Slow Chill

How strong am I?  Stronger than I ever thought.  We all are.  We trudge through days of jobs we dislike or tasks that bore us, relatives, friends, or co-workers that bring us down. We change diapers and deal with demands and fits and arguments.  Most of us with a sincere smile and sense of gratitude for the wonder in our lives.   Holidays bring more of these things. Along with magic, cocoa, shiny presents with big bows, first snows, sugar cookies, kid crafts, and candy canes.   Did I say magic and infinite joy? 

But I digress. 

To endure this slow chill and long list of to do's we require strength. 

Strength like winter trees, defiant to the cold.  Whispering, "I will be back" as their last leaf tumbles.  Striking dark branches against a white sky. 

I need strength to deal with Ruby's want monster.  Lucy's demand to only wear spinney skirts that twirl.  "Give me the twirl skirt or I will cut you!" (she said that with her eyes I swear!)  Finley's overtired tears. And all of the cabin fever without outside play. 

There is a fairy door at the bottom of a tree trunk in my backyard.  Where do fairies go in the cold stark solitude of winter?  Into the oaks I think.  Stealing moments to fly on rare sunny days. 

  

We can be this strong.  But strength is delicate like a  horses muscular legs break easily.  A tree's roots need room to grow.    So as Fall passes and the bluster of winter settles upon us, I wish you strength to get through the harder days.  And be careful with each other, for we become more brittle and fragile in this winter air.  

Here are some moments captured of my winters past.

Sending you a silver penny. 

Say YES to silly

As I type this, Lucy is jumping up and down, smiling, & yelling I LOVE YOU BACK MOMMY! 

Over & Over

Today I want to talk about being present.  Too often I am picking up or doing dishes, running errands, and other petty tasks that seem to never cease.  Too often I have days where I don't play enough.  Say 

"YES!" 

enough.  Even read to my three short people enough.  So today I want you to find a pad of post its and write YES!  on each one.  Now put them everywhere in your house.  Yes to playdough.  Yes to painting.  Yes to outside, games, books, and hide and seek.  (Don't just tell them to hide and then wait them out.)  Be present.  Smell them!  Take photographs!  Show up!  They will be big before we know it and this chaos will be silent.  Be sentimental now-you won't regret it later.   

BE A TREASURE HOUSE OF HAPPY MEMORIES.

Now, go and eat some Halloween candy with your kids (or by yourself if you don't have short people at your house).  Talk to you tomorrow. 

Animal crackers, cocoa, and sweet photographs

Animal Crackers, and cocoa to drink, 

That is the finest of suppers, I think;

When I'm grown up and can have what I please

I think I shall always insist upon these.

What do you choose when you're offered a treat?

When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"

Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast? 

It's cocoa and animals that I love the most!

The kitchen 's the cosiest place that I know: 

The kettle is singing, the stove is  aglow, 

And there in the twilight, how jolly to see

The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

(an excerpt from Christopher Morley)

   This poem makes me think of childhood and the carefree spirit of snacks & play.  What's your favorite comfort food?  Mine is too obvious; coffee, chocolate, ice cream, and wine.  I would have them all together if you offered.  But as a kid, anything with cinnamon sugar.  My grandmother kept a mauve blown glass cinnamon sugar shaker on her counter. I still get nostalgic about it when I smell the sweet spice.  Yumm-o.

       So now that we're in the mood for the magic, comfort and laughter of children, check out a few of my favorite kid photos. . .

 Old school Polly

Evan

At the IMA

 My KISA says Ruby looks like a "little person" here.  Now that I say that. . .  she does, huh!  It doesn't ruin it for me (Mommy eyes)

Sassy Lillian

Ruby age 2

Lucy at Eagle Creek, age 1 1/2

Polly Marie (Yep, my cowgirl bestie's girl)

 

Lucy following sissy

Olivia

Old pic of the girls at IMA

One of my ALL TIME fav's (Charlie)

There are many more, but my computer (best friend and worst enemy) is S-L-O-----W.  See you later...

LOVE YOU!

Hallow's Eve

Isn't it so fitting that my kiddos chose

Fairies & a Dragon 

as costumes!  Photos to come...

Photography: I can't jump...PUSH ME.

I can't jump.  Push me.

What makes you shine?  What's comforting and moving, both a solace and drive?  For me it's pictures.

My Soul goes clad in gorgeous things, 

Scarlet and gold and blue, 

And at her shoulder sudden wings 

Like long flames flicker through.  

And she is swallow-fleet, and free

From mortal bonds and bars.

She laughs, because Eternity

Blossoms for her with stars!

-Fannie Stearns Davis

I'll start at the beginning. As long as I can remember I had a camera in my hand.   I was a kid who carried around a gray point and shoot Vivitar everywhere I went.    In junior high I remember taking photos of my friends at sleepovers saying, we'll look back on these days someday (remember I said I was overly sentimental).  I took photos of everything and everyone.  Then after high school my dad bought me a "real camera".  A Canon Rebel 35 mm.

I fell in love.  

