pre-gluten-free-diet we would eat english muffins every morning for breakfast. every day – every single day – an english muffin. jif natural peanut butter and (back then) smuckers simply fruit jam would fill the nooks and crannies. heavenly! we were creatures of habit.
every morning now we have potatoes and one egg, a halo and half a banana. every morning – every single morning. and i know you know about the coffee. steeping mugs of bold black coffee. there is nothing more comforting than our breakfast for starting the day. we are justalittle thrown off the days we don’t have Our Breakfast. we are creatures of habit.
and so it comes as no surprise that we have another new habit. our new Thing is painting rocks. more and more and more rocks. i’ve blogged about this – sitting together with our paint pens and rocks we have gathered at the beach down by the historic beachhouse where we held our bonfire-foodtruck-hulahoop-cupcake-dancewithabandon wedding. it is as much a joy to hide these rocks as it is to paint them and we giggle like little kids as we place them in the crooks of trees, on stumps, on a curve in the trail. we just finished placing the last of the painted rocks – this fish included – so we know we’ll be at our tiny canvases again soon. it’s predictable. like english muffins or potatoes and eggs.
i suppose that we can think of other things to do. outside of work or chores there are infinite possibilities. but i am not unhappy that our choice – more often than not these days – is to sit and chat and paint rocks together…preparing folk-artsy positive messages to leave for other people to find.
i remember a day in the woods – some time ago – when i really, really needed a positive message. and then we passed this one particular tree in the woods – a place we love to hide our rocks now – and on the burl at the base of the tree was a rock that read “imagine!”.
grown-up (adj): 1. not childish or immature 2. of, for, or characteristic of adults.ie: insisted on wearing grown-up clothes. grown-up (noun): adult.
(according to miriam-webster)
there are perils. adulthood is full of them. frequently searching, searching, looking for sense, seeking our meaning, evaluating ourselves, measuring, bettering, struggling, comparing, falling short. so many opportunities for falling short.
i suppose that life is somewhat like an experiment. but by the time you get to writing the lab report, it is unclear what the hypothesis was; there have been so many tangents the original purpose is muddied by much emotional research. the sheer volume of subjective data falls under too many objective categories to make it all absolute, to make it all clear. adulthood: not childish – is a certain definition in the dictionary. adulthood: not childlike – is certainly a sad story.
“you are enough,” i’ve seen, written as quick success-signage, a succinct unembellished positive.
yet, the path is never really certain. it is fraught with all the dr.seuss-monsters imaginable. but in the midst of all that, in the vortex of all the searching and figuring out and listening and learning and choosing and getting lost and finding and hiding and being seen, standing still and watching a butterfly open and close its wings, tracking a caterpillar’s journey across a dirt path, tracing clouds in the sky, sharing a seesaw, chalking a driveway all take on exponential meaning. this moment. this hug. this breath.
lilah splashes in her blow-up pool, nestled in lush grass in the shade of graceful birch trees, in the warmth of a steamy summer day, surrounded by adoring parents, grandparents, friends. she is in her delight. a wise and untrapped seven-months old.
we each slow down and watch her hug the moment she is in. her day is full of these snippets of time, each a minute of her tiny life-so-far. unconcerned about the experiment of growing-up ahead, sweet lilah reflects back a universe of “you are enough” to us. if you look in her eyes, you will see what love is, what hope is, what living is.
someone said, “life is hard and then you die.” maybe that person was just too grown-up.
i guess growin’ isn’t hard to do, just stand against the wall. once i was just two feet high; today i’m six feet tall. but knowin’ who to listen to, is somethin’ else again. words just whistle around my head, like seasons in the wind.
all across the water the clouds are sailin’. they won’t let me look at the sky. all I want to do is try to find myself; come and let me look in your eyes.
in searchin’ for the way to go, i’ve followed all the rules: the way they say to choose between the wise men and the fools. i listened to the words they say; i read what i should read. i do whatever’s right to do, try to be what i should be.
someone let me in i think the sky is falling; seems i’ve gotten lost on my way. all i want to do is try to find myself;
come and let me look in your eyes.
but wisdom isn’t underground, nor on a mountainside. where am i to take myself? there’s no place here to hide. where can i hide?
all across the universe the stars are fadin’;
seems i’ve gotten lost on my way. all i want to do is try to find myself. come and let me look in your eyes. come and let me look in your eyes come and let me look in your eyes.
in the bins in the basement (and scattered in places around the house) are child-drawings and paintings, ornaments made of paper and glue and sparkly glitter, painted rocks of various sizes, necklaces of beads and shells, framed little scraps of paper with things like “goodnight mom” written in pencil and surrounded by hearts. The Girl and The Boy have marked time through their artwork (and also through their writings) and i cherish each saved piece. this morsel – the field in early october – makes me think of such pieces.
in the corner of a new piece on david’s easel i found this morsel. extracted from the painting it is so childlike in feel. such simplicity and innocence. it immediately brought me to open fields we have walked…where sunflowers gaze for just a bit longer and grass is still verdant and lush and there are wild red berries on the bushes along the trail. the sun is in our eyes and everything takes on a muted hue. i can smell the leaves burning from the farmer’s field far off to our west.
what is more heavenly than remembering an early october day from a reality-fantasy visual perspective? what is more treasured than the artwork of a child? what a delicious combination. just ask picasso.
reverse threading 