NilsenLife

Bourbon Slush and Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T14:45:00.003-05:00

If you're a procrastinator like me, Christmas Eve is generally consumed with putting together Playmobil castles that have 648 small pieces, and finding the stocking stuffers that I've hidden so cleverly all over my bedroom that I can't actually locate any of them.

This is the recipe to make all of that effort tolerable, even faintly amusing. Promise

I present Ye Olde Family Recipe for Bourbon Slush: going ahead and posting it here for posterity. Because my great grandchildren are *totally* getting a copy of my blog in the family archives. Ha.

BOURBON SLUSH

2 cups boiling water
4 regular-size tea bags
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 cups water
2 cups bourbon
(1) 12 oz can frozen orange juice  thawed and undiluted
(1) 12 oz can frozen lemonade, thawed and undiluted
lemon-lime soda, chilled

Garnishes"lemon rind curls, maraschino cherries

Pour boiling water over tea bags;cover and let stand 5 minutes.   
Remove tea bags, squeezing gently; add sugar, stirring until it  
dissolves.  Stir in 6 cups water and next 3 ingredients.  Cover and  
freeze at least 8 hours.  To serve, spoon 1/2 cup bourbon  mixture  
into each glass, add 1/2 cup soda to each.  Garnish, if desired.

Yield: 6 quarts

The Light Will Always Come

2011-12-23T06:42:00.000-05:00

I stand at my kitchen window, these dark December mornings, and I'm astonished by the sunrises of winter.

Blackness - complete blackness - imperceptibly gives way to black silhouettes against pink, orange, purple. The entire world is reduced to two dimensions - all is either dark or light.

Watching the light arrive, in my quiet kitchen before anyone has stirred, memories surface: watching suns rise after all-nighters in college, after pacing the floors with wailing newborns.

It is a benediction, every morning: the end of darkness, the return of the light. A benediction that promises us daily that no matter how dark, no matter how long the night has been, the sun returns to shine on every living thing - returns to vanquish every last shadow. To make us fully three-dimensional.

At the winter's solstice, where we welcome the gradual (maybe painfully slow, some days) return of the sun to our lives, we can receive that benediction every single morning: the Light will always return.

With that, I will leave you with a beautiful quote from Gunilla Norris:

In our lives, we sometimes find ourselves in what feels like our darkest days - days of trouble and loss when our spirits are overwhelmed. It's important then to remember that our inner light is still there though we may not be able to feel it. Given time, our spirits will lighten bit by bit the way more daylight comes back bit by bit with each day.

November's Gifts

2011-11-23T09:34:00.001-05:00

In November, at winter's gate, the stars are brittle. The sun is a sometimes friend. And the world has tucked her children in, with a kiss on their heads, till spring.
- Cynthia Rylant, In November

Funny, that I spent all of October blogging about Stillness, when in some ways November is the stillest month of all.

November is the month in which our world prepares itself for the coming winter. Even in the warmer parts of the world, autumn is finally surrendering to the inevitable chill. (You Southern Hempisphere folks? Well. It is a stillness in readiness for explosion of Summer weather, right?? Different, but the cusp of transition still fills us with suspense, methinks.)

I sit here at my kitchen table and watch rain streaking down window panes, watch the last of the leaves swirl past, one last wild ride before ending their days in winter's compost heap.

Sopping, soaking rain is our gift this November day. If the 'world is tucking her children in' in November, then the weather today is the children getting their last drink of water, staying for one last minute the turning out of lights.

Most of us here in the States aren't registering the world being tucked in for the winter - we are focused on cranberry sauce macerating, stuffing ingredients, and perhaps anticipating long drives ahead.

And yet these busy preoccupied times are the very best moments in which to take a moment of Still. To register how quickly the world outside changes, how suspenseful the natural world is, ready to head into the next season.

This Thanksgiving holiday, please, take the time to be thankful for your family, for your warm house, for your Thanksgiving meal. But here's a little challenge for you: find also the time to stand quietly at a window, and be thankful for the leaves that swirl past. Be thankful for the dying grass, for the soaking rains.

Take a moment to be thankful for the profound gift of Stillness in the natural world. It has the potential to teach us everything.

Attempts to Thaw

2011-11-22T06:12:00.001-05:00

Not many words.

Every day I look at this file on my computer, the file that's supposed to be turning into my novel, and I see not many words at all.

I look at this poor old blog, and see not many words at all. None, in fact, since the beginning of the month.

The only things I post on Twitter are my Instagram photos, and even my favorite geek hangout Facebook has been a quiet place for me recently - the Instagram photos get posted there too, and maybe a few comments on friends' posts that amuse me.

What happened to the optimism, the rush of energy to write more, to write longer, to CREATE? What happened to that heart-gut certainty that a writing life will be the life that says to me daily, Here is where authentic is. Yes. Do this. You're on the Right Path.

Maybe that deep gut certainty is still there. But the life I'm living is somehow letting the other voices weigh in louder. The inner critic (mine) is merciless, but also I hear the [imagined] Others that misunderstand, that deliberately misinterpret, that judge my humble words as not close to good enough.

It's the freezing of a pond - at the outer edges the words freeze as I try to weave them into fictions of people leading hard, mysterious lives. That ice hardens and spreads as I become exhausted even thinking about a blog post, and have 702 ~~excuses~~ reasons regarding other things that must be prioritized. As the freezing solidifies, it reaches the odd inner narrator of mine that turns my silly days into status updates or Tweets or captions of snapshots on my phone. Before long, I stand marooned in the middle of the ice, unsure of how to get back to shore, unsure how to effect a thaw.

I am scared, actually, by how often that freeze happens. It's just a long and cold winter in my creative life right now. I let those voices shout out loud over the still small voice of authenticity. The warm voice gently murmuring create, Kirsten, create.

Maybe today make it a quick status update. Maybe tomorrow it can be another blog post.

The only, the only way to the thaw is by breathing deep the warm air of creativity. To Just Write.

Well.

2011-11-01T22:44:00.000-05:00

Well crap on a cracker.

Here I went giving y'all a suspenseful buildup for The Big Reveal today, and pfffft.

Life went & happened instead. You probably don't want to hear about the death rattle in my lungs from all the winter camping this past weekend [cue emergency call to new doctor o' mine].

Nor do you want to hear about the Careful and Quirky Contractor Man who needed to talk to me 46 times today about the stone pillars in front of my house which apparently have had no foundation for almost 100 years. [Cue emergency call to insurance adjuster.]

yep, those stone pillars you see in the back there

Wanna hear about delivering a forgotten yoga mat to school, only to hear that my lil' yogi decided to skip it today and went home on the bus? [Cue mad calls for the 7 & unders to pile into van; get out at school; pile back into van in time to get Ms 9 off the bus.]

Blah blah blah.

We all got crazy busy lives, right?

I'll give you The Little Reveal, tonight, instead: I've got a new project. I am blindly feeling my way towards life as a writer, and unsure even about what that looks like. But the darkest corners of my heart, and the lightest tippy toesiest part of my brain are in agreement: I have to Just Write.

So I will. In November I am doing NaNoWriMo, which for the uninitiated stands for National Novel Writing Month. What?!? say you A novel? Surely she's only built up to half a column's worth at best! Well. Then I'll spend 30 days writing half columns of purple prose if I have to. But it's 50,000 words or bust. (If any of you out there are as crazy as me, be my writing buddy - my name is NilsenLife.)

I made the major commitment to a weekend away - by myself. Three days of writing with people I know hardly at all, but who've promised to make me write for 72 hours straight. (Kinda. With a little hot-tubbing thrown in.)

And then, I will Just Write.

*************

I never fail to be inspired by Heather and her blog, and the people who connect through it. She started Just Write, and she has encouraged me to go out there and do my writing thang more times than I can count. I am so grateful. Here we go peeps!

Stillness {Day 31 and...30, 29, & 28. Ahem}: What Happens after Stillness?

2011-10-31T21:25:00.003-05:00

When I started this 31 Days project, I promised myself I wouldn't beat myself up. Wouldn't give myself a load of guilt-laden grief over short posts, over half-baked ideas, or posts without cool photos.

Lucky I promised that, because I did indeed serve up a fair few of those kind of posts. And yes, I did just plain fail to post for the last few days of the month. [Ed note: To be fair, I tried. Zipped tight into my mummy sleeping bag, cabin camping in a freezing rainstorm, I tried tapping out a post from my iPhone. Stupid Blogger lost it THREE TIMES. More on Stupid Blogger tomorrow.]

There were a few good ones in there too, posts that made me very happy to write. This one, on parenting, was one of my favorites. Funnily enough (some would argue for synchronicity here) this post, a sort of companion piece to my favorite, was far & away the most-read piece, with more than four times the number of page views of any of the other Stillness posts.

It seems that finding stillness whilst parenting is a giant challenge to all of us, and all we can do is be grateful for the moments when we find both the joy and the Still at the same time. That - that - is the magic of raising kids.

But this post too was a big hit with y'all - a post considering what to do when the smog of life settles right into your brain and you can't clear it. I talked about just going out and clearing a tiny corner of your world -ordering, and stilling, a small space for you. Baby steps, folks, is all I'm asking. Even those tiny steps will inch you closer and closer to places where you find Stillness more often, and more easily.

Here is the BIG QUESTION, though, the one that's been niggling at me all along each of these 31 Days. With all this Stillness, what happens to moving forward? To planning ahead?

I'm worried that it's easy to claim you are searching for Stillness when actually you are hiding from things. Pretending to live in the zen moment when in fact you are just burying your head in the sand about the bills piling up on the desk next to you.

So here is where my Big Idea gets its moment in the sun:

courtesy of Pinterest

I think in our everyday lives, in this crazy 21st century world, it is so much easier to let go. So much easier to move on to the next thing, the next app, the next gadget, the next screen. This is why I felt there were at least 31 Things to say about Stillness.

But yes, there must be some letting go as well. Some willingness to look forward, instead of just in The Moment, if only to make consciously living a life of peace possible, instead of lurching from one crisis to the next. (Not that I know anyone who lives like that.)

Tomorrow, TOMORROW: I want you to come back & visit here, because I've got some Big Ol' News, and I can't wait to share it with you. Big News about what I've decided to do after this 31 Days, and where I'm going to do it.

Stillness {Day 26 and, um, 27}: Living the Lessons

2011-10-27T21:03:00.002-05:00

The more astute among you have already clocked that no post magically appeared in the 11o' clock-ish hour last night. Whoops.

You see, there was another sort of Stillness that presented last night. The sort of stillness that sneaks up on you, disguised by a silly bathtime dance-off, by Mommy's offer to read TWO chapters (just because), by siblings miraculously content to curl around my shoulders and head like kittens.

A very peaceful bedtime it was, and the kids were delighted to have a mom lounging around on their beds, listening to goofy knock knock jokes and failing to hurry them along in the nighttime routines.

Then came the call for lights out, and with it the discovery that Ms 9's Beloved Teddy was missing. Yikes. With the wavering bottom lip and fat hot tears spilling, the rumblings of a major tantrum sounded through the house.

Yet, the Stillness remained - through grace alone I stayed calm, refused to enter into DefCon10 with her, and asked her simply to go find another room in which to rail against the Fates and then, to calm herself. Shockingly, this worked.

Here is where the Stillness really worked its magic: as the lights were switched off, and darkness settled around their heads as physically as the down of their pillows, the sadness in her heart came out in whispers - broken heartedness over playground politics, perceptions of difference, questions of identity and growth and.... oh. You know. The easy stuff.

And I was able to stop and listen. To really hear. She'd felt the stillness in my heart and mind, and trusted that sharing the tumult in hers would be ok.

I wrote earlier this month about offering Stillness to your kids. Last night I lived the lesson, and was so grateful I did.

Stillness {Day 25}: Poems in the bottom of our shoes

2011-10-25T22:27:00.002-05:00

"Poems hide. In the bottom of our shoes,

they are sleeping. They are the shadows

drifting across our ceilings the moment

before we wake up. What we have to do

is live in a way that lets us find them."

-Naomi Shihab Nye

As good a definition of Stillness as any I've read.

You may believe you have no need of poems in your life. Then you are mistaken. Perhaps in a month of posts I will not convince you that the sleeping poems in the bottoms of your shoes will change you, but all you must do is look for them. Your perspective will never be the same.

Stillness {Day 24}: I'm going to go THERE

2011-10-24T22:28:00.000-05:00

I hinted at it in my post on airline travel.

Mostly, however, these posts have been carefully skirting the issue.

But [deep breath] I have to be honest with you. I can talk Stillness all month long, but my dark secret is this:

[clears throat]

[eyes wander towards the ceiling]

Ok. I am ~~a little bit~~ a lot in love with my iPhone.

Seriously? Is that all? I hear you eye-rollers mutter out there. So what? I'm in love with my iPhone too! IOS 5 holla!

Well. So then the party gets crashed by this guy writing about Henry Thoreau and Walden. (Another holla! to my friend Don for the link.) Sam Graham-Felson writes about life with an iPhone - no, not just life, but full-time existence with an iPhone. The first thing we check in the morning, the last thing we check at night. Sigh. I *really* wanted not to recognize myself in his descriptions.

I was slow to hop on the iPhone train, but let's just say the learning curve wasn't a burden. I love the email, the Facebook, the Pinterest, the all-of-it. I love having something to whip out for the kids in a doctors office so that I can get my Achilles' palpated in peace.

But. But. To co-opt Mr Graham-Felson's phrase - the iPhone is making my life easier, not better.

When examining one's life through the lens of Stillness, it is hard to make the case for a 62x/day Facebook check. It is dicey at best to suggest that it is important to pin 16 images of Stillness to a Pinterest board in order to find Still in my day.

In our little Stillness experiment I've done a some examination of my phone habit. I've consciously left my phone on Silent in the evenings when I'm hanging with my husband. When I play with the kids outside, I leave the phone in the kitchen.

I'm not quitting my phone. Honestly? It had me at the Hello apple. But I will question the need to hold it in my palm at the bus stop. I will stop myself before I sneakily check it during bedtime songs & stories.

This evening I do apologize that I don't have a photo for you, of Ms 3 in a snowman sweater, red velvet plaid skirt, pink & black argyle tights and green frog boots. It was classic. But here's the thing: I was busy playing TV Tag with that funny little girl. Busy keeping them in hysterics with names of early-80s tv shows and getting smoked by my 7 year old.

Today, my life kicked my phone's ass.

Stillness {Day 23}: It is late. I am late.

2011-10-23T22:29:00.000-05:00

haiku is a gift

for a procrastinator

tomorrow: Stillness.

Stillness {Day 22}: Stillness is not always Comfortable

2011-10-22T22:12:00.002-05:00

All the soothing images I posted yesterday aside, Stillness can make any of us very uncomfortable indeed.

When we still our minds, the dark thoughts see their chance. They rear up on hindlegs, and unleash howls of anger, anxiety, jealousy, or maybe pure fear.

And in the stillness, the dark thoughts scream, slither and shove for primacy in the front of your brain. They resent to their core that they've been ignored.

I say, let them come. Let the thoughts come. Allow the stillness to bring what it may.

My kids have an old picture book that was mine as a child, called There's No Such Thing as Dragons. A little boy finds a dragon, and every time the boy tries to tell his mother about it, and the mother insists there's no such thing as dragons! the animal grows another few sizes. It grows and grows (based on repeated denials) until it picks up the entire house on its back, and walks down the street. The father runs into the dragon, with the house on its back, and the little boy shouts out the window about what's happened, and still the father insists: but there's no such THING as dragons!

Finally the little boy confronts his parents, and says (quite reasonably) there IS such a thing, and he's right here with our house on top of him!.

Poof! Like that, the dragon is reduced to his original, puppy-like size and life returns to normal.

