know, don't mention it, right?) but it was the same fraternity the friend I met on my very first day of college joined. I went to all the parties with him and somehow never met you, until Senior year, at my friend's house. Why then? I believe we were meant to go through different experiences before we came together.
It's strange to think how big this world is, and in a tiny portion of it, 30 miles, lived two kids who would meet, fall in love and start a long life together. I often think how we can go our whole lives living a street away from someone and never meet. I am glad I decided to go to that party when I almost opted not to because of summer school the next morning. I only decided to come the hour before we met. I love to think of that night and how we talked and everyone eventually made it inside because the day had fallen into night and the air was chilly, but we stayed seated and let the conversation roll. I didn't notice everyone was gone until my friend asked us to come in. I love celebrating your birthday and another year I have grown with you. We were there together in our early twenties- finding jobs, apartments, learning who were as individuals and trying to figure out how to blend that into our relationship. It was not always easy, us trying to grow up, and do it together.

Sometimes I think what if we had met when were were older, when we felt more comfortable with our own selves. I believe we were meant to have those experiences together, and I am thankful for how we've grown and leaned on one another. I love how we can say remember when we were in college....

I love getting older with you, finding more peace between us, giving each other space to grow in our own ways. We are opposites, but continue to attract to each other. Although we are in our late twenties I can begin to see how our thirties may be and from what I hear they are even better. It's bittersweet, knowing all this now as time flies by. Yes, it would have been nice to know some things when I was younger, like how to savor time, pursue your dreams without fear, those sorts of things. But I guess that's how we got here, today, and I am glad right now I am going to dinner to celebrate you.

love me.

Robber of hearts

I sat on the top, rough concrete step, feet submerged in the cool, fresh water, sunlight swimming in each direction. I watched you opposite of me walking around tossing objects of sorts into the deep blue end. Stopping at the ladder you wrapped little hands tightly around the rails, lifted your feet and jumped, plunging like the granite rocks we threw into the lake. Bigger hands were there to catch you as you came up wide-eyed with heavy breaths at the shock of your action. Feet running in air, then catching the ground, moving in racing speed toward me. I said slow down knowing instantly how pointless of a request it was -your excitement was far too overwhelming . You stopped a few feet away, madly wiping water from your eyes , arms wide open and a questioning smile begging for validation. I looked at you with your eye lashes clumped in points like stars. I smiled and said good job, you turned and skipped away with your contagious cackle trailing behind .

I felt my lips within my smile slowly lower, and I just stared after you with "mama" eyes, realizing then you were the little thief that stole my heart, replacing it instead with shameless awe.

Circle of Light

This is my circle of light. A tradition of sorts my mother started with my family. It began with her putting into a collage the things she wanted to bring into her life within the coming year. Not resolutions so much as more of a symbol of her desires for herself-some material, but mostly spiritual growth. She passed down this lesson in asking of ourselves our desires and dreams and so began our tradition of New Year's Eve Circle of Lights. Even as we grew into teenagers, anticipation fluttering around in our bellies to be with our friends on New Year's, we sat down together- most likely in our own little circle- my Mom on the couch and us girls on the floor, my Dad watching, my mom reminding my Dad and brother to get started on theirs. Piles of magazines, scissors, poster board, glue sticks, pens and crayons surrounding us, we cut and pasted, not fully aware of what we were compiling, but rather allowing our subconscious guide our hands. We cut out words with self-meaning, pictures that provoked our imaginations, and many times wrote in our own aspirations with crayons or paint. When we were done we passed each collage around smiling at how important and true what we had put down was to the other.

We are now grown with families of our own, and still each New Year's we sit and collage, in our own homes, maybe at different times, but the connection remains when we walk into each other's homes and see it centerpiece on the refrigerator.

This circle of light is attached to the side of my refrigerator by a magnet . I forget it is there the majority of the time. Similar to a painting you may hang on a wall, sometimes glancing at it, realizing the beauty in that it is "you", often questioning why you like it, or seeing how it fits your style and the makeup of who you are. I silently recognize it in passing, reminding myself of its purpose.

As each year comes to an end and the poster board, scissors, glue sticks and crayons sprawl across the table from the stacks of saved magazines waiting to be "recycled", I take down last year's Circle of Light and smile at the things that played out in my life within the past year. Some had major impact, some ongoing, and some to add again, but all inspiring and true to who I am. These are some of my wishes, my dreams, my true to being. I thought I would take them from behind the magnet and put them out there in a different way. They are random, spur of the moment cuts and pastes, but images and words that resonate with me. My mother first taught me this full-circle lesson of seeking my wildest dreams, morals and creativity by giving it over to faith.

