Routine Whenever I worry that my middle name is inconsistency, that erratic behavior disrupts my chances at bliss and my children’s balance, stepping outside reminds me that the leaves turn only once each year. And not for 30 minutes every morning. Then they fall and a new generation, long waiting in promise before gingerly pushing…
Archives for November 2012
Rediscovering play
This night, the children needed an extra dose of essential oil and a second tuck-in, and my house and husband need some serious love. So here we have a photo from my son’s school, one of the preschool classes, and the playfulness I loved in these paintings. Reminders To create simply for the sake of…
Haiku for a busy day
Okay, I’m going to see Barbara Kingsolver tonight so I’m posting now with a photo I took yesterday at the spot where the county pulled up the playground at my son’s school in August and determined it would have to go somewhere less wet. And here it lies… Uncovered water Forgotten asphalt and trash Replace…
Lessons from my children’s first teacher
What I want my children to learn from me Singing is your heart smiling out loud. Passion is that heart getting warm, and flexible, and strong. Quiet is laying your head on a pillow, gently, as though it were a feather on a cloud. Food is a gift we give ourselves, our mouths for joy,…
View from a purple state
This election business poses a challenge for me. Everyone is talking on Facebook about their hopes and fears, but, when I’m standing in my kitchen talking to my 6-year-old, I don’t want to talk too much about politics. My son just doesn’t need too much of the world on his shoulders. I wonder what truly…
What’s it like to be an adult?
Today skipped by with no chance for any fun photo shoots out in the fall air. But that’s just as well, because this commitment to photograph and write daily in November prompted me to snap some shots of my son and husband playing music together. Sometimes I wish they would both help me get dinner…
Reflections, literal and otherwise
After casting aside my poetry hat for far too long, my NaBloPoMo plan is to write a poem — and to take and post a photo — every day in November, spending less than half an hour on both. The hope is to drill down, to focus, to look for and create beauty. See below…
A new view on the hurricane
My NaBloPoMo plan is to write a poem and take and post a photo every day in November, spending less than half an hour on both. See below for links to previous entries including Day One about why poetry? Today we walked in the woods behind our home. Everyone has been so grateful that no…
A bedtime poem
Here it is the second day of NaBloPoMo, 9:00 and just getting the kids to bed. They are 6.5 and 2, and just last week were we finally successful at putting them to bed together and just leaving for them to fall asleep on their own. The toddler does it fine at daycare three days…
The first day. A first poem
When was the last time I wrote a poem? Months? Years? Poetry was how I was first published, but after my son was born, it felt too exact for the kind of time and brainpower I had available to me. A few poems came out of mothering and writing workshops, including one published in Hip…