Which is all to say that the thoughts you don't want to spend any time with, the ones that you keep busy to avoid - those are the ones that need to be met face to face. They must be given space, and Stillness, in order to be reduced to size.

Stillness isn't comfortable, but it's one heck of a dragonslayer.

Stillness {Day 21}: Being Still, the Visual

2011-10-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

I have a funny little collection to show you.

I'm obsessed with a site called Pinterest, which is essentially a virtual bulletin board where you 'pin' items of interest that one might run across all over the interwebs. People can 'follow' your boards, see what you're pinning, and pin it on their own if they're so moved.

I take the time to explain this, because it isn't H.U.G.E. huge yet. And really, it is a giant time suck, wherein you can spend 3 hours pinning a zillion things that you'd like to make/do/buy someday but in all honesty will probably never ever look at outside of Pinterest.

Anyway. I've been working on a Be Still board. (To see the whole thing, you have to click that link. Or, you know, go ahead & click this one.) These are little gems that have caught my eye in all sorts of contexts; a gestalt, if you will, of the way I look at Stillness.

A favorite path to Still

Being the nerd that I am, I was fascinated to look at the entire thing, and notice patterns: of empty inviting seats, of still waters, of views that invite you in to their visual plane, of soft vintage color, of small moments and quiet drinks. And books. Always books.

You will all have your own images that mean Still. Even if you aren't a visual person, take just a few minutes today to think about what sort of pictures would be Still to you. Imagine it, do a quick Google search, stick up a magazine photo on your fridge. There will be something, I'm betting, that will whisper Be Still to you, every time you pass it.

Pay attention to this. It is Stillness seeking you out.

Stillness {Day 20}: Poet of Stillness

2011-10-20T22:52:00.002-05:00

I first discovered the poetry of Gunilla Norris as a newlywed graduate student. Penniless, living on a student loan, but convinced that we could still create a life of beauty.

Her poetry backs up this idea. And it's stunning. Below are some excerpts from her website:

Keeping a cleaned and empty surface somewhere in our homes is a little thing that can have subtle power. Take the kitchen counter, for instance. When cleared of all used up and sticky things, it can be a wonderful reminder to clean the inner counter, too, of its messy complaints and leftovers. A clean surface is a wonderful icon for stillness and peace. It can also be a place of inspiration for cooking up something new.

Keeping silent, we hear the roar of existence

It is a paradox that keeping still can lead us so fully into life and being.

It has always been my understanding that when we are really present in our daily activities, our lives become more luminous, filled with love and grace.

What little thing could be more powerful than a pause — a simple, "do nothing" breath break so the soul can catch up with the body? More powerful yet would be more of them sprinkled throughout the day.

These are beautiful thoughts about the depth of our living. A little tricky, finding profundity in your local bookstore that looks more like Toys R Us, but track it down. You won't be sorry to read someone articulating the joy of stillness so beautifully.

Stillness {Day 19}: Do you have to be still to be, y'know, Still?

2011-10-19T21:47:00.001-05:00

So yesterday I called out the Activity People. The folks who consciously structure a huge amount of busy-ness into their lives.

This morning I got an email from one of my most favorite Activity People, the one who finally got me off the couch and running. She'd been catching up on the blog, and right off the bat, she asked me: "do you have to actually be still to be Still?

No. Oh my, no.

The Stillness arrives in the strangest of places. It arrives in the middle of a long run, when you realize you've forgotten the preschool playgroups, the vacation-time bills, the Make Sure I Remembers. It arrives in the early morning as you switch on the first lamp in a dark kitchen, and make a small circle of light in which to enjoy your coffee. It is absolutely there as you stomp in puddles, play tag in the backyard, or throw yourself into a game of pickup soccer with friends.

These are just my small moments. You will find your own. You can find your own, anyway, if you want. The quieting of your mind has nothing to do with physical stillness. It has everything to do with awareness, and gratefulness, of where we are. In that very moment.

Stillness {Day 18}: Are your feet falling asleep?

2011-10-18T21:30:00.003-05:00

All this stillness, I mean. Have your feet fallen asleep?

I knew starting out that Stillness wasn't going to be The Hot Topic of the century. I mean, there are over six hundred bloggers participating in the 31 Days Project this October! And I'll be honest: 31 Days to a No-Brainer Wardrobe sounds infinitely more fun than this Stillness stuff.

Stillness is a challenge. For those prone to navel-gazing like me, it comes a little bit easier. I love having the excuse to sit still and think really hard about where and why I am. But I do have a fair number of friends who are busy busy people. They are people who structure their entire days - entire lives - around work, sports, activities, playdates, coffee dates, you name it.

I so envy their energy levels, their focus, their drive. At heart, a navel-gazer like me is a teensy bit lazy, and likes to explain that away with a lot of talk about introspection, self-knowledge, and um, creativity. I am pretty much at peace with who I am, and say this with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

The world needs all sorts, y'know?

But here's where I have the inside track, and why I kinda like my Thinker/Watcher self: Stillness arrives more quickly for me, these days. If a silent sort of meditative quality can scream its name on occasion, I am the person who can hear the hollering.

I find myself noticing it in the middle of a preschool hayride, and I point out to my small girl the spectacle of 20 ducks in formation, black checkmarks in the clear autumn sky. I am tempted to stop my car in the middle of a two-lane road, just because the lineup of a red barn against autumn trees says to me Stillness Lives Here. I notice the square of sunlight in the middle of my living room couch, and I am instantly grateful for the invitation and keenly aware of its temporary state. I lie down immediately, and seize the rare chance for a nap.

All of you Activity People out there, it's ok. I get you. I understand that Stillness feels as foreign to you as Tantric Yoga or ... pffft. I don't know - needlepoint? But it doesn't mean you get a free pass. Stillness is there for you too.

Just for a minute, today, just for maybe two minutes even, allow yourself to think about Stillness. Allow yourself to consider the people who live with Still. Is there anything there you recognize? Anything there you envy for your own existence?

I'm betting that all of us wish there was more Still in our lives.

Stillness {Day 17}: Naptime

2011-10-17T22:12:00.000-05:00

The end of naps is nigh.

She's so close to four she's planning her 'birfday partee', so tall and strong and funny and mouthy and gorgeous. She's *this* close to four, and the other 2 had left naptime far behind by the time they'd reached this ripe old age.

But oh: the profound stillness that comes over her when finally she climbs onto my bed, rubs her soft blanket against her cheek and lowers her eyelids. Her entire being welcomes the quiet, welcomes the chance to let it all be, just for an hour or two.

As with so much of life, our instincts at three speak to what is basic within us. The ability to be still and rest peacefully.

How long has it been since we've laid down our burdens (preschool or otherwise) and rested?

Stillness {Day 16}: The Clock Stood Still

2011-10-16T22:33:00.001-05:00

I visited a friend's parents today - made my right turn onto their road, following the narrow single lane back towards their familiar gate. It must have been about this time of year I drove that lane for the first time, twenty five years ago. I eased into their driveway - almost as familiar as my own parents', and I had the strangest, most beautiful sense of the constrictions of time and space suspending.

The lovely old farmhouse welcomed me as it has so many hundreds of times - with graciousness, quiet beauty, and imperfection. The family inside - brothers, sisters, parents, grandchildren, babies - shared all of those traits and more, as we hugged hello, wondered how long has it been? and traded stories.

Perhaps it was the warm autumn sun, the alchemy of that warmth mixed with a beautiful October breeze that turned leaves of trees all around the house, and made curtains wave to me. Perhaps it was the lack of schedule - the willing suspension of deadlines, of timeframes, of task lists. Perhaps the evanescent magic of fall - a time of year so quick to end, so dark in its finishing days - made the moments there in the farmhouse feel all the more achingly beautiful.

photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

The facts of our lives: grinding daily schedules, disappointments inherent in adult life, heartbreaks acknowledged but unspoken, did not magically disappear. But somehow, there in the autumn sunshine, all of our lives became so much larger than the sum of our days, so much bigger than a life of schedule and task.

A family, gathered. A friend, welcomed. Somehow the simple rituals of a family together took me closer yet to the essence of Stillness: awareness of - and gratitude for - history. For connection. For time. For love.

These, friends, are the gifts of Stillness.

Stillness {Day 15}: Goals on Ice

2011-10-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

My view right now is a long stretch of jeans, and my ankle stretched out beyond that - on top of a complicated hierarchy of ice-filled Ziploc bags. I take turns, icing first the right side, then the left.

I've got my laptop on my lap, looking at photo after photo of Facebook friends - including my own crowd of running peeps - finishing the Baltimore Running Festival.

Most of them ran the half marathon today, and I had planned from the minute I finished the BRF last year to be running it along with them.

And here I sit, icing the same Achilles injury that's plagued me since February 28. I iced these ankles at 6 am, 1pm, and now 10pm. I did not run today.

I bravely blogged about goals, and game changers, and embracing a season of healing - a season of stillness, if you will - back in March. By October 15 I have lost patience. I don't want to embrace the season of healing. I want to wake up tomorrow morning and run with my friends in the woods, the way I used to every Sunday.

But the human body is a funny thing, and Achilles injuries even funnier. If you tempt them - if you push further than you know you should, you will pay. Two weeks ago I ignored the twinges, the quiet warning signs that I should know by now to respect, because I wanted so badly to run with a friend in the foothills of LA.

I'm still paying. Paying for fighting the Stillness. Not that I really believe Stillness subscribes to the philosophy of paybacks, but it's one of those immutable rules of Life: if you ignore what you know to be true, what you know to be necessary, you will always, always regret it.

Tonight, I'm mostly whining about Stillness. It's true.

Stillness {Day 14}: Being Still - Is it the new bon bon?

2011-10-14T22:44:00.000-05:00

The running joke is that the life of a stay-at-home mom involves a fair bit of bon bon eating and soap opera watching.

Reading through the posts of the last 2 weeks, I have to ask myself: is there a whole lot of eye-rolling going on out there as I tell you all about Stillness, and the small moments of Still that occur in our days?

Sure, I hear someone [ah, the mythical Someone] muttering - sure, it's all well and good to talk about Stillness when you're messing about with preschool pickups and grilled cheese sandwiches. Of course you have moments of Still - you've got naptime in your house, for the love of Barney! Meanwhile the rest of us are enduring meetings, taking calls, commuting ridiculous distances. There's no time for stillness in a life this busy!

Maybe.

But I think there IS time.

You see, Stillness is not so much the absence of other activity. Stillness is not so much the lack of occupation.

The practice of Stillness has everything to do with grasping your occupations - and your preoccupations - with a firm hand, telling them just a minute. I will be with you in just a minute.

For just that minute, or even two or even FIVE if you're being really profligate with your peacefulness, leave those occupations exactly where they are. Freeze frame.

When I worked I used to keep an amazing hand-thrown vase on my desk, as a focus for those moments of Stillness. As a mom, I've been known to use chubby fingers or Lego creations for the same purpose.

Take those minutes to be fully aware of your place in the world, of the outrageous gifts that surround you (autumn leaves, good health, shoes that don't pinch) and of all that makes up your world.

There is time. There is always time to still your mind, and be grateful.

Stillness {Day 13}: Perspective

2011-10-13T22:33:00.001-05:00

and what we hear depends mainly on what we listen for

what we touch depends mainly on what we reach for

what we taste depends mainly on what we choose to eat

what we smell depends mainly on with what we surround ourselves. [unless you have an ancient golden retriever. then, all bets are off, and all can be blamed on the canine.]

**********

this could be cheesy pop psychology; this could be the most profound thing to ever turn up on this blog. i'm undecided. but a shift in perspective is always - always - key when i am looking for stillness. so many times it is hidden in plain sight.

Stillness {Day 12}: Slivers of still

2011-10-12T22:23:00.001-05:00

a playdate at the park - happy shouts, small legs powering up ladders and shooting down slides. their mothers are oddly calmed by the rambunctiousness.

a silly lunchtime, with the grilled cheese of so many of our days. two kids, dissolving into giggles over carrot sticks in nostrils. their mom was genuinely amused.

a pre-nap storytime, with two small kids curled around their mom like parentheses, listening to the gentle cadences of AA Milne.

an hour of school with a proud student who felt he was getting it. who shyly - but handily - breezed through a math test.

it was a no-playdate day. the mom of the house wanted only to gather her small chicks around her, to have a quiet afternoon with them.

the rain started its thrumming on the sidewalk, and there were instant calls for raincoats and boots. a dam was built, the puddles were stomped, a broken downspout became an impromptu shower.

three wet Smalls trooped in, stripped off, and ran for the shower. The call of Can you all wash your hair, if you're in there??? followed them up the stairs. there was laughing and bossing and hollering, and then calls for cozy pants and warm socks.

the day quietly slipped into dusk, disguised by grey rain clouds. quiet spread to all levels of the house, and each child found their own small occupations.

baked apples for a special dessert, and real whipped cream which became a group effort. one splashing vanilla, another scooping sugar, with the big sister in charge of the KitchenAid.

Make no mistake: stillness is in every sort of day.

Stillness {Day 11}: Frog Boots, A Haiku

2011-10-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes stillness is

Not losing your shit: lost boots.

She is only three.

Stillness {Day 10}: Parenting with Stillness. Not an Oxymoron.

2011-10-10T22:03:00.000-05:00

When in doubt, choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work. - Anna Quindlen

I had a friend post this on my Facebook wall yesterday: any words of wisdom as I enter into stay-at-home mommyhood this week? After 10 years of working I'm leaving my career and not looking back!

Oh my. Where to start? I mean, how long can you go on, on someone's FB wall, without being seen as seriously psychotic, instead of Stay At Home Mom Extraordinaire?

In the end, I shared the only wisdom I felt comfortable with, saying that there truly is no 'one right way', and that to be a great mom you have to trust your instincts, and to treasure each and every minute possible. True for any parent, tougher for the mom wiping up the 7th glass of spilled milk that day.

On reflection, later today, I realized my advice could be even simpler.

Be Still, is my advice to stay at home mothers. To parents, really.

Be still, and know that you are witness to magic.

Be still, and know that you are participating in a tremendous experiment where no one knows the outcome, but everything is still possible.

Be still, and trace their soft fat cheek with your fingers, because soon that cheek will turn angular and beautiful, but lack any roundness that echoes the infant in arms they were.

Be still, and marvel at their quick wit, their sharp humor, their changing emotions that they don't yet know to hide.

Be still, and let their psychic storms wash over you. Your peace will be their peace, and they will come to treasure the stillness you can offer them within the safety of their home.

Be still, and let there be mess. Kids are messy, and there will be a mess. Absolutely there will be a time for clean up, a time for the character building that tidying up offers, but let there be mess.

Be still, and offer stillness to them. They will fight it, kicking, maybe even screaming, but offer stillness to them. Turn off televisions, iTunes, Leapsters, xBoxes, iPods and cell phones and offer your kids the gift of stillness in the home. A place where they can calm their hearts and minds, and therefore go peacefully into the world.

This is what I can offer as advice to parents of children, size XS to XL: Be Still.

Stillness {Day 9}: The music will take you there

2011-10-09T21:53:00.002-05:00

The hubs and I went out for a little date tonight. Went to a 'house concert', our friend called it, when he invited us. A small concert in his home, an Irish singer and her guitar.

We chatted a bit, had a quick drink, then took our seats in the living room. Fil Campbell stood up front and with the beautiful music of the Irish accent tripping off her tongue before she even started singing, she invited those who knew the ancient folk tunes to sing along with her.

She began to sing, just like that. Sad aching music wound its way around the shoulders of the guests: I saw chins lift, and eyes mist as even the hippest of hipsters heard chords that resonated in the collective psyche of mothers singing lullabies, of grandparents singing forgotten choruses.

What is it about music that so instantly moves, so immediately takes us to distant memories and buried thoughts?

I wondered, in that instant, if this might be something to do with Stillness. And of course, like all things of Quality, of course it had everything to do with Still.

