Someone I  love deeply  is hurting.           
                                           I don't know how to reach out to her. 

On a twin bed, in the dark, we cling to one another as tears flood my ears drowning out the mighty sounds...and only you know.

Like paper torn and taped again, we are okay, but it is not alright.  Pieces of you and I are on the floor of my childhood room. 

Even when you cannot tolerate my optimism and I cannot sit in your sadness, I am here for you.  I am silently holding your hand. 

I see that in some ways, you are broken.  I see you.  You are not invisible, but stronger than you know. 

In the stillness of the twilight, in the depths of your despair, in a small place of your mind's eye is that room and I am clinging to you, sister.  You are not alone.  We are bound together. 

 Until never dawns. 

Love, B

Fresh

    Windows open and white sheer curtains blow into our family room.  The window frames the green.  So much green in Indiana in the spring.  I hadn't noticed until I saw April through my sister's California eyes.  The smell of snuggle's blue sparkle filters in from my laundry room.  Our home is just tidy enough I can sit down and focus here. 

     I haven't made writing a priority and feel funny typing now.  The words swish away in my head like gravel under my feet;  tangible but evasive.  Be patient with me.  I am determined to reconnect with you.

     Spring brings a season of fresh.  Fresh fruit and veggies after a winter of root vegetables.  The market this morning overflowed with bell peppers and kiwi fruit, strawberries, and asparagus.  I wanted to buy it all.  And the tulips and lilacs.  Ahhh, my favorite.  Color, yellow, pink, and baby blue, lavender, and white, and green.  So much green. 


I feel renewed.  Refreshed.  My desire to grow and learn is revitalized and desperate for attention.  But that's another post entirely. 
 
Spring is the time for new beginnings.  I have had the joy of photographing several beginnings so far this season. 

     Welcome to the world.  May you bring your parents fresh eyes...open to the joy of life. 

Thank you for the nourishment you brought my soul with our time together. 

 

I wish each of you the magic of a silver penny.  You must have one to get into fairyland you know.

Love,  B

The winds of March are keen and cold;

I fear them not, for I am bold.

I wait not for my leaves to grow;

they follow after, they are slow

My yellow blooms are brave and bright;

I greet the spring with all my might.

The Song of the Colt's Foot Fairy

~Cicely Mary Barker

It seems that spring has sprung.  Earlier and without the usual tribulation of Indiana's February.  There was no snow.  No bright white windows, trapped indoors days.  Oddly, I feel melancholy as it passes without so much as a graduation ceremony or celebratory song. 

But I do love spring, so I bounce back quick.

My children picnic and run and bike and jump rope in our suburban streets and it is trash day so the Costco sized boxes of cereal blow circles around the courts in the wind.  Ah, this suburban life. 

I encourage you to think of this day as a renewal.  Reach within yourself.  Find the most optimistic, sunshine spirit fairy and hold on tight.  This is natures New Year's Day so make a resolution, appreciate the sun, and work on creating some seriously crazy smile wrinkles. 

Do something today that scares you.
Dance like no ones watching.
Squeeze life like a juicer.
Find more cliches on pinterest.

  Greet the spring boldly, with all your might. 

The fact of the matter is: It is Spring and you've got it made, sugar. 

 So smile. 

I am swimming in a sea of unattainable ideas.  I float like a mermaid in the deep blue.  My hair, long and dark, surrounds me swaying slowly to the rhythm of the water.  There are rainbow reflecting bubbles surrounding me.  Each filled with scrolls with detailed calligraphy.  Lists.  Outlined impeccable lists.  Each a labor of love and mindfulness and desire.  But I simply float.  Still.  As if dead in the water but my eyes are alive and focused.  Set fiercely on the shore.   

I plan out my dream studio.  I schedule out how to volunteer at Lucy's kindergarten class that is over a year away.  I list out every piece of photographic equipment I could possibly ever need with price and priority marked on the sidelines.  I have a literal notebook of compiled Better Homes and Gardens tear outs and Crate and Barrel catalog pictures for my house.  I spend hours with my to~do list everyday, terrified I might forget something urgent, but mostly paralyzed by the list of things I "should" get done.  My planner is always with me, trumped only when my camera is in hand.  I waste so much time this way, lost in my own head.  Swimming in dreamland, planning, thinking, painting perfection with my mind's paintbrush.  It is the reason I am not DOING more. 

Last week I wrote a short to~do list on the same paper as my grocery list. 
I lost it at Kroger and went back into the store with my kids to go aisle by aisle to find it.  The relief I felt when the soft, thinned, wrinkly, lined paper pressed firmly in my fingertips was palpable.  What was so important you ask?   Here it is:

Laundry
Sallie Mae Bill
Call Discover Card for lower rate
Deliver Girl Scout cookies
Take vitamin
clean out basement

That's it.  So what if I lost it right?  It seems a simple list of any kind makes a direct correlation to my level of anxiety.  

If I can't buy a new dress, write down "new dress" 

 I'll feel better about it.  That at least I will remember someday that I wanted one.  Right? 

This is CRAZY. 