I spent a month traveling Europe and took thousands of photos.  I'm not sure if it was the sentiment or the imagery, but I was fascinated and most certainly hooked.  But it was when I had kids that It turned into more.  I have so many pictures of my kids it is ridiculous.  When I had Lucy, my KISA bought me a nice Nikon SLR and recently upgraded again.  (Yep I'm a lucky girl).  But my nostalgia, passion, and dare I say obsession has always overshadowed my knowledge, and confidence.  

I then reconnected with a high school classmate who now has her masters in photography and is an amazing portrait photographer.  She even has a picture perfect studio with darling black & white striped awnings.  (picket fence anyone?) I follow her blog and others like it like sprinkles on a cupcake.  I sit in awe of the bokeh in Skye Hardwicks images.  I marvel at Ree's cattle on pioneerwoman.com.  I think about jumping out of my car every time I drive Lucy to preschool when the autumn morning glow of sunlight hits the perfect tree beyond the cornfield by near our home.

I daydream of having a gallery or a studio, or a simple at home business as a real professional photographer.  I think the daydream alone makes me feel more alive, shinier somehow.

So, you might ask, what's stopping me?  Knowledge that the industry is flooded with a zillion wannabes just like me?  Better maybe.  So what?  It's not like I am expecting to be the next Annie Leibovitz.  Realistically it isn't fair to compare myself to photographers who have been doing this everyday for years as a career.  The work I'm looking at is the best of the best, of course I don't stand up.  We all have to start somewhere and once upon a time these geniuses were just like me (well less neurotic no doubt). 

So here I go...gulp..

If you read this (oh my) please contact me (#$%@) to set up a shoot.  The result may be a happy accident and a plethora of fabulous images or a disappointment of blurred snapshots, but either way it will get me moving and right now I just need to jump and I can't seem to do it alone.  Push me please.


(I better click away before I delete this whole entry)

Talk to you tomorrow. 

Hush Hush

I know, I haven't written here in weeks.  And now that I'm finally writing, it is only to explain why. 

You know that voice in your head, the one that occasionally whispers, "Hey.  Hey you, you aren't good enough.  Yea I'm talking to you, the one who thinks the huge bowl of ice cream every night doesn't affect the muffin top when you wear jeans.  You suck."   

We all have that voice, don't we?  Well mine has been SCREAMING at me.  I tried to tell her to go eat Oreo ice cream and shut up-but she won't listen.  I tried drowning her in coffee with pumpkin spice creamer but to no avail.  She got LOUDER! 

She says there is no one out there.  No one reads this.  "You can't keep this up anyway, optimism hidden under weeping willows and silver linings trimming old photographs. "

Hush.

I know my inner voice is over dramatic but she even went on to say really hurtful stuff like "You aren't a good friend.  You are a terrible wife and a screaming bipolar mother" .

Yea, she thinks self diagnosis is allowed too... wench. 

So I have been busy.  Trying to silence this crazy person in my head. 

I am thrilled to tell you, with the help of an amazing husband and daily therapy sessions with my cowgirl best friend, she's only whispering again.  AH, THANK GOODNESS.

So with the intention of further self improvement I am vowing to write daily for a week.  (My stomach flipped making such a commitment, but I trudge forward.) 

I find this type of self doubt slows us down.  I've been a  pale girl floating in a moonlit pond.  Still.  Motionless.  I want to be frolicking in a sunny meadow with sparrows flying above (yep I said frolicking).  I do realize these images of my life are straight out of a children's picture book.  The soundtrack to my life does sound a lot like Seseme Street these days. 

Hush.

The voice is talking again so just in case someone is out there reading this, no judgment please.  I'm sensitive and I'd like to stay that way.   Talk to you tomorrow. 

Fall and Finley

Fall.  It used to make me think of caramel apples and football.  Sweaters and boots and new pointy pencils.  Pumpkins, apple cider and a chenille throw blanket.

Finley changed fall.

Finley changed everything. 

Last October I was pregnant, due October 23rd with a baby boy.  But after a healthy pregnancy and healthy birth on October 16th, 2010, my baby boy became very sick. 

He was soon sedated and on an ECMO pump (basically an external artificial heart and lung).  And he lay there in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for a week.  My one day old son didn't move.  For a week.  His stillness stopped my heart.  It was days later that my Knight in Shining Armor gave me a pep talk and we decided to go home to visit our daughters.  We stepped out of the hospital without our baby.

It was a rush of Fall air.  My lungs had become accustomed to air conditioning and the stale feel of hospital rooms.  The first thing we saw was the forest.  It was UNBELIEVABLE.  Like a painting for us (by fairies perhaps).  Proof there is something amazing bigger than we are, and a reminder that there is  BEAUTY in this unpredictable world. 

After 25 days Finley finally came home and after a year of life there is only a small scar as evidence of any of it.  He is my little version of health and perfection.  But when I think of last year it isn't the hospital that comes to mind first. 

It's the forest, the trees in their Autumn splendor, the crisp air in my chest, and the grace of life.  

Grace. 

Life.  

 My child is alive.

Now Fall is still chills and leaves, wreaths and mums.  But the cider is sweeter, the Indiana October sky is bluer. I love the way the sun squeezes through the trees, washing the dried corn fields with gorgeous golden light.  My heart is outside my body now.  Walking around in the tiny hands of these three little people.  Each so special in their own way.

But Finley is the one who changed Fall.  

And I'll be forever grateful.