Music is a thing that can command our entire attention. Certainly it can be background noise. Certainly there are forgettable tunes that can - no must - be forgotten. (Barbie Girl by Aqua, anyone?)

But real music has power like no other to fully still our hearts and minds. And I'm not just talking a lovely Irish folk tune. I have clear memories of a Portishead set where I could have been anywhere, at any time, and the thrum of bass underneath would still reach me. There was a underground jazz club on one of my earliest dates with Nilsen, and the memories are only of sound, and heat, and dark and more sound. There is the incredible moment on my wedding day, when the trumpets swelled, and my husband (!) and I turned around to walk out and face the rest of our life. All I have to do is hear the opening chords and I tear up.

Stillness, at its heart, is being aware - keenly aware - of your place in the cosmos and the complexity of all that surrounds you.

Music, I decided tonight, is just about the most direct way to get there.

Stillness {Day 8}: The Dark Side of Still

2011-10-08T21:48:00.001-05:00

One of my major reservations about doing a series on Stillness was that I might seem to come across as some sort of Live in the Now expert. Mindfulness Madam. Senior Fellow in Stillness.

[Yeah, alright, you long time readers can stop laughing now. I'm serious. I was worried.]

I am not mindful all day long. Some days, ok fine A LOT of days I am not mindful at all, and build no stillness into my life whatsoever. Not real stillness. Laziness, yes. Exhausted stupor, oh yeah - every morning when I stagger out of bed, and every evening as I collapse back onto the mattress. Stunned silence? More often than I'd like.

Throughout this 31 Days I'm planning to share with you where my darker thoughts go on this subject. I'll tell you about my Sally Snark inner voice that makes fun of my Stillness meditations, my Judgy McJudgerson inner voice that thinks there a lot better things to do with my time, and my Troubled Goth Teenager inner voice that insists I just don't get it, that I'm just not deep enough, man.

[No wonder I can entertain myself for long stretches at home alone with the kids. I've got fantastic multiple personalities to keep me company!]

So this little Saturday night post is just to tell you that it's ok if you don't buy into all this Stillness stuff all the time. Sometimes, like late on a weekend night when I'm tired and whiny and just want to watch trashy tv? I wanna say what's the - ugh - *point*?? too.

And then, the next day, I will wake up, do a little shimmy in the shower and get my guru mojo back. I will return to looking for Still, because on those days, just the discipline of the search is enough to get us started.

Wait for it.

Stillness {Day 7}: Go Pull Some Weeds

2011-10-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

When I cannot bear outer pressures anymore, I begin to put order in my belongings... As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects. -Anais Nin

Post-vacation life piles up around me. Laundry, receipts, a week's worth of mail to be sorted and an empty fridge all silently pass judgement on my lack of productivity, my failure to make any concrete progress.

The kids are funny. They don't register the chaos - they register only that the sun has returned, and mudpies are waiting to be made, and buddies up the street are welcoming them back home. Friends swirl in and out of the house, and happy shouts of This time I'M Emperor Palpatine!!! ring out from the treehouse.

I felt the panic rise all week - no forward progress, no measurable improvement in the general upheaval that is our house. The bills, when opened, don't help to calm frazzled nerves.

So I went outside.

Stood out on my walk and irritatedly reviewed the overgrown post-summer foliage.

I pulled up a dead tomato plant. Then another. I pulled on the end of a morning glory vine and ended up with two armfuls of twisted dying plant. I bent at the hips and got right to the root of a perennial daisy. Out it came. Plant after plant, clods of earth exploding overhead, I pulled out festering old roots, snaking choking vines, and snapped brittle branches one by one.

There is nothing to be done about the weight of tasks that loom over us, day in and day out. One must simply plod through the laundry, the bills and the contractor meetings.

But sometimes, the only way to get to Still is to go out and exert control over one tiny corner of your world. Tidy the garden. Ready it for the quiet winter season.

Sometimes, the most direct path to a small corner of Stillness is the path of action.

Go. Pull some weeds.

Stillness {Day 6}: Stillness and Study

2011-10-06T22:32:00.000-05:00

I attend a class once a week that challenges me as much as any college course. Any course in my post-grad degree, come to that.

As a teenager, as a young adult, never in a hundred years would I have imagined that a class like this would be the thing that feeds me on a weekly basis.

It is 2 hours in my week that creates the space for me to think critically, think carefully, and to read and re-read the texts. In this space I am able to apprehend deeper wisdom through the exchange of ideas, through the study of the text, through the encouragement to examine critically ideas that we've held as Truth our entire lives.

It is 2 hours of Stillness in my week. A space in which I am forced to still my mind - to leave my to-do lists, my phone calls, and my cherished iPhone alone - and to open my mind to knowledge, insight, and new thought.

This is Stillness. Stillness of the most generative sort.

It's a bible study at my church, led by our pastor and populated by some of the smartest people I know.

I didn't want to tell you about this part of my life. Was a little kvetchy about admitting such an active part in my faith. But as I sat there this morning, in the first class this fall, I understood that I have found a place of Stillness like no other. It is part of who I am, and what feeds me.

It is Stillness of the First Order, and I just had to tell you about it.

Stillness {Day 5} : Not Still at all

2011-10-05T22:07:00.000-05:00

I knew there'd be days like this. Knew it from the minute I decided on my 31 Days topic.

Nothing wrong with today in the slightest - bright sunshine at long last, preschoolers playing together nicely, a few things accomplished.

But no stillness. It was a busy busy day, full of kids and errands and school and laundry and... just normal. No moments of insight, no flashes where I think to myself this. THIS! and know I've found my Still for the day.

But maybe it is there all along, on those days where there are no flashes, no insights. The days that tick along gently, with crisp autumn air [finally!] pouring through open windows, little girls who have nothing more to break their hearts than a territory battle over a tower of pillows, big kids who do their homework without gnashing of teeth.

This is its own version of Still: a quiet mind that navigates its day without major complaint. A contented heart that didn't realize its happy state until the quiet moments of the day in review reveal that actually?

There was stillness all along.

Stillness {Day 4}: Happy, and Still, all at once

2011-10-04T22:34:00.002-05:00

A hundred folding seats on a flagstone terrace. A wedding swirling with guests, drinks, canapes. Flashes from cameras blink across the crowd. Thrumming music surrounds the space, and knives forks and glasses clink amongst the tables.

A wedding is a happy time, surely - but a time for Stillness?

Oh yes.

The very smallest of still moments as a star-struck nine year old sees herself dressed in flower girl finery, satin slippers on feet and roses in her curled hair.

The moment of still when the bride shyly turns around in her dress and every woman in the dressing room gasps, their eyes welling with full heartedness.

The quiet stillness of a bride adjusting the veil herself, lost in a reflection that goes far deeper than the mirror's offering.

The moment of still as music stops, guests turn their heads simultaneously, a single beat singing out before they see her.

The stillness as the bride arrives at the front, stunning under a thin layer of tulle. For an instant, she is uniquely her, most beautifully her, and singularly transformed by her joy. That instant right there, she could equally be every bride through history - every woman who is absolutely certain of the love she claims as hers, there at the altar.

That brief second in the first dance, where the groom forgets his concentration on the dance steps and instead is completely absorbed in the amazing gift that is the person dancing with him.

I can't even describe how stunning this bride was, y'all

The remarkable stillness of a crowd absorbing a toast crafted from the heart, emotion suffusing every single word offered.

Make no mistake: there are many moments of Stillness in a wedding. It takes a careful heart to find them, and to treasure them, but oh they are there!

Those moments of stillness - of concentrated joy and gratefulness - bring us to deeper moments of joy within ourselves, when we remember, or at least remember to believe in, the possibilities of a transformative love like that.

On a wedding day, deep in each of our hearts, we ask questions of love. Those moments of stillness? They are the answers.

Stillness {Day 3}: Humans in Flight

2011-10-03T22:29:00.001-05:00

Spent my day flying. There was a cabin-full of people, all sat still for five hours from LA to Washington. At the beginning of the flight, after all the boarding and the polite would you like the window seat?, the captain asks all electronic devices be switched off.

For 10 minutes. And then, blessed relief, all can be switched on again, each of us with our own seat of headphones, our own "electronic devices", our own little spheres of existence.

All of us, sat in our seats, carefully buckled in. Parked in one spot for the next five hours.

This is stillness, right?

No. Not, not still in the slightest.

A cabin full of passengers, each with their own small screen in front of them where you can dial up games, movies, satellite tv - the latest on Jersey Shore, dontcha know - for the entire flight. You can even click little buttons to let the cabin staff know that you'd like a drink, please. 2 minutes later, your tonic water wordlessly turns up and with a pleasant smile, the steward is on his way.

This is not stillness.

Stillness is not Not Moving. Stillness involves consciousness. Stillness involves, well, being still. In heart, in mind, in body. It doesn't mean watching a whole movie from start to finish. It means allowing yourself the space to say I'm not going to watch. I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to type. I will simply be here, and be aware of all that is going on around me, and all that is in my head.

A scary proposition, this. For those of us with phones that can look up anything, present us with information and emails and 'pokes' on a non-stop basis, it is a scary thing to turn it all off.

I sat for a moment, in my seat, looking around at the screens in every seat in front of me. I thought about making my 9 year old next to me switch off to play Bananagrams instead. And then, sadly, I pulled out my laptop instead, switched on my iTunes, and plugged in. Stillness escaped, once again, but just for that split second I saw how elusive, how very slippery, the stillness is.

It slips away.

Stillness {Day 2}: A History of Still

2011-10-03T00:33:00.001-05:00

"Hurry is not of the devil; it is the devil." (Carl Jung 1875-1961)

It occurred to me that maybe explaining why I wanted to meditate on Stillness for these 31 Days might be helpful. Some of you lifers may remember when I originally posted this two years ago, but for those of you new to NilsenLife, here's the original seed of Stillness:

********

I'm just going to say this: I behave terribly when it is time to get little people out the door. Partly because I'm always running just slightly late, always underestimating the time it takes to find one pink Croc, the 2 Very Special Playmobil Guys who are to travel with us, and the big sister who is Officially A Bit Dreamy. Partly because no one seems to grasp just how important it IS to get somewhere on time. Partly because no matter how many times it fails, I keep believing that yelling/sighing/stomping (I know, mature, right?) will actually change the outcome.

In fact, I think this ineffective yelling/sighing/stomping sort of behavior has been a bit of a hallmark of the last year or so. A development that doesn't necessarily fill me with pride.

So this was my Mother's Day present this year:

It is a Lisa Leonard necklace, titled "Be Still." I have worn it almost daily since that day in May - it is beautiful, and a sweet little accessory, but it has become a talisman to me. A meditation, if you will, to remind me in its weight against my collarbone that what is required of this moment is to simply Be Still.

It is so hard for any of us to be still.

Those of us with kids are fully occupied by the next activity, the next fight, the next birthday party. Those of us who work are stressing the next deadline, the next phone call, the next meeting. All of us have homes with dishes, with laundry, with bills to be paid, with projects large and small. We all sit with our computers, clicking from tab to tab, instant messaging-emailing-shopping-Facebooking-blogging. Maybe the TV is on for good measure, just in case all the websites go silent at once.

Psychic busy-ness is a specialty of mine: with worry, with guilt, with blame, with doubt. Yet none of those pursuits will bring me to stillness.

Most just avoid stillness through its antithesis: hurry. We are hurrying to the next thing, hurrying to finish, in a hurry to cook, in a hurry to eat, in a hurry to live.

Really, many have addressed this topic far more eloquently, more deeply than I can. For starters, try this post over at Zen Habits:

We are always on, always connected, always thinking, always talking. There is no time for stillness — and sitting in front of a frenetic computer all day, and then in front of the hyperactive television, doesn’t count as stillness.
This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation, for observing and listening. We lose peace.

I am trying to find Still.

I started this post long ago, right after I got the necklace and I wanted to tell you about my new meditation tool. I'd been doing a lot of thinking about how to preserve stillness in my life, in my kids' lives. I'd been regretting my need to hurry, wondering how I could carve out stillness for my home. And then....I got busy. And hurried. And then I got an email, just ahead of a particularly busy weekend. And this is the photo that greeted me when I clicked 'open':

In every faith, in every tradition, there exists in some form this exhortation - this command: Be Still. It is a command designed to give us nothing less than our lives.

Stop. Cease. Slow Down.

Rest.

31 Days of Stillness

2011-10-02T00:27:00.001-05:00

I've come up with a new harebrained scheme. The scheme itself isn't so harebrained, but the fact that I am trying to launch it whilst in Southern California for a family wedding, trying to post a blog before rushing off to rehearsal dinner and introducing the babysitter to the assembly of cousins she'll be watching? That's the harebrained bit.

So. A bunch of bloggers, inspired by The Nester and her blog series last October, have banded together to participate in 31 Days - a month of blog posts on a theme.

I've been thinking about the idea of Stillness for a while now. (Maybe all mothers of young kids think about stillness on a daily basis?) So for thirty-one days I'll be meditating on Stillness in our lives. I'd love to have you all along on the ride. Some days in my life offer more chance for reflection than others; on the uniquely non-still days we may have to content ourselves with a photo of a small moment of stillness in my day.

Today, in the midst of preparations, here was my small moment of stillness:

A beautiful lunch with the loveliest of friends, in the California sunshine.

Kids singing together, toddlers stripping in the paddling pool, soccer balls ricocheting.

Here was the stillness we needed, stillness in the presence of friends, and their kids.

Stillness of heart, knowing you are in a place where you are loved.

The very happiest kind of stillness.

No One Said It Would Be Easy

2011-09-20T20:43:00.004-05:00

Things like rocket science, investment banking, brain surgery - these are tough. Widely acknowledged to be challenging pursuits: those requiring a whole mess of education.

Raising a family - nurturing a crowd of respectful, inquisitive and creative future citizens of the Earth. Eating dinner together. Fostering connection with those next to you, those around you, those in your daily round. This is the easy stuff, right?

Today was a typical Tuesday afternoon here at the Yellow House: shouts of THE BUS!!! sprints to meet The Big Sister, rapid fire debriefing/homework/snack and then dashing back out the door to track down playmates. I managed the politics of three year olds in the sandbox, and whilst slapping at post-Irene late September mosquitoes, my mind wandered dangerously close to the Big Ideas that loiter in the shadows of half-thought and distraction.

I blinked twice and it was already 6.10 - far too late to be starting dinner but the very soonest it could've happened. Crouching in front of the fridge I waited to be inspired, then gave up & started heating tomato sauce, water to boil pasta, sliced zucchini to steam.

Then it was 7, and the lights were quieted through the house. My three kids sat, and somehow all the glow of the late evening centered itself around our long table. Tonight the candles - so often forgotten and left unlit - cast a spell that meant silliness spilled onto the plates more than salt. Our youngest held the floor as she told us all about her first day of preschool; Lars told us about his first official math test of 1st grade, and Ms ThreeDaysAwayFromNINE explained Brief Constructed Responses to mystified parentals.

I took a break from the milk pouring, the cheese grating, the Use-Your-Napkin reminders. I listened with all my heart - to the giggles, the elementary school jokes, the older two remembering their first days at preschool - and the truth shouted at me all around the table.

It isn't easy. In so many ways it's 1000% more difficult than rocket science or brain surgery because there are no rules, no degrees one can get that teach you how to build a family. That teach you how important the Tuesday night penne & marinara meal will be in the piece-by-piece construction of a life.

It's a beautiful quote from that Annie Dillard on writing: no one ever said it would be easy.

No one ever did.

Not the writing, not the parenting, not the building of a life.

No one ever said it would be easy. But the hard makes every living moment of our dinner time tonight worth it.

