lumi is our granddog. she is our only grand-anything so far, so she, like all first grand-anythings, holds an esteemed place in our hearts. kirsten and becky adopted her the end of last summer and, in many ways, they are learning what it is like to have a toddler. well, kind of. happily, The Girl sends me photos and videos of lumi-girl, the “powderhound” (as she says). she is an amazing little dog, literally chasing their snowboards down gigantic mountains, zigging and zagging behind them. she hikes long distances uphill with them as well, as they splitboard up seeking height and good snow. many of the videos are of lumi at night, mushing into the blankets, curled up next to them, sleeping, snoring, in funny positions. she goes everywhere with them. they worry about her, accommodate her needs, love her desperately. lumi roots their little family.
and what better way to root a family, but in love. in steady, holding-fast, unconditional adoration.
The Girl and The Boy were little when i wrote and recorded this piece of music GIVE ME ROOTS, GIVE THEM WINGS. the title wording was deliberate; it was stunning to me how rooted having children made me feel and yet i knew that, even from the very start, just as i was giving them roots, i was also giving them wings. the toughest part. that letting go thing. The Girl told me today that i was high maintenance. me??? “what???” i said. she said, “have you ever MET you?” wow. straight to the gut. lol. she made me laugh. i guess as a momma i may want a littlemorelittlemorelittlemore time….
when The Girl was a baby, jenny gave me a cross-stitched picture with the words “give them roots, give them wings.” bittersweet words. how little i knew back then.
no matter any other job i have had or will have or any other work i have done or will do, i will always consider motherhood the most important. i cherish every moment of all of it, even the very hardest moments. The Girl and The Boy are out in the world, doing what makes them happy, close or far away.
they root me. yes. even as i continue to watch their wings lift higher and higher.
my sweet momma used to love to walk in the rain. matter of fact, she adored it. my poppo? not so much. but my momma would revel in it; she said it made her hair curly, which, for her, was a good thing.
we have gotten caught in the rain numerous times while out hiking. soft, gentle rain or even downpours. on the trail it just adds to the fun. the rain also makes MY hair curly, much to my chagrin. but d loves it that way….he must also love rag mops. (now, as an aside, i googled “rag mop” to make sure you would understand which kind of mop i was talking about and found this great old song. listen if you have time.)
there must be a time you were standing in the rain and everything slowed down, even the raindrops. it all became slow motion and life was about that very second, breathing in sweet-rain-dewy-air.
this morsel of a painting SLOW MOTION RAIN, soft and somewhat abstract, reminds me of those moments. slow motion rain is a little piece of EARTH INTERRUPTED IV.
heidi, in moments of stress or joy, always asks, “what’s the learning?” a good question to lead with, to sort with, a question that helps things make sense.
this Flawed cartoon, the picture of a teaching moment. good grief, there are so many! teaching moments. learning moments. every single day.
we sit for hours, plotting, scheduling, designing products, writing, working out technology quirks (or not.) somewhere in the middle of 8-10 hours, we will look at each other, glazed. “coffee!” we chorus. we move into the kitchen, maybe outside if it is warm and if that spot on the deck where we lean against the house is sunny. (it’s only april – it could still snow, so the outdoor furniture is not yet in place.) just a little moving around helps and then we are back working.
but at the end of the day – that’s a different story. we are tired, but we have to move. we have to walk. anywhere. around the hood, along the lake, out in the county in the woods. it’s amazing how much more energy i have after hiking a few miles. moving begets moving.
i’m thinking that’s true in many ways. learning begets learning. opening our minds begets, yes, more opening of our minds. faith begets faith. working out begets more working out. it’s the starting that makes it all happen. don’t wait. move.
it was the first. the very first butterfly of this season. we both stopped to watch it as it freely flitted around the path in front of us. it felt like another harbinger of spring; maybe it’s really here. a few minutes later we stopped and sat for a few minutes. we didn’t talk; we just listened to the woods. the rest was soft and rejuvenating. the quiet was punctuated by birds and chipmunks. even a raccoon came out to wander. we got back up, ready for more hiking.
i distinctly remember a day i sat in the front yard. it was summer and, just like chicken marsala in this chicken nugget, there was a butterfly that came to light on my hand. it circled around and came back, landing on my knee, my foot. it felt like a message to me, a reinforcement to quietly sit in the sun.
this world is full of chaos and confusion, deadlines and worries. looking at the furrows lining people’s brows, it is obvious that we don’t take enough time to just rest, just sit, just soak in new energy, just let butterflies lead the way. good things will come.
when i wrote and recorded THAT MORNING SOMEDAY (you can hear it below) it was wistfully about any beginning…any beautiful or cloud-striated sunrise…any hopefulness…any new day. my big brother had died and i was yearning for the peace of understanding, a feeling of being ok in the world, a wish to wake up to something that had given order to chaos.
many many years later, i can’t honestly say that i always have the peace of understanding or a feeling of being ok in the world and i often wish to wake up to something that has given order to chaos. someday is still out there.
only now, a little older and the tiniest smidge wiser, i realize someday is waiting too long. someday is right now and i am sitting right in it, with lots of time behind me and, hopefully, lots of time in front of me. the only thing that really counts right now is right now.