So to further relieve my new anxiety that I am CRAZY, I ponder other women's strategies to reduce anxiety. 
One friend just does it all.  She never says no, she never stops moving.  She feels less anxiety when she is disappointing no one, so she simply never rests. 
Another asks for help often without guilt (this is a complete mystery to me) and manages her anxiety with a helpful community of neighbors friends and husband (this is remarkably healthy and yet somewhat bizarre to me)
Others exercise.  Food for thought. 
I know someone who will surely read this who shops.  OFTEN.  
Some women eat. 

 We've all got something, right?

                 What do you do? 

I once had a supervisor make this statement in my annual employment review, "I know anxiety is just part of your personality, but..." I have no idea what else she said i was so struck by her accusation (that's how I heard it then).  I had never considered myself to be anxious.  I was downright insulted.  Funny what we can learn about ourselves with age. 

So other than listing, I find pulling out my silver penny brings me out of my task focused head and into my spiritual heart.  Spending time in fairy land with you and photographing the magic of the first years of life, the bubble years. 

Here's a moment in time for you to forget your worries, stresses, or menial chore lists.  I hope your dreams stay big and your worries stay small.  Enjoy.

 

I had such an amazing morning playing with Mallory and her Mommy & Daddy.  I can just see her beautiful face in my mind's eye as she grows. 

Mallory is already crawling!  Mom and I talked about how she'll be walking soon.  It all goes too fast. 

Insomniac

Bare feet padding

down a carpeted hallway

she calls me

her tiny voice

comes to stand in the doorway

plump fingers

pull on fat pig tails

rub widening eyes

round belly pokes out of cotton nightie

toes on cold linoleum,

she considers thirst

uncloseted monsters

or watery nightmares

the best excuse

for being up this late

lips pout

she could always make me smile

so I,

hold out my arms

& she comes tumbling in.

~Esperanza Cintron from a Mother's Treasury

My neighbor said something terrifying yesterday. 


Her son started shaving.

I stood there, watching my 2 year old son dig in the winter dirt of our summer garden, as she continued.  She said without moving,

"He has hairy legs." 

I tried to imagine Finley this way.
"I sit next to him on the couch", she said, "and I feel like I'm sitting next to a man." 

This has seriously disturbed me. 

Cut to 4:15 am and my baby boy has woken up wanting to snuggle and I can't get back to sleep.  So here we sit.  With his perfect smooth cheek pressed against my shoulder.  His drooling lips glisten in the light of my laptop. 

And I am terrified. 

How is it possible that this soft, big eyed, chubby~legged, mama~loving angel could become a MAN?  A hairy, stinky, deodorant wearing man? 

I must find a spell or magic elixir to stop this madness.  Who's with me? 

I can't stop staring at him.  His eyelashes, his toes, his little bottom when he takes his diaper off.  (Okay the last part is kinda annoying as he has been a little messy with the diaper taking off business lately~see previous post).

It is so easy to get caught up in the getting thru the day parts of the day or the phases to address...potty training, getting him to sleep all night in his own bed, eating vegetables.  I am stunned by the realization that I am training a MAN.  I know, how did I not see this coming?  Isn't this kinda logical?  I can't answer that...it just never hit me until now. 

With my neighbor's voice in my head and my silent house with my little snuggler in my lap.  I hope desperately that I'm doing it right.  I hope he's a good man like his daddy.  I hope he has love and humor, integrity and loyalty.  All the best parts of me and my KISA without our flaws. 

And selfishly, I hope he will still snuggle me forever. 

I'm not gonna give up on that magic though.  I do have a silver penny...

Grace.

May the love we share with family and friends renew us in spirit.  May the spirit of hope, joy, peace, and love dwell within our hearts this day and forever.  ~Amen.

About a year after I had my first child I felt a little lost.  Like the things that made me me were gone or different somehow. 

I looked for religion, motherhood, womanhood...something to warm the chill in my spirit.

Ultimately,  I just made a simple list. 

This isn't surprising to some of you.  I am a list maker in every compulsive way possible.  If I spent half the time I spent listing things actually doing things, I would be uber productive.  It would impress you.

Anywayz... I listed it all; what I like, what I want, what I think people would say when they described me.  Just whatever came to mind first.  Free~form.  Don't over think it.  Here's what I came up with:

Photography, coffee, wine, cooking, books, music, art, poetry, fairies, dancing, retro, relaxing, talking, therapy, travel, hiking, painting, candles, ice skating, yoga, freshly painted nails, warm drinks, good hugs, and sisterhood girlfriend connections. 

Here's my "be me" mission statement. 

 I am an optimist, dangerously sentimental and I believe that the heart of life is good. 

This simple list stayed in my purse (still does and it is dirty and torn).  Every once in a while, when I felt like my identity was gone, and I was just mom; diaper changer & chocolate milk fetcher, I would pull out this list. 

I would check, just to see if I was being true to myself, was I doing these things?  Was I doing Brittney? 

It kinda worked. 

So here's your homework. 
Make your list.  This can't be about your family (it can include them) but consider who you were before you were married.  Who were you in high school?  Are there parts of that person still there?  Is your career or being a mother the defining parts of you?  Good.  If not, Good.  You are You and there will only be one of you for ALL time.  Fearlessly be yourself. 

Find the best parts of who you have always been, since the beginning, and make them shine.
 It is never too late to be who you might have been. 
And that's my motivational speech for the day.

 C-YA

I want to buy the world a coke...