*******************

Time for Just Write again tonight my friends. I was humbled beyond measure by all the kind comments on the post last week, after such a very long time away from the keyboard. This may be a less lyrical attempt, but inspired by Heather and the incredible Annie Dillard, tonight I had to Just Write all over again. Until next time.

On Harvest Moons and writing

2011-09-13T08:34:00.001-05:00

My eldest and I gasped simultaneously.

Did you see that Mommy??

I did, sweetheart. It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

A huge harvest moon had just begun its ascent, and hung right above the horizon. Luminous in the dusky blue of a September evening.

I almost pulled the swagger wagon over to the side of the road, just to look. In and out of the trees it seemed to bob and weave - or maybe it was me bobbing and weaving. And then, for a long stretch on I95 I had an uninterrupted view.

I watched that moon from the corner of my eye as I drove.

Its glow seemed so self contained. The huge circle hung in the sky, not gold not yellow not orange. Just....the color of warm light itself. The moon seemed to have no compulsion to cast shadows, to spotlight anyone or anything. It seemed content to glow within itself, guarding a secret knowledge of the autumn to come, the long winter beyond it and a spring that will surely come.

I want to live like that harvest moon, I found myself thinking. I want the inner glow, the self possession that doesn't include bright flashy sunbeams cast on those around me, but rather inspires them to glow themselves.

But. But. I know that that spark within me, the origin of the glow is the writing. And honestly, that light has been dim for such a long time. Every time I sit down to write anything, I start, then sigh, and stare at a blank screen. I hit delete-delete-delete-delete and keep that moon from rising on the horizon with its radiance and indescribable color.

Just write. Its a message I have muttered to myself so often in the past six months. Just write. And yet the darkness feels unshakeable - a total eclipse, if you will. It doesn't mean the moon has gone away - it simply means it is obliterated temporarily by the brilliance of others in its orbit - by the roles of mother wife daughter teacher.

So here it is. I'm just writing. Inspired, as with so many other years, by the reflections of autumn, by the wisdom gleaned in gathering days, by those around me who urge me to Just Write.

**********************

Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary - a blogger who makes me laugh like few others, and then choke up with tears with her very next post - yesterday put a challenge out there. Can you do it? she asked. Can you let go of your inner critic, of your daily routine just for a moment, and Just Write?

I am so grateful to have someone ask that simple question, the night I talked with the harvest moon.

Swimming for someone else

2011-08-06T22:09:00.001-05:00

Remember when I got that Achilles injury and I whined about it so much that a bunch of people blocked me from their Facebook feed and then I did this really philosophical post about a season of healing?

Well I'm still not healed. The Achilles, I mean. That thing still swells up like a pregnant woman in a Baltimore summer when I run.

But the good news is that ~~Torbjorn insisted~~ I got to take up swimming again ~~because I was driving him bananas~~, as a way to keep working out without straining the old ankles.

And, because I can absolutely be peer pressured into anything (um, don't ask, Mom. Love you!), I agreed to swim a two mile race. Two miles, you scoff. Pah. Well. Consider that two miles translates into 3218.688 meters. Which translates into 128.747 lengths of a 25 meter pool. (Well really you have to make that 129 lengths because honestly - who's the nerd who's going to stop at 128.7 and say Hey that's it, I am D.O.N.E. DONE! ?? )

So. Two miles.

The race is Purple Swim Baltimore, and is an event to raise awareness and funding for research into pancreatic cancer. In 2010, over 43000 Americans were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and less than 25% will survive the first year. I signed up with no first hand awareness of life with cancer. I just thought it would be a great swim, and I could do a little bit of good with it.

I underestimated. To use words like 'overwhelmed' and 'amazed' when I look at the amount of money donated to the cause by my very own friends and family? Understatements. I am nothing less than humbled. And inspired beyond measure to go out and swim for all of us.

Because life is funny. In the weeks since I signed up, cancer has come to visit with an uncle I love dearly. Now, in case I needed any more motivation, I have first hand knowledge of the way cancer snakes fingers around hearts and squeezes in dark and scary ways.

I've got exactly twelve hours until I swim. Two long ~~shark infested~~ ~~ruled by pirates~~ open water miles. I'm excited. Excited to do just a little thing to make it better, a good and difficult but still a small thing, in a very big world.

Pre-swim Purple

If you would like to contribute, you can click here to support PurpleSwim Baltimore and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. (The page is open for 90 days after the swim, so even if you're slow on the clicker, you've still got time.) (But not that much time. Get on it!)

Look before you Leap

2011-07-28T05:28:00.000-05:00

Fifteen years ago today I made the single best choice of my life.

We were young - so young.

We had so many big dreams (and so few actual plans).

Yet I knew - we knew - with a certainty of instinct that comes from your deepest gut.

Together we stood at the edge of everything - stood holding hands, me wiping tears and him in a cold sweat of nervousness - and we leapt.

Yes, we looked before we leapt. We looked out into a future entirely uncertain, found no promises or answers there, and looked at each other. Here, at the edge of everything there were two people who delighted in each other daily, who laughed together hourly, who told each other outrageous stories and darkest secrets. Here were two newly-minted adults without the wisdom of years or experience, but possessed of the inexplicable confidence that this - this! - was Quality.

Two people leapt that day, out into the unknown. Through updrafts and downdrafts, through terrifying spins toward the ground and through exhilarating swoops towards the heavens, we live out that leap, every single day.

There is no other hand I'd rather be holding.

Happy Anniversary, Mr Nilsen.

eight and three quarters

2011-06-25T22:07:00.000-05:00

watching her in motion is like watching two ostriches do cartwheels - all long legs and arms waving around of their own volition.

long long long feet rest on her flip flops, showing me all the growing that is still to come. three sizes, she grew this school year. three shoe sizes.

mosquito bites make a point-to-point map up and down her shins, meeting at the matching bandaids on both knees.

the denim miniskirt, so big she had to tie it on in the fall rides high - almost too high - this summer. A hand-me-down Hollister t-shirt from her cooler, older neighbor friends up the street has been chosen over all the sweet flowered blouses in her drawer.

the [finally] long hair meets her shoulders, the summer blonde streaks starting to shimmer throughout - it was carefully brushed this morning. i recognize the calculated nonchalance of hair tucked behind ears Just. So. instantly, i remember those painful early days of knowing you want to look a certain way, but having no idea how to make it happen.

her smooth cheeks slope over razor-like cheekbones she got from her dad. i watch the dark brown eyes follow everything that goes on around her, exactly as they did when she was six months old. even now, so serious, she can't help the way they sparkle with curiosity, with challenge, with imagination.

she folds those knobby knees underneath her as she sits, graceful when she's not thinking about it. she's completely unaware of my gaze - rare for her these days, with a 3rd grader's budding knowledge of the world's perceptions and judgements. she is wise after a tough year at school, learned some life lessons far more critical than the second grade curriculum of math facts and reading strategies.

my changeling - changing. in front of me. so much the same as the day she was born, and yet ever a new creature in our lives. inexorably, she moves all of us to the next phase: a hazy future involving growth spurts, hormones, algebra. a life away from - outside of - us.

she'll never know the moments i have taken to study her. to etch her into my heart, the exact way she looks today. i haven't had enough moments of absorption, of making sure I know her. just today, just this split second, i caught my girl in mid flight, even as she begins to soar so far beyond us.

Uh, Dr Schneider? You're the BEST. love, your kid

2011-06-19T14:11:00.000-05:00

Did you notice that the Universe tilted just slightly askew last November?

I'm not sure I remember any natural disasters that happened then, or any particular blip in the stock market, but I can say without question that the world hasn't been quite the same since November 2010, because that's when my dad retired.

Ah big deal, you say. He's a baby boomer - those guys are dropping out of the work world like dozy August flies.

But my dad, every day of his working life, changed someone's life for the better. Every single day.

My dad was - is - a pediatrician. For forty years he prodded small baby bellies, palpated big kid sprained ankles, took countless histories from overwrought and sleepless new parents, and gently broke bad news to families. He worked in hospitals, as the single pediatrician in a town way out in the country, as a family practitioner in a busy Maryland suburb.

He was that amazing doctor who chatted with siblings in the examining room, took the time to find out family stories, who had boundless patience with the parent who had endless questions. He encouraged moms to listen to their gut instincts, and he thoroughly enjoyed dads who wanted to be part of the parenting journey.

Most of all, he loved - loves - children: all sizes, all ages, all stages. When he left his practice, the parents in our part of the world lost one of those doctors who would value your family to his core, and do everything in his power to make your child well.

When he retired, I think I couldn't quite believe it. He'd made the decision 6 months earlier, and none of it came as a surprise. So I missed my chance to tell you this story back in November, because I was still getting used to the idea.

But I realized I don't share much about my dad here, in these stories I tell. I'll often see him three times a week, and yet I don't often include tales of this person who has been such a huge part of my life, and so incredibly formative in my growth as a parent.

My sweet mom & dad. Aren't they cute?

But this week, this week. I decided I had to tell you what a gift my dad has been to me this week.

In the midst of CT scans and blood tests and a spinal tap (all for The Boy, not me), my dad has been my ally, my advisor, and my motivator to go out and advocate for my child. To make sure that I had the information I needed, and had the confidence to fight to say you will figure out what's wrong with my kid. Who has called every single morning to check on his little patient. Who has remained calm even though I knew with certainty he was as wild with worry as I was.

I can tell you many stories about a childhood filled with adventure, with endless activity, with sledding and hiking and canoeing and football and ... all of it. I can tell you about a dad who was wrapped around his only girl's finger on a pretty consistent basis (barring that tricky 13-17 era. Oh, and the time I crashed his truck.) I can tell you all about how he taught me how to change the horn (in self-same truck), check the oil (only one time I forgot. in a big style black-clouds-of-smoke on the PA Turnpike way), and to throw a baseball the right way.

The stories about what a loving grandfather he is? A whole 'nother book's worth of words.

But today I wanted to celebrate my dad not for the man he has been in my life, but for the man he has been in other's lives. Because this week I lived with that man, and I was so blessed. Am blessed.

House. And Home.

2011-06-13T21:33:00.001-05:00

Sunday night found us pulling up to the Yellow House after the third party in as many days. Kids were tired, hot, and weepy.

I squinted critically at the Great Prepare The House for Painting Project - whole swathes of cedar shingles in various stages of scraped or painted, giving passers-by the distinct impression of a bad case of mange.

On the way inside I kicked the kids' buckets, scooters and bike helmets out of the way disgustedly. A pigsty, I muttered darkly to myself. This place is a total pigsty. [A brief reality check here: who says pigs are so filthy? I mean, did you ever see a pig with a million dusty tchochkes on the shelves, or hear a pig complain about paying too much at the Container Store for organizing products?]

I heard the tap dripping upstairs, all the way from the front hallway, and set my purse down amongst the pool totes, reusable shopping bags, and backpacks cluttering the rug. Sure would be nice to have a hall closet for the kids to ignore, I groused.

Stupid house. Stupid old time-sucking money-hemorrhaging house.

And then.

Monday morning found me with a listless and crying six year old on my lap, pressing the sides of his throbbing head to somehow lessen the pain. Monday afternoon found me in the pediatrician's office, the lab to offer blood samples, and, by evening, a radiology center for further tests.

Honestly I didn't think much about my house, or the junk inside or the case of mange outside, this Monday morning. Didn't think at all about it, in fact, until I heard a wavery plea from the face buried in my neck: please take me home, Mommy. I just want to go home.

This was the refrain I heard all day, as we waited the long minutes for our name to be called. Please take me home, Mommy. I just want to go home.

To him it was not the stupid old time-sucking money-hemorrhaging house. To him it was rest, it was reassurance, it was cool darkness and sheets that smell like 'our' laundry detergent. Home had not the first thing to do with peeling paint or dripping taps.

Etsy.com

That's how this house works. Because this house is, to us, home.

************

This post is submitted as part of Peter Pollock's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival. The theme is 'Home', and although I've been pretty clear with all of you that my true home will always be England, there is a pretty charming little spot right here near Baltimore that's got a tight hold on my heart.

Pardon me, Madam, your neuroses are showing

2011-06-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Ah yes. There's a title to pull 'em in.

This spring was a strange ol' season. There was a fair bit of 'putting myself out there' - a big writing project for church, a reunion, a 10-week fiction workshop. Some of these went a little more successfully than others: the church thing went well. The reunion, super happy. The writing class, tragical crash n' burn.

What, you say? You crashed and burned at writing?? Why yes, yes I did. Somehow I might have convinced all of you that the words come burbling from me like a mountain stream straight out of Heidi, and that I am, in general, a wildly confident person cruising around town in my Swagger Wagon. If so, well, high fives. I didn't mean to trick you.

Actually, there are a fair few games that my head plays with me. And let me just say, my head does not play fair. In fact using the word 'games' seems to give it a little frisson of fun, which is misleading because my head's not such a fun playmate these days.

There's the sneaky procrastination game, where my head convinces me that absolutely, tonight after the kids are in bed I mean early tomorrow morning okay so maybe during naptime if you can distract Lars with your iPhone things will get written/researched/dealt with.

Then my head starts up with the you can'ts and you'll nevers and the what is your frakking point??s. Oh, and the constant sarcastic background noise of Awesome parenting, there, girlfriend. Keep it coming!

Add to this the standard (but usually quashed under layers of denial and willful ignorance) freakouts over finances (oh, a stay at home mom? hm. yes, the finances are always a source of freakout), over What Will I BE When I Grow Up, over ack, you know. Lots of things. I'm kind of a professional freaker-outer.

In a totally polished and cheerful and zen sort of way, of course.

Why do I share this with you? (See there? The what is your frakking point?? just popped up again.)

Well. There is a lot out there on the interwebs about how we only present our very bestest most perfect selves on our blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter. And this makes all the other people on the interwebs feel bad/anxious/depressed, imagining all of these perfect lives and being confronted with charming snapped-on-the-iPhone evidence of the perfection. (I am guilty of the iPhone snapping. Sorry.)

But for all of that perceived perfection, I'd hazard a guess that most of us are just people trying to get by. People doing the best they can, trying to ignore all the crazy in their head, one day at a time.

Maybe, just maybe, the sharing of small moments of joy has much less to do with lording my "perfect life" over yours, and more to do with trying to find whatever magic there is in my day. Maybe it is a reminder to myself that amidst the yelling and the eye rolling and the peanut butter sandwiches there are tiny little shards of brilliance: shards that, combined, make a gem of a life.

I'm thinking there must be those shards for all of us to gather.

I was not a Senior Hottie. I don't think.

2011-05-30T21:32:00.001-05:00

There's been this meme going around the interwebs this weekend called I Was Senior Hottie, and it's pretty funny - all these bloggers posting pictures from their high school graduations. There's a lot of late 80s and early 90s fashion going on in there: hair spray, standing-up-straight-bangs, and pouffy taffeta. My absolute favorite of the series is my pal Varda at The Squashed Bologna - not class of '97, not class of '87: try class of '77, baby. Aw yeah.

I'd pretty much decided against posting (just because most days I decide against posting. Sigh. Sorry, readers.) Then an old friend emailed this, late last night:

Yep that's me, sporting the lifeguard's usually-wears-sensible-one-piece tan. Mmmhmm. This was our senior class trip, to Florida. (You can tell it's me there in the middle, because I am twice as long as the other two. Why are the women in my life so petite?)

So fine then, let's go ahead and post a graduation picture, complete with hairsprayed bangs and white pantyhose:

Class of '91 represents, with my sweet grandma

What's the point of all this nonsense? you're wondering. So what about your high school grad photos? Even if you did post a half-nekked beach one?

Here's the thing, peeps.

Never told you much about my reunion weekend, did I? It was great - a good time had by all (I think). It was silly and brief and all the things you want reunions to be. There was a monsoon and my hair looked like hell all weekend, but whatevs.

