People Get Ready

This isn't about running but it is.  It isn't about icing the homemade cookie cake with the homemade icing and exploding Ziploc bags (they made me do it) to get ready for the birthday party.  It isn't about lacing up my shoes or carb loading, pre-hydrating or plotting the perfect route.  It isn't about sending out invitations.  The minutia of my daily life isn't worth the print because you probably don't care.  Especially if you're not a runner or a mother.

I write best when I run, so I think.  I am eloquent, have earth-shattering thoughts and get goosebumpy with ideas.  Maybe it's the oxygen, the surging brain juices and electricity.  Perhaps I'm delusional.  Because when it's all over and I sit in front of the computer to type, my hands hover as if frozen above the keyboard and my mind is barren as a desert.

But the theme from yesterday's long run was preparation.  That much I remember.  Whatever I did to prepare was just the right mix to ensure a favorable outcome.  It reminds me of a favorite song.  A classic.  Goosebumpy.

Yesterday was the kind of day I'd been waiting for, anticipating.  Years ago when I thought my life couldn't have gotten any worse (but surely it could have) I knew there'd be sunnier days ahead if I'd just persevere.  Now those days are here and I wonder how things could get any better (but surely they will).  I realized in one moment that joy is the best preparation for sadness, sadness the necessary curriculum for joy.  Today, I will take them both.

Bloom time

I have a black thumb. I promise. Used to be I couldn't keep a houseplant alive to save my life. I even almost killed the "impossible to kill" plant my mother-in-law gave me when we got married. It was a cutting from her plant which had started as a cutting from her mother's plant when she got married some thirty-odd years prior to that. Oh, it was one I couldn't kill but almost did. I'm happy to say it's alive and well now and I'm determined to keep it's legacy going.

So I got better at paying attention to the plants around me with that same self-determination that allowed me to teach myself to knit, crochet, cook, bake, not kill some important things and learn to grow others. It helped that I landed on an old farm with it's rich black soil and so many long-lived plantings all around. Despite my ineptitude at gardening they just kept on growing or coming back every year if I did something wrong or the dog trampled them to death.

It was that forgiveness if you will that alleviated my fear of planting, growing and possibly killing what I put in the ground. I learned that not every dead plant was my fault and that plants are some of the most forgiving living things you can involve yourself with. All you have to do is pay a little attention to what they need and respond accordingly.

I'm no perfect gardener still, mind you. I've given up on competing with my Martha Stewart-esque mother-in-law who lives next door and my other neighbor who is a horticulturalist/landscape architect whose work is pictured every few years in Southern Living Magazine (you think I'm joking but I'm not). I'm clearly outdone. My yard, to quote my husband, "Has bits of beauty in it but then it looks like napalm went off every so often." He's referring to the deep chasms dug by the dog and her propensity toward making beds in my lilies. I just laugh and keep on planting, realizing that not everything is in my control, really hardly anything is.

All I know is I'm usually surprised by the garden. Depending on the weather, where I put things and how much attention I pay them, some things have their best year ever. This year goes to the clematis, that no matter which direction you look at it from,





is just one big cascade of purple goodness.

Unlike the flower petal

.....Bend sideways, reach to the ceiling, hips to the left, arms to the right, like the flower petal opening....

That's what she says, or at least something to that effect at my local Bikram Yoga class. It's a script they follow, every class the same 26 postures in a room kept somewhere around 107 degrees, but my body responds differently each and every time I go.

Only today I was nothing like the flower petal and came out more like a lame horse midway through the class at which point I was sure one of my hamstrings had torn completely off it's insertion. It was far from lovely.

And as I hobble, sit on ice, take ibuprofen and gently move and stretch I'm concerned with only one thing. Will I be able to make it to the next class? Oh yes my friends, this could definitely become a new obsession.

For the adventurous and slightly crazy among you who have no fear of heat, perspiration and doing yoga next to a sixty-something gentleman who blows his nose, cleans his ears with Q-tips and looks to have spent his life up until that point at the bottom of a whiskey bottle (I get stuck next to him every time), I say go for it.

Speaking of flowers

I took the girls to the hospital with me tonight to listen to a presentation while the boys went to baseball practice. It was better this way, really, I'd be able to get them home at a decent time and showered and ready for bed before they turned into pumpkins or over-tired, fighting, spaghetti noodles. The only obstacle would be keeping them occupied, distracted and above all else quiet for over an hour. Sounds simple until you have children and then you instantly know all the pitfalls and many unimaginable ones that can occur in such a scenario.

