This is my first official portrait taken with my two children.  Why did I wait so long?! Last Saturday we lucked out with a beautiful afternoon and spent our time together in the competent and amazingly talented hands of  Terry Lee Cafferty. Terry Lee was offering a Mothers Day promotion at her new studio and I knew right away I wanted to participate. I’m still only ten years new at this mommy thing and who are these two look-alike children with their beautiful faces on top of mine?  I’m so happy we did this!

As Mothers Day approaches I think of my own Mother- a woman who has dedicated every cell in her body to making sure I am alive and well in the world and that nothing harms a hair follicle on my precious head.  I realize that the witchery of motherhood  comes as some instant hex when we deliver our tight fisted babe from the universal womb. Our instincts forever heightened and downright primal as we need simply tilt our heads in a certain angle in order to sniff the air- the scent of our baby inextricably glued into our every pore for ad infinitum.  I get it now-  no one could have ever explained how birthing another forever changes you.

My Mother- The woman who somehow just “knows” when something is not quite right  -the invisible thread.  Was it a message sent to her by way of  the wind? A tug in the umbilical aura? A shift in cosmic energy? How does she doooo that? Oh, yes… this is me now… I too can summon hurricane force winds and lift John Deer Tractors if given by threat to my children.  YES,  HEAR ME ROAR.

This beautiful creature – my mother, as time wraps it’s wisdom in a shawl of crinkled lines around her sparkling eyes
every
single
time
she looks at her children… her grandchildren
growing even more beautiful with age.

This being who brought me in, knew long before I ever would what it really takes to birth another, raise another, love another, bury another, honor another… what it takes to keep the memories of past faces and places like heart shaped moments on the tin of a freshly baked cookie sheet…  smell the goodness.

“Mom- i’m home!”

home again home again jigged de jig….

She was always there….

bigger than life …even when she wasn’t…

…  her face and voice the echo and compass inside the heart she grew, inside a heart that knew inside a heart of another, mother… hers.

Her love-  combined with the waterfall of (other) mothers…. never ending – it’s force coming down to cleanse and rebirth even the most prodigal child…

never did she lose faith or hope.

never did she stop giving.

believing,

loving.

and so…it’s mothers day, and I will follow her lead – with every cell in my body which inherently knows the true depth and power of  this love. This awesome mom- me power so pure and this connection so strong that yes, one gentle breeze might simply touch my cheek and I will know, oh I will know that moment before I know- because that is the power of mom, and somehow in this cosmos come hell or high water I will lean in with every fiber of my being to kow that my babies are alright and if that’s so – then:  ALL is right with the world….  YES. All is right with the world.

Happy Mothers Day.

It’s really made me think about all aspects of my parenting and the message’s I want to send to my children by how I respond to situations and to them.

The most valuable so far has been around family values.  It’s interesting to actually sit down and write out the “values” that I am interested in fostering and protecting in our family and the actions I take or discussions that I have with the kids as it relates to the actions, behavior, or habits we develop in the home.  I’ve found it to be a starting point for collaboration with them and one that seems to be having an impact… at least on one of them.

Last night my son ( age 6) was enjoying a one way dialog on a subject I call “poopy” talk.  What is it with boys and poop, phart, pee-pee, burp, penis, booger, butt, smelly butt, “Ba”-gina and every other orifice and unpleasant word and function of the human body that requires constant hommage and reference?   My daughter has taken the high road in these situations and simply looks at him over her glasses in her oh so mature nine year old way and simply says:

“Really Shaw?”  in such a way that might create immediate shame and repentance in even the most criminal of behavior.

It simply makes him giggle with glee to have his discourse corrected by her and of course serves the purpose of having him ratchet it up a notch.  Giving him the attention he wants has a way of now making the one who is calling him out the subject the OBJECT of his affection making it a much more “personal” attack on the caller – outers orifice’s.  The talk turns to :

“YOU are a poopy head and YOUR butt smells….” ( for example)

I knew what was coming and planned on jumping in but I think she handled it beautifully:

“You know Shaw, since you are going into the first grade and still wet the bed it makes sense why you need to still act like a baby and use those words…. and, ….those words do not fit into our family value system at all… do they mom?”

Now… I find it fascinating that she used shame (which is not a family value) and blended it seamlessly with our family value system in order to pull rank in the situation.

But on the flip side?

It was effective – he stopped the potty talk in mid expletive, and she was able to divert his attention away from HER orifice’s and onto HIS.

Brilliant. That girl is going places.

Even though today was the most energy I’ve had since last Thursday I still came back home from the morning errands and went to sleep for 2.5 hours.   It was a doozy.  A weird non-cold, that came with a plugged head, chills, aches, and all around malaise.   

My daughter has had the worst of it with high fever’s and chills.  Her had is so blocked she can’t hear thunder and we communicate with her as if we had a 90 year old with hearing aids on.

Culture for Strep is negative- Just got off phone with Dr. – just have to wait it out. 

I’m SICK of being SICK!

I want my mommy.

I’m sick and I’m a mom, and I totally really want my mom. I want someone to “mother” me.

What is it to “mother?”

I think it’s to inherently know exactly what your child need’s at a given moment.

It’s a timing thing.

To know when to insert oneself into the flow of life and say “I know you better than you know yourself” and you need to REST.

Yeah. I think that’s it.

MAKE ME rest as only a mother can do.

I am Mother.  I can make me REST.

Right?

Hmm… deep thoughts on NyQuil.  Don’t try this at home.

Have a great weekend!!! Happy Easter!

If I Should Have a Daughter.

“shining your light so that others may shine as well”

 TRP is a social media and photography project that helps women reveal their deeper selves through photographs, interviews and through their own lived experience. 

While you are at it – if you have not yet “liked” our Facebook Page for the Project you can do that here.

Thank you!  

You know, I have to say that I write a lot about heart ache.  Maybe I am a tender hearted person OR maybe I am an over sensitive wah wah who can’t seem to get over the pie in the face of life (sore looser!) but either way – I can totally relate to this beauty written apparently for all the people who’ve known the sting of mean people (mean people suck- wah!)

Photo Credit: Monica Rodgers

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye / The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

Plump and round…
Square circle
Weighing FAT 183 pounds

or

Cookie Cookie
Carbs and Baloney
Love you so… never lonely

I digress.

I’ve loved poetry since the moment i discovered what a beautiful way it describes the “in betweens” of life.  The intangibles of our emotional world.  It can weave words into beautiful life pictures.  It’s the artists pallet of the written word.

Take this image for example… in a sentence it would sound like this:

“yeah, this sunset over the water painting was so spectacular, and the colors were amazing”

or

“Sunset sweeps across the sky,

radiating color

warmth will spread from the hue of tomorrow”

Ok- who know’s if i am making any sense at all but the point of this post was to share the following with you:

I  love this poem a friend introduced me to about two weeks ago and wanted to share it with you and dedicate it to The Revelation Project and all the women who have come to the banquet of their own lives.  Also to those who dare to really discover who they are.  What inspiration-  wow.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.”

― Derek Walcott

I disagree. strongly.  It’s important that I document their every precious cuddle, curl, and sprawl.

I will reluctantly comply.

He wants me to repeat: “I am a digital hoarder” each time I delete a photo or an email.

I love where our relationship is headed now….

We’re not in Candy Land anymore folks.

Who me?