There was one flash of insight, twenty years later. Over the weekend I remembered just how incredibly multicultural my class was: Indian, African-American, African, Korean, West Indian, and yeah, Caucasian. My group of friends mirrored this mix, and we had a good time. The differences in our skin color never seemed to matter very much.

My flash of insight was this: in the midst of all this gorgeous ethnicity, there wasn't a huge demand for oversized preppy white girls. Just wasn't the going currency, if you see what I mean. So I managed to get through most of those horrible high school years not thinking I was any kind of 'high school hottie.' Far from it.

And here's the best part of that - when you go through high school without being particularly worried about this, it frees up a huge amount of psychic space for sports, for student government, and yeah, for um...school.

Now - before I get away from this post scot-free, claiming I trod the vanity-free high road, I will absolutely hold up my hand and affirm that 14-18 year olds are notoriously narcissistic, and therefore of course I worried about my looks. Of course I spent way too long peering into the mirror. But somehow all those hours with my Paul Mitchell Awapuhi hair spray seemed not to result in a very positive takeaway image.

And that's ok.

Yep. By the look of these photos, if big blondes are your thing then maybe I was a High School Hottie. But, quite simply, I'm just happy that it was something I didn't believe back then.

Comfort Food

2011-05-23T06:16:00.000-05:00

A fraught grumpy evening, a stormy exchange. An irrational, angry response that prompts sudden, heartbroken sobs - the kind that require flinging one's eight year old body onto the bed full length and letting shoulders heave.

I can only apologize. And I do.

I hold my girl on my lap and say I'm so sorry I acted that way.

The shuddering sighs come that signal the end of the weeping, and still we sit, rocking together on the bed. And then: Mommy, I'm hungry.

Well sweetie then you should have eaten more at supper. We're done eating today.

No, I did eat enough supper. I'm just hungry for....something.

Oh sweet girl. I can tell you what you are hungry for: you are hungry for security, for feeling loved, for feeling happy with your place in the world, for feeling content, for feeling accepted.

Instead, your body says that it is hungry for Ben & Jerry's, for BBQ Pringles, for Twizzlers, for Froot Loops. Maybe for hunks of salami hacked off, pinched together with thick slices of cheddar. Maybe dark chocolate truffles dusted in cocoa. Maybe a whole pan of Rice Krispie Treats.

So at 8, I get to teach you about the concept of comfort eating. The mother who swore not to bring her own food issues, her own body image issues into our relationship? Yep. That mom gets to explain that your body swears it is hungry, but hungry for the things you won't find in the fridge. That you can eat all evening long and still not fill that hole.

Will you remember learning this? When you are far away in a college dorm someday and reeling from a broken heart or a horrible job interview, will you remember that the hunger isn't going to be fed at the drive-thru?

I wonder about this, later, sitting on the couch licking raw cookie dough off my spoon.

Ready?

2011-05-18T22:35:00.000-05:00

Every new parent's heard it: don't compare your baby with others. Every child reaches milestones in their own timeframe. Different kids will achieve at different times.

Easy enough for your pediatrician to say. Easy enough for those crazy authors of What to Expect From The First Year. Living bloody hell for the poor parent sitting on the floor at the weekly playgroup wondering why the hell Baby Quinn is walking!! in her RileyRoos while your kid is sitting happily in front of you, clapping his heart out but headed nowhere.

And so it goes. Eventually you might have another kid or two that distracts you from obsessing about those ages & stages. Maybe you don't have any more, but you still might just get over yourself and decide to smugly leave the front door wide open, safe in the knowledge that Little Ozzy won't crawl out on your watch.

And then.... then they get to preschool. Maybe you've been lucky enough to land at a preschool where they encourage play, and keep up the messages that you're doing fine by letting your kid splash in soapsuds all morning and dig in dirt in the afternoon. Maybe you've landed at one of these schools where the teachers worriedly lean into the minivan at pick up and ask if there is maybe a chance you could be practicing more of the letter sounds at home? Maybe that makes you more comfortable, to hear these oblique queries - makes you feel your 4 year old is actually getting a jump on education.

Ok, so now, fast forward to that summer before kindergarten. You mention to an acquaintance or two that you're a little worried about readiness. That maybe this modern world of all day kindergarten might be a bit much for your sweet Ebenezer. I would put money on the next question: but when is his birthday?

As in, surely the information about where in the calendar year his birthday falls will be the final say on his readiness for the world of formal schooling.

Where, all of the sudden, has the gentle talk of 'ages and stages' gone? Is this something we grow out of - getting the benefit of the doubt? Of being given the gift of time to mature and grow on our own little timeframe, different though it may be?

All of the sudden I find myself deep in the mire of a pedagogical debate, all about whether readiness for kindergarten is such a big deal. About what actually happens in that mystical magical kindergarten classroom, which is often billed as the great equalizer for 5 and 6 year olds across the land.

This I believe: kids are different - at all ages, at all stages. There is simply no way a school system or a tutoring business can address this and get everyone to the same starting line.

I am just a parent and a blogger, listening to that small voice inside that says 'maybe The School isn't always 100% right'. But I'll tell you: I've got some heavy hitters doing research that supports me in this apparent lunatic idea. First, I've got Sir Ken Robinson himself, diagramming all the holes in the current education system.

Then, today, one of our favorite advocates for childhood, Classic Play, wrote all about why your 3-year old doesn't actually have to learn how to read this year. (There are some excellent links in this article to current early childhood education research.)

So. I don't have a heavy message for you to take away tonight. Just a gentle reminder, a crazy old idea, that regardless of their age, maybe giving your kid a year to play may be the very most powerful tool for success at school.

She's EIGHT. But she can't go to school naked.

2011-05-15T21:46:00.001-05:00

So I dithered on posting about this.

As she gets older, I want to respect her privacy - recognize that she won't want all her business out there for the blog world to read. (Already getting the wary "are you going to blog about this?" or the cheesy poses, as she yells "put this picture on Facebook!" Yikes.)

Anyway.

It's spring. She grew. Not like, 'oooh those pants are getting a tad short' grew - more like, 'honey are those shorts a little long or are the they pants I JUST BOUGHT YOU IN JANUARY?'

So she needs new clothes. Ok, not 'needs' like she needs a new toothbrush, but hey - I'm a tall girl and a little sensitive about making tall kids wear too-short trousers.

So I spend two hours of MY FREE TIME, and I buy her new clothes. Not cheap clothes, because I'm a little old fashioned in this way, and I hate when t-shirts fall apart in the washer after wearing them twice. But, we're not talking Gucci or Ralph Lauren stuff here either.

I give her the bag. She makes the snottiest face. She says "ugh. I guess I'd wear that. Maybe like... once a month."

People? I had to walk out of the room. I WAS THAT MAD.

Where do I go from here? Seriously - looking for advice on this one. Do I just let her pick out what she wants (glitter, sparkles, the Shar-Pei line) at Target? Do I give a big speech about looking for well-made seams and lining in dresses? How do I deliver the message that it is not ok to be snotty (and/or snobby?!?! about your clothes) at THE TENDER AGE OF EIGHT??

Coming up hard against the perplexities of raising girls these days, and coming up short of answers.

*******
This confused little rant is part of the Stream of Consciousness Sunday posts over at All Things Fadra. Bunch of posts this week, on all sorts of stuff. Check it out!

Humble

2011-05-08T06:16:00.000-05:00

Someone forgot to brief the stupid cat that it's ~~National Sleeping In Day~~ Mother's Day.

Since I'm up, I thought I'd go ahead & do my Stream of Consciousness Sunday post.

*********

I want to write a Mother's Day post. I do. I sat down 67 times yesterday to write a Mother's Day post to all my lovely friends who do that mothering thing, and each time I sat, I wondered - what do I say to them that we haven't all heard thousands of times before? That we don't know already?

Yes, mothering is the toughest job there is. Yes, it changes everything. (Thank you Johnson & Johnson for that deep little insight into our existence). Yes it does 'go so fast.'

But what I am only starting to grasp about mothering - although the lessons started the day that little changeling was born - is how profoundly humbling the task is.

Humbling.

Find me any mother out there who thinks she has done it perfectly. Find me the very most confident, naturally-gifted mama, and in promise you that in the late night hours, the hours when we are most alone with our bare thoughts she will admit that she's afraid she messed up big. Could have done it better.

I can't think of a single life experience that makes you question, on every level, almost daily, if you are doing the right thing. Wondering if, in ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, you will be able to look at your child and say - I did it right.

But here's what I want to tell you, all of you gorgeous mother's out there on Mother's Day: I guarantee you did it with love. Whether you are finished, whether you are just starting out, whether you're right in the thick of potty training or pubescent angst, whether you're kissing your child on graduation weekend, whether you're wondering if your grandchildren will call:

You did it - do it - with love. This I know for sure.

And surely, this is all that can be asked of a human, caring for another human: I did it with love.

*********

Happy Mother's Day - to my own beautiful mother who shows superhuman amounts of love, always; to my mom friends who get me through this adventure with, yep, love (and um, snarking and wine); to all the moms out there on the interwebs who may come across this today.

My Mother's Day flowers: peonies make me smile like nothing else.

Back to the Water

2011-04-27T15:32:00.001-05:00

I've talked to you about water before. Talked to you about swimming. Talked to you about the pool, about the pond, about the lake.

For about a year now, I've been thinking a lot about water. About the chaos the ocean represented to ancient peoples, the total absence of control. About suspension within the depths, both literally and figuratively. I hinted at it in this post: hinted at what it means to go deep, below the surface, simultaneously floating but also deliberately diving down.

Somewhere in there is a big story - deep in my writer's heart it seems clear that I'll find my story in the water.

In the meantime, I found a more prosaic way to go meet the water. I finally sucked it up and re-joined my local Y. What took me so long? I wondered this morning. Swimming is an action that lives deep in my DNA, and my body does it without thinking. I sliced my arms into the water, over and over, feeling the familiar burn in my triceps, feeling an unfamiliar burn in my lungs from weeks of inactivity. What took me so long to come back to the water?

“Artists and athletes speak of something called “flow.” When they are deeply involved in what they are doing, time ceases to exist. So does their sense of themselves as separate from what they are doing……..Awareness blooms, as the individual self escapes its confines to become part of something bigger than the self.” – Barbara Brown Taylor – An Altar in the World
This morning, I didn't miss pounding the pavement in my Nikes. Didn't miss the iPod or my playlists. Didn't miss the sweat streaming down my face. I do miss running. I may get back on the road someday, after a long season of healing. But the silver lining has been re-discovering the place where I flow.

The water welcomed me back. Here, it whispered. Here is where you will find your own depths.

Diving in: Summer 2010

Church & Chocolate: The Easter Recap

2011-04-24T22:02:00.000-05:00

So totally missed the Stream of Consciousness Sunday post last week when all y'all were seriously on the edge of your seats waiting to hear about the reunion. But I was still reunionioning, people! The ladies had one last night of antipasto and drinks before everyone returned to real life.

Determined to avoid that whole strike-while-the-iron-is-cold phenomenon this week, I'm going to go ahead and give you an Easter recap so that your teeth can ache too when you see all the sugar involved in the celebrating.

Ready? Here goes.

*********

Top Ten Observations about Easter 2011

10) Yet again I did not get my act together: did not produce handmade & hand-decorated sugar cookies, origami paper carrots, or homemade hot cross buns. Til next year, then.

9) No one likes hot cross buns. Scratch last item off list.

8) Filling Easter baskets without buying big-ticket items like a Wii console or a pony means either 1) small pieces of plastic junk they do NOT need but are wildly attracted to for 5 minutes or 2) going with the 99% sugar, 1% high fructose corn syrup solution. We went with option 2 this year. Oh, and pencils. Easter-themed pencils.

7) They can spend the morning eating sugary items. They can be offered cookies with brunch, and chocolate rabbits until they bleed brown, and still at the end of Easter dinner one of them is guaranteed to ask me in a stage whisper "is there going to be any dessert?"

6) You know an Easter sermon will stay with you all year long when it includes a Wittgenstein quote that moves you to tears.

5) Six year old boys will still wear what their mother says, bless their cotton socks. Even if it means [gasp!] a sweater vest. [what? pictures, you say? well that would assume that the Nilsens could keep their act together from one Major Event to another & keep track of the cable to transfer pictures. But I'm really not annoyed about it. Not at all.]

4) Matching Easter dresses makes the daunting task of raising girls pretty much worth it. [picture, you say? see above.]

3) Girls matching? Intentional. That the entire family wore light blue? Vaguely silly and totally unplanned. But kinda cute. [Really. stop asking about the pictures. It's becoming a sore point around here.]

*********

Gah! Just like that, we are finished our five minutes, people, and me only at Number Three. Sorry 'bout that. I'll just let you get back to finishing your own Easter celebrations (or not). I myself am heading to finish off those Malted Milk Robins Eggs. Arguably the best Low Quality High Chemical Candy Product on the market.

Oh the places you'll go!

2011-04-19T21:29:00.004-05:00

aha... see there? I tricked you. You clicked over thinking you'd get a sweet post-reunion recap, didn't you? Well that's coming friends, but tonight I'm trying desperately to write something for my fiction class, and that's not going quite as smoothly as I was pretending it would.

There's a blog carnival going on, all about Adventure, at Peter Pollock's site, and I would highly recommend you go over there and be an armchair traveller for a few minutes. As for me, I'm giving y'all a repost, but until I can pick just which of the many adventures Mr Nilsen's dragged me along on, this just about says it all:

ADVENTURE

Say you're a girl who likes a routine. Say you're the kinda gal who might run the same route every day for 2 years, just because you love knowing exactly how many miles you've run, how fast you've run it, and knowing right when the hills can be expected.

Say you're the kind of person who loves to know what's happening today, tomorrow, and the next day. The kind of person who tries not to cringe when an acquaintance casually says, "Oh, we'll just figure it out when we get there." What? No plan? Ack ack ack ack ack.

You may be the kind of person who is mortified by these tendencies. You may wish daily that you were a fly-by-the-seat-of-yer-pants kinda gal. You may wish that it didn't give you an ulcer to be lost in a strange city, or to rushing for a flight, unsure if you'll make it in time. You may watch people who operate without a wristwatch with envy, wondering if it EVER bothers them not to know what time it is, or if they're late, or how many minutes it is until their next appointment.

It's funny how life works. Because say you're that kind of person, and you fall in love with a person who approaches life in exactly the opposite way: someone who always flies by the seat of their pants, someone who never knows where their watch/wallet/keys are, but lives in faith that these items will turn up eventually. Someone who hates to brush their teeth the same way twice, much less drive the same road, run the same course, or wear the same shoes two days in a row.

These two opposites might get married, might delight in this particular element of opposite-ness, and might make a darn good life from it.

And then might come a cosmic event where the kids had a day off from school, the Farmor would be in town from Norway, and the forecast for the beach would be sunny sunny sunny.

Then the Seat of Pants Man may come up with the bright idea of taking off for the ocean - driving into the night, and then spending tomorrow at the beach. Mrs OCD might struggle mightily with ditching her schedule, with leaving all of her routines at home, with just "throwing sleeping bags into the car" and driving off towards the coast.

But she will do it.

Because man oh man does she love the adventures that Mr Seat of the Pants comes up with. She loves that he has passion for possibilities as-yet-undiscovered, and loves that he ignores (in the nicest way possible) her protestations of practicality.

So we're off, dear readers. Off on our next adventure. Look for photos of the Not-Plan soon.

Reunions: A Spanx-free post

2011-04-16T07:08:00.000-05:00

With the whole boot thing, and a handy little running hiatus along with it, I've been joking with people at church that I gave up vanity for Lent. (This is screamingly funny to a Presbyterian, maybe a Catholic; the rest of you can just nod and smile politely until I get to the real post.)

Here's the thing. I have my 20th High School Reunion this weekend. And instead of heading into the weekend in the best shape of my life with a big half-marathon race a mere 3 weeks away, I'll be limping into the festivities with my fancy cast and sucking in my gut along with the best of 'em.