i yearn to make it more peaceful than my last moment. i step in the world, ok or not. i try to help create order out of chaos. maybe someday it will all come together. but in the meanwhile, i will do the best i can in right now.
when i see images of mountains these days, i naturally think about kirsten and becky. The Girl is living the out-in-the-high-mountains life and the photographs she sends me are nothing short of stunning. i love every moment i spend out there, so i can appreciate wholeheartedly her finding her “place”.
when i was little, we used to go to the mountains in upstate new york. my sweet momma and poppo would rent a cabin in a state park and we would travel up there; they would always allow me to take a friend – most of the years this was susan. i was the youngest by FAR (haha! are you reading this, seester?) so i was the only one left in the house. i was always thrilled to have my siblings’ families with us as well. my nieces and nephew were adorable. plus heather was the perfect foil on the mountainside beaches (and long island beaches as well); as a toddler she flirted with every cute boy around every time i took her there. she was with me a lot as a little girl; i took her everywhere in my little vw bug, especially in the summer. nothing like a little girl who would seemingly deliberately throw the frisbee onto the next blanket where a cute boy was sitting and listening to his transistor radio. what a fun way to meet ‘people’. wink!
later in life, my parents rented condos in the mountains of tennessee and the whole family joined them there. sunsets behind the big deck of the clubhouse, shrimp boils in the field, frisbee and hiking. those are treasured memories.
this image MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY reminds me of every good mountain memory. its warmth, its simplicity. both appeal to me. the really funny thing is that this is just a mere morsel of one of david’s paintings. the painting TOGETHER ON THE BEACH is where i found this and extracted it to create a whole new image. when i asked david where i could find this canvas in the studio the other day, he told me he had painted over it. what?! what was he thinking?! fortunately, i still have the image i took of it and have created a canvas art print of that painting and a close-up of it as well.
MOUNTAIN IN YELLOW SKY…just a little piece of TOGETHER ON THE BEACH. both simple. both dreamy. both beautiful.
jen and brad have been taking dance lessons for months. their daughter is getting married in a couple of weeks and they want to celebrate-dance under the warm savannah night sky at her reception. they have been dedicated to this; their lessons are top priority in their social calendar. from what we can see, their commitment has morphed from we-need-to-be-able-to-dance-well-together to we-love-this-together. what a gift to see them in their kitchen demonstrating the cool steps they have learned. they are getting polished and are more and more comfortable with various dances (especially “the push-pull,” jen explains.) mostly, they look like they are really having fun. truth be told, we don’t know of anything they have committed to that they haven’t thrown their whole hearts into; they are a picture of enthusiasm. they are a joy in our life.
on the other hand, we will look like bumbling-dancers under this same georgia sky. but that’s not the point. it is rare that you will be the center of attention when you are dancing – only a few times you are a bride and groom or the parents of or in a do-they-give-booby-prizes? dance competition. but we love to dance together. before our wedding, under linda’s (an absolute lover of all dance) tutelage, we learned an irish waltz that will remain one of the stunning moments of our reception in the old southport beachhouse. what happy dance took place that afternoon and night.
i remember many a day or night blissfully dancing with one of my babies in my arms. i even remember dancing around the living room solo or holding babycat. sometimes that was out of delight; sometimes it was in the search for joie de vivre, a yearning for cheer.
we have danced in the front yard, on the deck, in the kitchen in the middle of the night, in church and in airports. it matters not where you dance. as long as you dance. there is wisdom in dancing.
wendy (aka saul aka ben) and i have this thing about unicorns. well, unicorns and bubbles and rainbows. i can’t look at any of those without thinking about her. individually we look especially for unicorn “stuff” for each other; those tend to be small gifts we send from time to time. i have a unicorn calendar that offers pretty straight-ahead advice each day, without mincing words. i have unicorn socks. i have a stuffed unicorn on my piano in my studio. my new favorite unicorn thing is a white plastic stretch unicorn pen she sent me for my birthday…hard to explain…a unicorn with a rainbow mane that looks a lot like a dachshund and is a pen. yep, too much information. you are probably thinking i am too ‘old’ for unicorns, but i beg to differ. one is never too old for unicorns. they are happy and free and magical. plus, as a person who has been horse-crazy since girlhood, anything that even vaguely resembles a horse gets my vote.
d often tells me that i have a wild imagination. that works against me as well as for me. i will imagine all sorts of things – both good and bad. sometimes this is an opportunity; i often find myself imagining things, ideas or plotting while i am blowing my hair dry (this seems to be a time of increased-imagination-activity for me.) or i will be off and running in my imagination on long drives or walking in the woods. sometimes this imagining thing can make you nervous, making up stuff before it even happens. but the word imagine conjures up many things for me. john lennon’s song ‘imagine’ or mercy me’s song ‘i can only imagine’. both have beautiful lyrics; both imagine places and experiences of great beauty and and grace and goodness.
one day when d was drawing our chicken marsala i asked him to include a unicorn. “for wendy,” i said. we decided on the words “give full rein to your imagination” to go along with this drawing of chicken and his unicorn. but when i was designing the cartoon nugget, i added the word “reign”….it felt right. after all, what could be the worst thing if we all let our imaginations be sovereign? if we imagined a world of peace and harmony and rainbows and bubbles. and yes, maybe even people on unicorns wearing creativity-tiaras. full reign.
reverse threading 