I know it has been a couple of months since New Year's, but I glanced at my Circle of Light today in passing and thought it needed a new view .

Springtime in the ATL

Soft, warm light... long, leisurely days... blooms of sweet fragrance...aaahhh...

Over the weekend I woke up early, dressed C and myself and headed out for a bagel, all the while anticipating rain. On the drive to the bagel shop it did begin to drizzle and I sighed at the thought of another gray day-sometimes they just seem to collide together and desperation for sunlight sets in. To my pleasant surprise the clouds drifted apart and lazily, as if waking from hibernation, spring sunlight came and warmed the air. C and I took off our jackets and went to the park. I followed him around like the dotted lines from the Family Circus cartoon-over, around, under, swing, jump and bang-eyes darting from one wood structure to the next, ceaseless in his quest. It may have looked like mad confusion but it was pure wanderlust leading him happily in his own direction.
This is the young, unblocked imagination open to move, shift, wonder, and gaze, laugh- all with determination and growth. I have often been told to listen and learn from my elders, the wise ones. I do always learn from the more experienced but I have realized how very many lessons in creativity, imagination and love to learn from him. These lessons help to ignite my creative ideas while holding fast to my wanderlust that magnetically chases his. (Often causing me to get almost stuck from following him, not paying attention until halfway through that I am not his size, and that I must look the pitiful fool) *laugh*
On our drive home, with windows cracked and John Mayer's Gravity mixing in the air, I was still feeling energized from the change in weather and the fun at the park. Feeling the urge to get a good exercise, (yes, running after a toddler is tiring, but not the same as pushing your own body to work hard; sweat, burn and breath.) I stopped in a neighborhood full of large hills, strapped C in the stroller and walked. I pushed him and I up and over the hills- many times almost horizontal with arms out-stretched and hands latched to the stroller, willing my legs to follow. (Hills are a far cry from the treadmill because at least then I can walk/run flat if I want to). I remembered then how much I love to exercise, and that I need to make it a priority for my health and because it allows the floodgates to open allowing me to think without concentration on any one particular thought. My only concentration was on pushing, walking faster and breathing. At the end of my walk I felt questions answered and conflict settled. Similar to how I feel after meditation and prayer.


***On Sunday I felt so enthused about my long walk from the previous day I woke up ready to do it all over again. This time I asked my husband, J, to go along with us and he agreed. Instead of the hills we opted for a wooded trail around a lake. We started out the same, moving at a nice speed over the pine straw and earth. I stopped halfway through to show C a bird on the lake and in that moment he decided he had enough of my pushing him around and raised his arms up as if it was high time he walk and explore on his own. I bit my lip, thinking to myself I wouldn't get in the exercise I was now craving. (Two days in a row-I was on a roll, right!).
I pulled C from the stroller and he immediately took off, dotted lines in tow, and started touching everything; bark, pine straw, sticks and rocks. He and his Dad threw some rocks in the lake delighting at the splash of rising water as the rocks sunk below. J and I found C a good walking stick, and as a hiking pro would, he held tight to it prodding the ground as he walked. Often, he would stop, head cocked to one side, concern and question furrowing his brow, as the sounds of the woods filled his ears. Watching him touch and listen to the beauty and movement of nature, I got to thinking about enjoying the scenery and the little things that captivate and intrigue our intellect and imaginations. I see how important it is to allow C to experience things fully, in his own way, so he can learn with confidence and question. I am becoming more aware that by pushing myself, like exercise, I gain motivation and integrity, and by taking time, as in a leisurely walk, I gain more perspective. The balance is hard to manage at times, but important to work on.

***After the walk I was thirsty for both drink and a little more sunlight. I took my raspberry tea bags, steeped them, and poured the tea over ice and sat on my back patio, sore from Saturday and reflective from Sunday. Two days started the same and ended very different, both equally satisfying.

Afterglow

Lately my thoughts have been skipping around in my head and I find it hard to grasp on to any one of them and concentrate. I have become really aware of all the many paths I wish to travel in this life of mine but it's the "jumping into" that has me locked in my own mind. All the how's and what if's putting me at a standstill. So, in the midst of the flurry of thoughts I am making time to sit in quiet and realize all I am capable of. I want to break away from my fear and self-doubt and instead discover and grow all the many aspects of myself. I know only I hold myself back and only I can push myself forward. Right now my mind might be racing, but in the afterglow of each thought I hope to gain more confidence in pursuing myself.