I totally forgot to crash diet or to get a boob job before this reunion thing. I even bailed on buying a new outfit. How's this for profound insight: I haven't seen most of these people since the Ten Year event. They won't know whether or not I wore this outfit 6 days in a row last week! Pure genius.

I did buy new shoes: the timeless and go-to salve for the pride of anyone ~~who may or may not have gained a pound a week in the time she wasn't running and ate a lot of Easter candy instead~~ who needs a little boost.

But here's another stunning revelation: the people I will see this weekend are not attending because they've heard rumors that Kirsten Nilsen nee Schneider bought new shoes. It's true. In fact, to preserve what little shred of self-dignity I've got left after this boot wearing incident, let's not even reflect on the percentage of people who are [gasp!] turning up to the reunion not even remembering that Kirsten Nilsen nee Schneider was in their class.

A classic yearbook shot, c1990: Yours Truly is bottom right with my ladies Clare & Andrea.

Which is all to say this: reunions are so not about me, or about you. Pride schmide, vanity schmanity. We are all going to look twenty years older. Those of us who spent our high school years lifeguarding are probably going to look twenty four years older. Lisa Lang will probably look as stunning this weekend as she did the day we graduated. Some people are just like that.

What this reunion will be is about connecting: revisiting those small moments in high school when you shared a joke with someone in Chem Lab, when you felt profound empathy for someone's embarrassment, when you watched someone navigate a crowded hallway with an inner grace that had nothing to do with their grades or popularity. Checking in with people who have lived unusual, adventurous and brave lives and admiring their moxie. Checking in with people like yourself who have lived entirely regular lives, the lives that probably could have been predicted in June 1991, but have made that their richly embroidered story nonetheless.

So remember this, all of you who feel that you don't want to go unless you're 20 lbs thinner, one marriage happier, 2 gorgeous kids richer. It's not about you, not really. It's about connecting as human beings - humans who knew each other at our most-raw, least-evolved time of life. There's gotta be something said for that kind of knowledge.

I think they call this 'Adventure'

2011-04-10T06:23:00.000-05:00

Sucking my teeth, I look down at the brown mosaic tile.

Mommy!!!!! I is STUCK! A three year old face peers out at me in the crack between door & stall frame.

Really sweetie? No. Just turn the handle. Yep, just turn that silver circle, right there.

No I can't, I STUCK!

I walk away to set down the handsful of stuff I'm holding for her. Cue panicky small voice: MOMMEEEEEE!! Where IS you? Note to self: will not be walking out of here to find a small-scale sibling to help.

I go back to the door, and to surveying the industrial brown tile. Considering the elementary school bathroom stall, scaled down to accommodate even the smallest of kindergarteners. Eyeing the 9 yards of fabric in the skirt of my Norwegian folk costume, worn for World Fair Day and our 'Norway' table. Fully conscious of the walking cast on my right foot.

Sigh.

I drop all 6 feet of me onto that elementary school bathroom floor. grab the door frame and slide myself underneath that small-scale stall. Good news: door so low that I can reach up and unlock it - easily. Bad news: door does not open out. Instead it swings in and cracks me on the noggin. Must slide myself back out. And promptly slam my cast against the opposite bathroom wall. Ow.

Ms. Three is unscathed, and giggly: I not need to pee, mama. I change my mind.

*******

Fifteen years married to Nilsen, and 8+ years of mothering: here's me thinking that climbing on my roof to break into my own house, flying to England with 2 kids under four, and breastfeeding on a speedboat in the rain might have filled my quota of mothering adventures. How foolish of me.

Anyway. Here we have my favorite part of the week these days: Stream of Consciousness Sundays. A 5-minute brain dump is right about my speed. Y'all should totally do it.

TV? We Don't need no Stinkin' TV!

2011-04-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

Alternative post title: Oops I Did it Again. You can read about my previous experimentation with this here.

*****

One request. There's only been one request in 48 hours.

This from the three kids who start every day with GoodMorningMomCanIwatchashow? The kids who happily could spend 3 hours in front of the tv. The kids who pick fights with each other all day long, but manage to compromise over what tv show and when because they know it'll get switched off in a hot minute if they fight about it.

Things generally get out of control around Christmas - extra vacation time, movie classics on TV, slow mornings, lazy (or burned out) parents. By February, after all the snow? We are at all time highs for viewing hours.

And I've had enough.

April is Turn Off The TV Month, I told 'em. Didn't even try to sell it as a science experiment this time. Just told 'em - the good weather's coming, and I'm sick of hearing about tv. Don't ask.

It's been 48 hours. They aren't crawling up the walls, they aren't locking themselves to my kitchen island in protest, they aren't even fighting with each other more.

We did it last year, in the middle of Snowmageddon - 28 days of no tv, no computer games, no sneaky time on Mommy's iPhone. Spending April the same way? Total cake walk.

She says.

*******

This is posted for Stream of Consciousness Sunday on all.things.fadra Just the trick to knock out the Sunday Night [With No TV] Blues.

Seriously, April? It's been too long.

2011-04-02T06:40:00.001-05:00

and, hey there, March? Um, don't let the door hit you on the backside on your way out.

Have never been so happy to see the beginning of April.

March.... well. March is just about the worst month on the calendar. It is the monthly equivalent of Tuesday in the work week. (My antipathy for Tuesday - every single blessed Tuesday - is a whole other post.)

I tried to work it, really I did. We did 'in like a lion, out like a lamb' weather experiments, coloring pages, and data graphing. I enthusiastically cooked up some corned beef & cabbage and made rainbow with a pot of gold fruit salad for St Patrick's Day. (I drew the line at green milk, however. I wave the Not-Irish AT ALL flag here.) We learned about kites, and wind, and planting seeds, and everything early-spring I could come up with. We even threw in a Star Wars birthday party in there!

The weather remained resolutely cold, wet and miserable. All. Month. Long.

So here's a recipe for great mental health: take one person with Season Affective Disorder, who just barely makes it through winter on the best of years, and give her an Achilles injury that equals zero physical activity all month. Then have her start a writing class that is truly exciting, but oh-so stress inducing. (Me: I am having a little performance anxiety about all this. Husband: Is this the part where I say 'no kidding'?) Add in a little crisis at school requiring some principal-meeting and parent-teacher conferencing, and coat it all with a thick crust of mud.

Mud everywhere. Glommed onto shoes, coats, gloves (because oh yes, we still need our gloves!) - in people's toes, in their hair, in their ears.

So yeah. I greet April with open arms, screaming and running headlong into it like a teenage girl reunited with her boyfriend who was like, totally away for like, a whole week.

I've got, what, eleven months to ignore March, right?

Lentils. Yes, Lentils.

2011-03-29T21:13:00.000-05:00

Hands up people: who plans their meals a whole day in advance? So as not to repeat a certain foodstuff, or to overload on another? Oh yeah. Me neither.

Yesterday morning I had steel cut oats for breakfast - the kids had already eaten & gone by the time they were cooked, so I could've had a portion for four if I wanted. For lunch I made lentil salad for a friend of mine, to balance out the crusts of grilled cheese that we were 'cleaning up' after the kids. For dinner my mother in law cooked a dish that was Torbjorn's childhood favorite - lentil stew on brown rice, topped with peanuts and raisins. (What this says about my husband? Whole 'nother post.)

Let's just say my system is feeling remarkably.... clean today. But the point of this long and detailed report of my overly-fibrous diet is to say I'd do it all over again, I love the lentil so much. The salad yesterday was made with the tiny pitch-black "caviar lentils" I'd found at Trader Joes, and their texture was perfect alongside exquisitely ripe avocado slices, some arugula leaves, and a sprinkling of goats cheese on top.

A salad - why not. Let's pretend that snow isn't on the forecast for Friday. Let's pretend that the freezing rain that'll probably arrive instead won't knock all the beautiful cherry blossoms off the tree, and let's imagine the spring really is on its way and the days of huge salads in plain white bowls, eaten while bathing in the afternoon sun on your front porch are right around the corner.

Let's pretend I didn't just cross a new threshold into middle age by telling you about the fiber in my diet.

Crunchy Lentil Salad
from Jeanne Lemlin's Quick Vegetarian Pleasures

1 C lentils, picked over and rinsed (do not use mushy red lentils or big green ones. Use Puy lentils, or those caviar ones I mentioned.)
5 C water
1 bay leaf
1 celery rib, finely diced
1 carrot, minced
1/4 C finely diced red onion
2 T minced fresh parsley
1/4 C fruity olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove (pressed or minced)
1/4 t dried thyme (or 1 tsp fresh minced, my preference)
1/4 tsp ground cumin
salt & pepper to taste.

In medium saucepan, combine lentils, water, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, 15 minutes, or until the lentils are tender but still crunchy. Stir occasionally. Pour into a colander and discard the bay leaf. Drain the lentils very well, and let them sit 5 minutes or so to be certain all teh water has drained out.

Place lentils in serving bowl and gently stir in the celery, carrot, onion and parsley.

Mix together the olive oil lemon juice garlic, thyme cumin salt and pepper. Pour onto the lentil mixture, and carefully toss. Serve at room temperature.

How Simple is Simple?

2011-03-27T21:12:00.000-05:00

This weekend I got my chops busted on Facebook for the following phrase: "So often, simple is the very best answer. Simple."

I had no great agenda behind my statement - it was actually prompted by the joy of a quiet Friday night, instead of the hectic one I'd had planned.

But a friend chose to see this as a political statement - or at least to respond to it that way. He posted a link that suggested that choosing to live simply implies a willful ignorance of the inequities and injustices of the world. (The actual specific politics of the link he posted can be tracked down on my Facebook page if you're really interested. But that tangent is beside the point.)

Here's the thing. The conscious pursuit of simplicity in one's life has nothing at all to do with ignoring all that is seriously screwed up in the world.

On the contrary. The pursuit of simplicity - living with intentionality, with a focused discipline on reducing distractions - is surely the only way we can consider the situation of those less fortunate with any meaning, any consequence.

By choosing to live simply, I choose not to purchase, acquire, and consume in the manner that my culture seems to think I should. By choosing to live simply I spend less time focused on the lifestyles of those who contribute [not much] to society and spend more time focused on the lives of those who bring Quality to mine.

I don't mean to preach. I didn't mean to preach when I posted the simple statement on Facebook. But neither do I like to be misunderstood on a matter that is a core belief.

Intentionality. Conscious existence. Stillness. These are the things that allow me to live meaningfully.

Simply.

**************

This little rant was written for Stream of Consciousness Sunday, which I stream-of-consciousnessed about last week.

right now, redux

2011-03-23T21:09:00.000-05:00

Last week I posted a beautiful quote from Kathleen Norris (you can check it here), about the meaning gained from sharing what's saving my life right now.

Her thoughts travelled along more theological paths, whereas mine tend to get muddled when considering matters of the Divine.

But as I am feeling especially muddled these days, I thought maybe I could share with you what's saving my life right now, in the most visceral and earth-bound sort of ways.

Daffodils. I've told you how I feel about yellow, generally, but these cheerful blooms get a pass all of their own. Daffodils save my very sanity in the dark days of March, when the cold winds persist and the grey clouds scud aggressively across an afternoon sky. Now, in the final days of March the daffodils have triumphed - have seized entire hills and trumpet their victory good-naturedly for all passers-by. They secure the territory for the tulips to follow, and summer's wildflowers after that.

Norwegian chocolate. I don't have much of a sweet tooth - not for chocolate anyway. Never really struggled with the temptation of cocoa goodness in the cupboard. (And before you roll your eyes at my goody-goody-two-shoe'd-ness, please never put a bag of gummi bears in front of me. You'll won't see them again.) But right now we have our beloved Farmor visiting, and she brought with her the Real Deal. Norwegian chocolate, I feel compelled to tell you, will put you off Hershey's for life. I have been replacing my lost endorphins with a whole other sort of rush:

Grace notes. This is a tricky little phrase, sadly co-opted by Hallmark too often, but one originally intended to catch all of those small moments that add up to a joy-filled and deeply grateful life. Grace notes this week include:

finding my handmade Valentines still in my husband's driver side door - he keeps them to read in traffic. <cold, hard heart melts here>
Listening to my 3 year old assure me that Go Fish was "God's favorite game."
Having same child warble Everybody everybody wants to love... Everybody everybody wants to be loved.... oh oh oh... oh oh oh to herself in the backyard swing. When asked, she'll tell you 'oh, that's our family song.' (for the official, non-toddler Ingrid Michaelson version, check here)
10 magically quiet minutes where everyone plays outside in the sunshine, and I have the presence of mind to think - this. this is saving my life right now.

Game changers

2011-03-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

I'd kind of cooked up a goal for myself this year: flush with the thrill of my big race in October, the girl who'd never run longer than a 10k decided she could run a half marathon. And yes, the dither implicit in that first sentence is intentional - I was torn between the couch potato I'd been for so long and the runner I really believed myself to be.

Late one Tuesday night in February, I had the registration form open for the Frederick Half Marathon. I completed all the fields, but chickened out when it came to making the payment. (Because honestly, spending the $80 is what makes it real, isn't it??) I chose to just leave the window open.

Wednesday morning 6am found me warming up at bootcamp, as I did every Monday Wednesday and Friday. After a flat-out sprint, 6.25am found me hobbling along the baseline of the gym, painfully aware that my goals might suddenly be changing.

When I surveyed friends about treatment for Achilles injuries, the answer was unanimous: GET THE HECK OFF IT. DO. NOT. USE.

That first week, my goal was simply to stretch and ice it daily, so certain was I that it was a minor hiccup in my training plan.

After 7 days' rest, my goal was to do a slow easy run, just to ease back into things. Twenty feet down the street and I knew I wouldn't be running for a long time.

After 14 days' rest, I finally called the doctor. My goal was simply to find out when I could run again.

At the podiatrist's, he cheerfully ventured a guess that I'd probably ruptured it to some extent, and ordered an MRI. More waiting.

A week later, the MRI completed, I waited nervously for the Official Diagnosis. More cheerful: no rupture! he enthused. Just some serious tendinitis. But when, I wanted to know. When can I run?

Five weeks he said. A walking cast for five weeks. A huge, ungainly and extremely inconvenient walking cast. If you're serious about healing this thing, he said, you will wear this for five weeks like it is the hottest accessory this side of Paris.

So now my goal is this: to run, someday. To wrap my head around a season of healing, instead of a season of training. To view renewed strength as success, as a different way of crossing the finish line.

Sometimes, goals are game changers. Sometimes, you have to be ok with the goal itself changing.

************

This post is submitted as part of Peter Pollock's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival, this week on 'Goals'.

Five Minutes inside My Head

2011-03-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

So I've been stalking this person's blog for a while - Fadra, her name is. I only know her from Twitter, and her blog when I actually go ahead &, you know, click the link.

So I've been stalking. And she does this thing, Stream of Consciousness Sunday. And I think to myself, I can do stream of consciousness. Why don't I do more stream of consciousness? I mean, isn't my blog Stream of Consciousness Day EVERY DAY?

This distracts me from Fadra's blog. So, I stalk her for yet another week.

Today, I found myself stream-of-consciousness blogging all day long. Fits & starts, beginning rants but never finishing them, thinking 'oooh this would be perfect for Stream of Consciousness Sunday, a post on a blog which I stalk but never comment on. A little creepy, yes, to be crafting posts for imaginary friends? Yes, yes it is creepy, in case you were hesitating there.

So tonight, I decided, I can do stream of consciousness. But - stupid move - I made the tragical error of checking out other people's streams of consciousness before I typed out mine. Clearly, there are people in the world who have much less polluted clogged up stagnant body-of-water streams than I. My stream of consciousness is pretty much one of those estuaries coming straight out of the Purdue plant and directly into the Chesapeake Bay, all cram packed full of toxic chemicals and chicken feathers.