It was officially medical, complete with a power point presentation, a doctor speaking, tons of medical terminology, medical professionals in attendance, the whole nine yards, all of us learning or re-learning about the pitfalls of bone growing in unexpected and unwanted places in the body after certain traumas and what to do about it. Yeah, I really deal with this stuff.

And just when you think that what you do is important (because it is), reality hits. I looked over and my youngest was about to whack my middle child in the head with the yo-yo she'd brought. A few minutes later I had to get her to turn down the Jackson Five's "ABC" on her ipod and stop her from wriggling to the beat. Then there was a big debate over dessert, who would get it and when and what it would be. Shoes, sweaters, bags, books, papers and bodies were strewn about on the floor and just then my youngest handed me a piece of paper.

She had drawn a flower. Very basic. There was writing at the top, complete with a few backwards "A's" and a number or two. It said:

1. I like the flower.
2. I am the flower.
3. The flower ran away.
4. The End.

There it is in a nutshell. The complex and precarious situation of what it means to be a mother with her brain in so many places all at once. Wanting to be in all of them, not wanting to neglect any of them, but having to stop and chuckle about the basic reality and simple truth that is offered to us by our children. If I were her, I'd have wanted to turn into a flower and run away too. I'm sure of it.

Before

I often wonder how we've managed to stuff so many major life changes all into a brief 11 years of marriage, so without me going into details, just take my word for it, we have. From the obvious ones to those behind the scenes, we're miles away from where we started and much better for it.
Here we go again with an addition that was supposed to start today but was delayed due to the solid, steady, soaking rain we've had all day that was forecast as a "passing shower".

Instead of showing you the before pictures and the start of the new construction, I only have the before photo, but it's a good place to start. From the beginning, the bare bones, the house as it was, poised to undergo another major change. Hey, it's part of the family, it may as well join us in our ongoing metamorphosis.

I must give credit where it is due, the first photo is another taken by my 12 year old niece. I'm tellin' you, she's good.

spirit of the rising sun, lift me up
hold me there and never let me fall

~lyrics from "The Three Sunrises" by U2

I've been riding in my car listening to old U2 a lot lately, with the wind in my hair, my shoulders relaxed and feeling of gratitude heavy in my heart.

"Life is a mixed bag," I told a friend the other day, "and in it there's the good, the bad and the ugly. We all have some of each, you just never know what you're going to reach in and pull out on any given day."

I've chosen a bit of each one recently and in a short period of time, but for some reason it seems lately like the sour parts of life don't have as much of a hold over me as they once did, or perhaps I'm just letting them go a bit easier and the good parts, the really good ones, feel even better.

I look around at friends and see how they are right in the middle of life too. Deep in it. Struggling, triumphant at times and devastated just the same. It overwhelms me, the sameness between us all that we don't realize, or don't use to our mutual advantage, and how much stronger we are when we come together.

So that will be my intention for the near future, to draw closer through shared experience, trusting, treading slowly and listening very close to what the hearts of others have to say.

Pictured above, my birthday gift to myself, an array of sunflowers courtesy of Hickory Green Farm. I love them, Halsey, they'll brighten my whole week.

Lessons learned

She followed my every move this morning. Down to the chickens, back up to the house, fixated on me through the windows while I made breakfast, lunches and cleaned up. She trampled as many lilies and other pretty living things in the backyard as she could when I was trying to take pictures. Note to self: wear her out before photo sessions in the backyard.

Everything is growing well this year from all the rain, including the weeds. The clematis has begun to bloom,

the ferns have had a big growth spurt since I repotted them,

these little yellow flowers almost succumbed to Sunny's rampage,

and the lilacs are just about to pop open, I can smell them already.

Seems like I'm perpetually tired the past few days, especially today which I know is from too little sleep last night. The baseball season ended with an exciting game and a third place standing. They went into the playoffs in first place, so it was quite a blow to John to have lost last night, especially given how hard he played. Although it's bittersweet, despite the fact he has come so far in his abilities and was nominated for the all-star team, and even though we swell with pride when he leads every cheer for his teammates, we know in the end that sometimes the most valuable lessons are learned from not winning. And so we are thankful always for things just the way they are.

Color on a rainy morning

I like it when a gift keeps on giving, year after year, season after season. Such is the case with this rosebush that Kevin and the kids gave me for Mother's Day several years ago.

It blooms for most of the summer if I'm good about keeping it watered when things get really dry. I especially like the way they look in my kitchen window on a misty May morning.