So. There you have it: my maiden voyage into the putrid, occluded stream of consciousness of NilsenLife. Better luck next week chums.

right now

2011-03-15T16:17:00.001-05:00

There was a fabulous shout out for NilsenLife in Maryland Family Magazine today (along with so many other tremendous bloggers, such as Carabee and ScaryMommy. Go check it out!) You'd think I would've had a shiny new blog post up and ready for the torrent of new readers that might turn up. (If, you know, they're not completely put off by the homeliest blog in town.)

As ever, your erstwhile blogger has 783 good reasons why it's been quiet around here.

This week I'm working on a project that I so want to get right - precisely because the project has nothing to do with who wrote what, and everything to do with reaching hearts and minds.

Generally when I pile that kind of pressure on myself, I have to plan on a few days of complete paralysis. Total deer-caught-in-the-headlights. Any attempt, any group of three-words-I-string-together starts to look funny, badly written, not the right idea.

When that hits, and all that flows from my fingers to the keyboard starts to look wonky and wrong, I have to walk away. I leave the keyboard, and visit other authors who seem to have reached a detente with language - who find lyricism and fluidity in both syntax and ideas.

This week I've been reading Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, and Barbara Brown Taylor. They write about faith - the lack thereof, the search for, the practice of. This particular paragraph (in Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World) caught my attention yesterday:

Many years ago now, a wise old priest invited me to come speak at his church in Alabama. "What do you want me to talk about?" I asked him.

"Come tell us what is saving your life now," he answered. It was as if he had swept his arm cross a dusty table and brushed all the formal china to the ground. I did not have to try to say correct things that were true for everyone. I did not have to use theological language that conformed to the historical teachings of the church. All I had to do was figure out what my life depended on. All I had to do was figure out how I stayed as close to that reality as I could, and then find some way to talk about it that helped my listeners figure out those same things for themselves. (p xvii)

For a blogger-type person who is writing her heart out in an attempt to stay lucid, to be intentional, and mother with love and grace? This is no less than a reassurance, a call to action, and a mission statement all at once.

So now I'll get back to writing: writing to figure out what is saving my life right now.

Ugly. Beautiful.

2011-03-11T14:48:00.001-05:00

Ugly. I went to bed last night in an ugly ol' mood.

My fingers were pruney from wringing out sopping towels, hauling wet rugs, and hoisting soggy cardboard archive boxes from our flooded basement up to the front porch. The rain came down, the floods came up, and the Yellow House on the Hill got WET.

My possibly-ruptured Achilles tendon throbbed. As I mopped I ruminated over the podiatrist's cheerful diagnosis, and managed to work up a nice little storm cloud of anxiety about the inevitable negotiations with the insurance company.

My ever practical husband hauled load after load of dampness out of the basement and onto the front porch, draping wet rugs over my cute white rockers and the newly painted woodwork. Our neighbors have tolerated all manner of junk out there on the front porch (including a refrigerator - a serious renovation low point). Right now though, this version of ugly takes the cake.

So yeah. I went to bed mad. Mad that again we are the trashy house with rugs draped on our front porch, the house with crumbs on the floor and piles of paper all over the kitchen and a counter that no one will wipe up but me. An ugly house. Ugly.

At 5.45 this morning, the first headline to catch my eye on my iPhone was "praying for Japan." I checked the news, and as the story unfolded, my complaints of the night before began to feel very small indeed. My eldest watched the stories with me, and asked over and over if our house would float away like those houses on the screen. No, I said. No.

There might be water seeping up between the floor tiles. Our tax documents from 2003-2006 might be sopping wet. But today, we will not be watching a wall of water descend upon us and sweep the unwiped counters and rug-draped porch right back into the sea.

We are all limited by our perspective. The horrific stories continue to pour out of Japan, to run across the digital ticker tapes at the bottom of my screen, and suddenly my home, my life, and my small family are so very beautiful.

Beautiful.

My prayers are with the people of the Pacific Rim today.

******

Oddly enough, I cooked up this post before I checked in on The Red Dress Club today. Guess what: their prompt is a piece that finds beauty in the ugly. Synchronicity strikes again.

You say 'Future' like it's a good thing

2011-03-07T23:17:00.000-05:00

I'm a worrier. A black belt, Ninja-class, expert worrier. So when it came to making a long-term career choice, motherhood seemed to be a perfect fit. If we were pretending that motherhood is a corporate career just like Human Resources or Call Center Operative, we might say that mothering is a synergistic connection to my core worrying skills.

Both mothering and worrying are extremely future oriented. All about what might happen. She might be an actress/comedian, she might be an "actress" complete with satin knickers and bunny ears. He might be a rocket scientist, he might sit at home on my couch knocking back energy drinks called Rocket Fuel. That one might fail the math test, thus proving the theory that she's being failed by the school OR, worse! she might ace the math test, thus proving to her teacher that your concerns are completely unfounded just like she'd said they were in such a patronizing sort of way.

You hear the phrase tossed around a lot around graduation season - you've got your whole future ahead of you! When Whitney Houston crooned "I believe the children are our future"she said it like it was a good thing.

But here's the thing: when a worrier thinks about the future, it's not a healthy thing. Nope. The very best thing for a worrier is to forget the future is ever going to happen. And, actually, my kind of people have to forget the past too, because worrying about what's happened, and what that means for - you got it! - the future, well...

It only leaves one place for people like us: the right now. Right now is when we see the magic of growth in our children, without wondering what the growth will lead to. Right now is when we can treasure the smell of a toddler head, nuzzled under your chin and waking up from a nap. Right now is when we can marvel at the grace with which your eldest carries herself, somehow conjuring a sense of self that your 'helpful corrections' and endless criticisms surely did not generate. Right now is when we can openly, honestly and without [much] irony say thank you to our spouse for scrubbing the toilet when you know it's his least favorite job in the world.

The future. Its promise is a heady thing, and the privilege of waking up to it daily is not something I take lightly. But for someone like me, with a proud genetic heritage in the art of worrying, I will take my eyes off the future and live fully in the Right Now.

*******

This post is submitted as part of the One Word at a Time Carnival hosted by Peter Pollock. I gather the other contributors are looking at the future like it is a good thing. Which is a good thing.

Go Deep

2011-03-04T01:00:00.002-05:00

BIG NEWS: Y'all, my tea leaves were totally right. I WON!!!! So watch this space for big changes coming up. In fact, it'll be a different space altogether, but whatevs. In the meantime, I'm thinking if I get a shiny new blog it might be a useful thing to get in the habit of, you know, actually posting on it.

As it's Friday, I'm linking up with The Red Dress Club again. Their prompt: Water gives life. It also takes it away. write a post inspired by one or both of these statements.

In honor of katdish's giveaway, I'm reposting a guest piece I did for her last summer, on water and suspension in its depths.

*********

The water simmers in the summer heat, so when you wade in, the first few steps through the murky pond water feel uncomfortably swamp-like. But just as you reach the point where your feet lift off the muddy bottom, you begin to feel the delicious swirls of cool dark water, mixing with the squelching mud. You strike out for the middle – alternating strong crawl strokes with sneaky head-just-above water breast stroke – until you reach the very center.

Far away you see your grandfather squinting out at you, wondering if he should call you back, but he seems content that his twelve year old granddaughter knows her limits. The powerlines hum and crackle overhead, and the heat shimmers over the treeline of the mountains around you.

Once you are as far as possible from the shore, the trick is to jackknife your body and dive straight down – past experience tells you you won't quite get there, but still you try, diving down…..down…..down until you reach the icy currents near the muddy bottom.

Underwater, the sting of almost-freezing temperatures assaults your toes, even as you look up and see the rays of hot July sun pierce the green water above. It feels like hours, spent diving and floating, floating and diving. Snatches of conversation drift out over the water – someone asks the grandfather if he isn’t worried, worried about the girl floating in the water all the long hot afternoon. No, he laughs. No – that girl knows exactly where she is.

At twelve you haven’t grasped the the symbolism of suspending yourself in the depths. At twelve you can’t articulate the magnetic draw of the water – the elemental appeal of submersion. But what you do know at twelve is that you have struck out on your own – you’ve been given the freedom to go to the depths, with unwavering confidence in your ability to return to the surface.

Perhaps an indulgent grandfather had no way of knowing the profound lesson he taught that day. But never once has that swimmer entered the water without remembering the day she was allowed to go deep.

Berkshire Cottage Room

2011-03-01T17:29:00.002-05:00

It was a room in which everything about us would change.

When we moved in the walls were a vivid amethyst, sponge painted with a glittery silver on top. Many weekends were spent finding the exact shade of parchment - not cream, not beige - the color of expensive stationery, of empty pages. Stroke by stroke the non-color erased the purple, painting in reverse: layer by layer the room became a blank canvas.

Just as I have doodled on every page of every notebook of my life, I doodled on these walls too. Careful khaki-colored stripes, then freehand curves, winding along the baseboards of the entire room, up over the painted door, down under the low window, in and out around the old fireplace. I laid my growing belly on the floor and painted sideways, as I couldn't reach around, sitting up. If its a girl, I said, I'll paint little ladybugs in all of these stripes. So many months, it seemed, until I'd know if I needed to learn how to paint a ladybug.

A mullioned window looked out over the long green gardens, and it was through the divided panes I spied sunshiny faces of daffodils peering up at me, welcoming all of us to the little cottage on the corner. Through the drafty glass I watched the plum trees along the street bloom - early in February that year - as if they understood that this year everything would happen quicker, ahead of schedule.

Red and white gingham swagged cheerfully over the five feet of window. I wondered if a boychild would take issue with the cheerful gingham, with the swags, and figured I might have a few years to figure it out. Eighteen months later, as we prepared to leave this room, this cottage, only then would I realize that the gingham had never been hemmed - never quite as prepared as you think.

The scrubbed pine floor always seemed to glow, even on the rainiest days. Covered by a big square red rug, a giant Dala horse embroidered in the middle, they never felt cold - it was as if the old floorboards had absorbed the warmth of a hundred years of sunshine, of the many layers of varnish, of the abrasion of the sander we used to take it all down to bare wood. We had no idea that it would become so critical to know which of these boards creaked and where, how many minutes of our lives would soon be spent tiptoeing over the floorboards, out of the room.

A rocking chair, unfinished oak - a chair I'd insisted on over all of the plush enveloping gliders that were storming the market. All of Berkshire had been combed for what I thought was a simple request - a plain wood rocker. Maybe if I'd known how many hours I'd spend in it, how many songs would be sung, how many tears would drip onto a tightly swaddled, tiny body... maybe I would've gone for a bit of upholstery. The beauty is in the not-knowing.

A tiny wood bookshelf filled the unused fireplace, stocked with Good Night Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and Moo Baa La La La. How could I know how much more time I'd spend sticking the books back on the shelf, instead of reading them? That of a room filled with educational stacking blocks, beautifully neutral stuffed animals and a Babar pull-car, the biggest attraction would be pulling those books off the shelf?

Baskets of tiny onesies, tiny diapers, wet wipes in bulk. Bigger baskets of receiving blankets - white, red, yellow. None that would commit us to a life of pink or blue.

Giant Babar posters hung on all four walls, inviting us to adventure, to reading, to worlds where an elephant certainly could rule a kingdom. Babar in a hot air balloon was always my favorite: the one across from my rocking chair. Babar and I might've flown away at any second, away from this squalling package of sweetness.

It wasn't finished, wasn't ready, wasn't perfect, when my strangely beautiful changeling made her debut, five weeks early. Welcome to this family, I told her, where nothing will be perfect or ready or finished - where the story keeps unfolding every day, and we have to unfold with it.

I never got the ladybugs painted on those walls. But to this day, she is my Ladybug: a name earned so many months before she came to live there.

********

This post was written for The Red Dress Club's Tuesday Memoir feature.

This Old Blog - aka So Two Thousand and Late

2011-02-26T23:36:00.000-05:00

So you know this is one of the oldest blogs in the blogosphere, right?

Yep. Yep. Been typin' round these here parts since way back in Oh-Five. 'Course, back in the day, it was a lot more photos and a whole lot less of my own take on the world. At that point, with a three month old baby and a two year old, I was celebrating more than four hours of consecutive sleep in any one night and speaking in full sentences once in a while.

Now. By the standards of modern blogging in 2011, this here blog is downright homely. That's right - I said it. Homely. Not obnoxious, with huge blobs of multi-colored scrapbooking paper strewn about. But just... plain.

I've been stewing over this sad & homely state of affairs for quite some time now. Never mind that I have a posting schedule that could only generously be called haphazard. Never mind that I go long stretches where the cleverest thing to cross my head is by jove, I've got it! Oatmeal for breakfast! I just keep pretending that if my blog was high-class, high speed and self-hosted (dontcha know) then I would absolutely be inspired to post every day.

So here is where I share exciting news: do you remember katdish, who so kindly invited me to guest post last summer? At this very moment, she is hosting a giveaway on her blog - sharing the giveaway, in fact, with Peter Pollock - that offers the chance at a new life. A new blog life anyway.

If I win [she fluttters hands over her chest excitedly] Kathy & Peter would help out with getting me switched over to Wordpress, sorting out my very own domain name, and getting the whole site hosted. There are 3 separate prizes, and if you're at all interested I'd strongly suggest going on over there to check out what's going on.

Here's there deal: I saw in my tea leaves the other day that I am totally going to win the Big Enchilada. But... if you enter too you may be almost as lucky as me and win like, second or third prize. And I promise I won't lord it over you on the winner's podium. Scamper on over and check it out. Tell 'em I sent ya. But don't delay - the giveaway ends tomorrow!

In the meantime, I will carry on with my fake Gold Rush Miner accent and massacring metaphors here on my homely site, counting the hours until I hit the bigtime.

So. I'll let you know if the tea leaves were telling it straight.

Beach Blanket Bingo

2011-02-21T21:43:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, there is deep meaning to a photo, profundity in a post.

Sometimes, a snapshot is just exactly that - a sliver of a moment, a tiny snatch of a silly birthday party in the dead of winter. Mr NilsenLife welcomed one of the final years of his thirties yesterday, and we needed to greet a grim number like that with a heavy dose of tropical thinking.

the girls were in full-on swimsuit mode, Lars modestly stuck with just flip flops

each of the coasters is an atoll

sometimes, it really is as simple as making your own sunshine

The Resume

2011-02-17T21:45:00.002-05:00

It's been a rough few days, mothering-wise. You know those days, where you start to mentally brush up your resume for your imminent return to the workforce? Like, tomorrow? This thought process is always aided by the tax season and a few unexpected bills that drop in uninvited.

So I've tossed around a few points I can now add to my CV, points that will surely secure a high-powered role in this brave new world of back-to-work moms.

NAME: KIRSTEN SCHNEIDER NILSEN, aka Mooooooooooooooooom!
DOB: after JFK died, but before Grace Kelly and Rock Hudson did
ADDRESS: THE YELLOW HOUSE
CONTACT: just stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell for me. That's what everyone else does.

EDUCATION: elementary/highschool/college/gradschool [does my high school GPA really matter? my college GPA even? can't I just confirm I was there, loved every minute, would do it all over again, but feel that at this point in my life that none of it will get me any sort of gainful employment?]

WORK EXPERIENCE

2003 - present: Commander in Chief of NilsenLife Inc. All-round ringmaster, part-time teacher, extremely part-time housekeeper. Utter failure as PTA member, but bake kick-ass chocolate chip cookies.
1998 - 2003: Human Resources Manager. Management training and development, employee policy develop....[hang on, are you yawning?!?! It FELT important at the time, ok?]
1991-1998: Professional Student, aka The Golden Years. Student loans, overseas education, lots of travel, fair bit of wild oat sowing. (purely metaphorically, you understand)
1988-1991: Lifeguard. Best. Teenage. Job. EVER.

STRENGTHS

Proficient with middle-of-the-night soothing (measurable success rates over 8 years: can now boast that rates of 2am cries decreased 300%)
Efficient self-dressing skills: my entire routine, shower :: fully make-upped can now be completed in under 18 minutes. (Levels of beauty will vary.)
Skilled in reading aloud in character. Best demonstrated in stories with regional dialects, e.g. Eloise, Madeline or Mrs Piggle Wiggle
Potty Training Ninja
Finely-tuned Reflexes: recently caught all vomit in intended receptacle when wakened from dead sleep by a faint but ominous cough.
Strong constitution re: shots, blood, poop, snot, and stitches.
Proficient in artful draping of crepe paper streamers
Create delicious and nutritious sandwiches, with or without crusts

WEAKNESSES

Making up stories after 9pm
Any child-oriented activity after 9pm
Resolutely weak-stomached when confronted by vomit
Profound lack of sympathy for generalized weepiness (see also: Whining)
Restoration of laundry to proper drawers or closets
Patience with unnecessary drama
Tracking lonely unmatched socks
Darning. [What is darning?]
Homework submission. [theirs. not my problem if they miss recess, right?]
Tolerance of picky eaters
and... job hunting, apparently.

Sigh.

5 Minutes that Mattered

2011-02-15T23:15:00.001-05:00

What 5 minutes would you give your kids?

Over at The Red Dress Club they've started a new Memoir feature on Tuesdays. Hey, ya'll know me, I can *do* memoir. Their first prompt was this: after you have died, your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see?

Maybe there are more noble moments in my life. Certainly there are more touching, more gentle, more 'me' moments in my life. But when asked what 5 minutes should my kids know about me ? This is what instantly came to mind.

I knew immediately which 5 minutes I wanted my kids to know about me. Five minutes that instantly foretold what courage laid within me, that I would fight the fights in which my kids needed me, that I wouldn't always worry about not rocking the boat, that I absolutely would stand my ground when I needed to.

*****

I heard it before I felt it. A screeching, whining gut wrenching sound of sheet metal scraping against sheet metal.

My equilibrium shifted along with the front corner of my Ford Ranger, angling up off its front wheel, lifted by the sheer force of the school bus grinding along my front left corner. I watched a wall of bright yellow travel the arc of its lane change, scraping along my truck the entire time.

The stupid green pickup truck. The ridiculous truck that I carpooled my younger brother back and forth to school in. My father and brothers had insisted that guys dig girls in pickups! but I didn't buy it. (Still don't.)

I sat in shock at the red light, looking at my brother with goggle eyes, speechlessly gaping my mouth with the unsaid question hanging: Did that bus just hit us?!?!

I did hate that pickup. I hated it with all the passion a spoiled suburban parochial school girl could muster. But I knew in that suspension of time, in that split-second of hanging between present and future, that there was no future that involved me walking into my house and telling my dad I'd banged up his precious truck. Knew with certainty that my protestations of but but but! BIG! YELLOW! BUS! would hold no water with the person who paid the insurance.

Here's what you need to know about your 17 year old mom, my treasures:

At the next stoplight, I hopped out of the driver's side, sprinted up to the school bus in front of me, and banged the crap out of the driver's window. Banged until she was forced to slide open that 12x14 pane of glass and demand what the hell I wanted.

Photo courtesy of photobucket.com

The girl who never complained, the one who in her lifetime stoically endured all manner of insults, shouted up at that school bus driver that she'd just HIT MY TRUCK, and that she needed to hop on out of that yellow behemoth and come check it out. That ponytailed introvert planted herself there in the middle of Randolph Road until the Montgomery County police rolled up (this was in the long-ago days before camera phones and speed-dial 911 on your cell phones, dear children).

Insurance details were exchanged, accompanied by the diarrhea of complaint from the bus driver about my punk ass self makin' sure she was goin' to traffic court! I practiced a steely stoicism that I'd need often in 20 years or so.

Your 14 year old uncle cringed with mortification, there in the cab of that pickup truck. His sister didn't pull stunts like this. But here's what you need to know: I did. Without a second's hesitation, I pulled a stunt like that. Not for a show, not for the thrill, but because it was What. Had. To. Happen.

This, my cherubic offspring, tells you so very very much about all that your mother was to be.

That stupid pickup in happier times (me with my Norwegian)

Everything Good Between Men and Women

2011-02-14T22:54:00.000-05:00

"...has been written in mud and butter and barbeque sauce."

This was the beginning of the poem my husband gave me on Valentines Day.

You might be sick of Valentines by now. The holiday, full of its chocolatey, stuffed-bear and balloon cynicism draws to a close tonight, and I have a dispeptic belly-full of cheap jewelry ads and schmaltzy marriage proposal stories.

But the mystic in me finds it hard to hate a day that remembers how central love is to our existence. Remembers that all the world for love may die. [Ben Jonson] Love, in all of its iterations, is reason to exist. Ok - a bright pink stuffed bear has not nearly enough gravitas to make it real. I'd submit that a half-pound of dark chocolate sea salt caramels just might.

But love is real. Realer than anything else that drives us. Here is what I know, today, about love:

Love is the husband who calls his wife driving home from the city in the middle of the night, just to keep her awake over the miles.

Love is the husband who jumps up later that night to get a bowl for a feverish wife who feels like she's about to hurl.

Love is the husband who makes the kids heart-shaped waffles on Valentine's morning and lets his wife sleep until 8.10 when he absolutely-has-to-really-must-leave.

Love is the husband who posts a poem that he knows will break his wife's heart in a million (mostly good) ways as a gift, right out there for all of Facebook to see.

Love is the husband who leaves work after a quiet, miserable call from his sick wife. Leaves work, arrives home with laptop in hand and plops himself on the floor to build a marble maze with three cabin-feverish kids.

It wasn't your standard Valentine celebration at the Yellow House this year. But oh, it was filled with love! The kind of love that makes days, weeks and months into rich and full lives. Not happy perfect filled-with-glitter-and-champagne-and-swanky-dates lives, but lives filled with Quality.

Surely we can't hate a holiday that celebrates that.

Soupish sort of Sunday

2011-02-13T12:43:00.000-05:00

The novelty of cutesy soup titles will wear off eventually, but in the meantime, I guess soup is a vaguely entertaining way to distract ourselves from unending weeks of freezing temperatures.

So you're ok with green soup, right? I mean, we're not talking a plehgmy week-old pea soup green. We're talking kelly green, emerald green, GREEN. This is my new favorite winter soup, and the fact that it is perfect for St Patricks Day or, I dunno, Green Day at preschool is just extra happiness.

The recipe originates from a Silver Palate cookbook, but honestly I can't tell you which one. I have a grubby wrinkled & dog eared photocopy of the recipe that I got from someone at work, carried around in my purse for a month or so, and then finally managed to get all the ingredients in the house at one time and decided to dive into the green.

And lest you needed any further encouragement to embrace the green, I'll go ahead & deliver the punch line now: it's got BACON. You know my feelings on that wonder food. Now, technically it can absolutely be made without it, or with those Bac-O chips again, but [sucking teeth] you really want to try the bacon if its at all ok with your ethics/diet plan.

Winter Vegetable Soup

4 slices bacon, cut into 1-in pieces
4 Tb (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 C finely diced leeks (white part and 1 inch green)
1 1/2 C finely diced onions
1 C finely diced celery
1 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp dried thyme (I used fresh, then you'd do about 1 Tbsp)
salt and freshly ground pepper
5 C chicken stock
2 1/2 C finely diced potatoes
1 pound tender spinach, well rinsed, stems removed, cut into 1/8" slivers
1/2 C heavy cream (I use half & half, and I'm pretty sure even whole milk would work)

1. In large soup pot, cook the bacon over low heat, until fat is rendered, 5 minutes. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon, and discard. [They say discard. *I* say keep keep keep for garnish.]

2. Add the butter to the pot. When it has melted, add the leeks, onions, and celery. Cook over low heat until wilted, 15 minutes. Season with teh tarragon, thyme and salt and pepper. Stir well.

3. Add the stock and potatoes. Cover, and simmer until the potatoes are tender but not mushy, 15 to 20 minutes.

4. Add half the spinach. Simmer for 1 minutes more.

5. Remove the soup from the heat. Puree half the amount in a blender or food processor, and return the puree to the soup pot. [Here is the part where it is pretty much day-glo green.]

6. Place the pot over low heat, and add the remaining spinach and the cream [cream = deelish. But sadly, it does soften the shade to a brackish jade color.] Heat through, stirring well, but do not boil. Adjust the seasonings, and serve. I top each bowl with a spoonful of sour cream, and the bacon you saved back at the beginning.

You know the drill - serve with crusty bread, a great salad, and you're golden. Or green. Or, you know. Happy & full of soup anyway. Make sure you have brownies for dessert. Bathing suit season is so far off.

Renewal: Not Just at the Library

2011-02-07T23:59:00.001-05:00

I wasn't a runner. And then I was.

I wasn't a writer. And then I was.

I wasn't a teacher. And then I was.

I have become things that I'd categorically dismissed - those definitions? Those people? They weren't Me. I was the armchair athlete. I was the enthusiastic supporter of other writers - people who were good, you know? I was in awe of my kids' teachers, certain that it was nothing I could ever organize, this teaching children to ... do stuff.

Yet. Yet. Somewhere deep in there was a spirit that refused to let those definitions stick. A spirit that fought against decisions I thought had been made. A spirit that kept piping up, whispering but you might be that. You could be that.

Indeed. This year, I became all of those people.

Here we run up against the word that gets tossed around at spa days, at therapy sessions, after a good cry: "I feel renewed."

Renewed. Made new. NEW. It isn't a fluffy word that simply means "oh hey I feel so much better!" It isn't the lazy woman's way of saying "wow I'm so relaxed and now I feel happier about the world." Renewed is when the raw materials are taken, re-molded, and transformed into something entirely new.

I have been renewed. I have been remade, by these deep gut messages that say You are NOT only this, just that, merely these things. In seismic, unalterable ways, I have become new. A new person who does do things like sign up for a half marathon. Who returns to the writing again again again like a horse returns to the stable each evening. Who teaches a small boy every morning, never failing to marvel that he is actually learning something.

And I am not finished. I have been renewed, have become something new, and the most transformative thing of all is realizing that we are never finished. I will be formed, and then formed again. The raw material that makes Me will be many things.

Renewal - again and again and again - is the sign of a life well lived.

*****

At this point in my life, I have to say that the first thing to come to mind when thinking "Renewal" is all of my overdue library books. But I was grateful to be asked to think further. This post is part of the One Word at a Time blog carnival: Renewal hosted by Peter Pollock. To read more posts considering Renewal, visit his blog, PeterPollock.com.

Also, anyone out there interested in a Christian perspective on renewal - the "making all things new" - please do read this by Rev. Doctor Ken Kovacs. Powerful words, transformative words. The very best kind.

Surprised by Sad

2011-02-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

Heaving with sobs. Silent, huge, racking sobs.

I can count on one hand the number of times in his entire almost-six-years my son has cried like this.

It took me a second to jolt out of my Family Movie Night, room-darkened, popcorn coma to realize he wasn't kidding. He climbed onto my lap, buried his face in my neck, and cried and cried and cried.

He begged us to turn off the movie. Insisted, over and over, that he didn't want to watch another minute, and please could we just go upstairs to read stories.

Were we watching Old Yeller, at the bit where the dog dies? Nope. Were we watching Finding Nemo, at the bit where Nemo gets flushed down into the sewer? We were not. Were we watching the super scary part in Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker battles both Darth Vader AND the Emperor, the part that still makes me pee my pants a little? NO.

Ramona and Beezus. That's what we were screening tonight. A fun family film, so innocuous that even Focus on the Family couldn't find fault.

But here's the thing: when I realized what was breaking my son's heart, it broke mine too.

Ramona, the middle sister in a family of 5 had decided she wasn't important in the family any more and was running away. Her mother, being the reasonable and clever parent that all movie moms are, had helped her pack, including one of Daddy's sweaters, "you know, since you'll be gone forever." The movie then pans over Ramona trudging through Portland neighborhoods, dragging a heavy-ass suitcase.

photo: diszine.com

We hadn't gotten to the part where the family finds her, and insists they could never live without her. Lars really thought Ramona had left her family forever.

It is heart-shattering, to feel emotion that strongly. I watched the storm of sadness, identification, empathy and confusion pass over my boy's face and felt it as viscerally as watching a hurricane on the Atlantic coast. Raw emotion, with no filters. Just a child, knowing the hurts of another child.

In those few moments, before I was able to calm him to explain what might happen next, to reassure that really sweetie, I promise she's not headed for a life of prostitution, I felt I'd seen right to the bottom of the human heart. To the dark places in all of us that want to yell Turn it off! Turn it OFF! I just don't wanna feel that anymore!

Emotions aren't comfortable. But the only way through them is to live them. Just like a five year old.

Soupity Soup Soup

2011-02-02T22:10:00.001-05:00

This recipe is the soup of my life. This soup is the end of an afternoon of leaf-raking, it is the welcome back after sledding, it is families at our house for potluck suppers. I watched my grandmother ladle it from her giant soup pot, I watched my mother spoon it into bowls.

It is comfort food at its best. Rich, creamy, and decidedly not recommended by Weight Watchers. But it will feed your spirit as well as it feeds your belly, and it will garner all kinds of mmmhmm! from the people gathered around your table.

Now. My entire non-bacon eating childhood, I ate this soup made with Bac-O Chips. Yes, the soy-laden, sodium bombs sold in a handy plastic jar. What did I know what I was missing? So whilst I am a bacon lover of the first order, I'll tell you that this soup is delish with those Bac-Os, and just Off. The. HOOK. when made with real bacon. You decide.

So: Grandma Joan's Corn and Cheese Chowder

2/3 C Bac-O chips
1/2 C butter (yep, that's a whole stick)
1/2 C onion, finely diced
1/4 C flour
*** melt the butter in large pot until foaming, then cook 2 minutes at a low heat. I add the flour after the butter, Bac-Os and onions have had their time in the sun, so to speak. If you use real bacon, you could use the rendered fat from the bacon in place of some of the butter. Make sure you saute the bacon until nice & crisp, but not crunchy.

4 C Water
2 C Potatoes, diced small
1/2 tsp dried sage (I use fresh, as it still sort of survives out in my garden, but dried is ok)
2 large bay leaves
*** add these, cover, cook 20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

2 C cream, evaporated milk, or half & half
2 C boiling water
2 C grated cheddar (I use orange cheddar, to add color, but a well aged sharp cheddar is most delish)
4 C corn (if frozen, you don't have to defrost. Frozen from the farmer's market = heaven.)
Salt & freshly ground pepper
***Add these ingredients, heat just to a boil

The very most important thing to remember here is, once you've added that last batch of ingredients, do not let the soup boil. Really, I'm not kidding here. It curdles and gets remarkably gross, very quickly.

That's it. Pretty simple, pretty humble. But sooooo delicious. As always, the better quality ingredients, the better the soup will be. It is perfect with a crusty wholegrain bread, a huge green salad, and maybe some fruit for dessert.

Soup. Does the body good.

Trying to Be Positive Here

2011-02-01T23:06:00.000-05:00

So. Winter is not taking our breakup very well. In fact, as I look out the window at freezing rain coating the streets, I realize it is entirely possible Winter has decided to turn stalker, and seriously punish me for even trying to break up.

So I decided to try and find just a few things about Winter I can still appreciate, that'll get me through until I score a Restraining Order, or until the Vernal Equinox. Whichever comes first.

1) Soup Weather. It may be cold, we may be stuck inside with each other, but somehow it all fades away when we gather around bowls of steaming hot soup. Tomorrow I'll share a recipe for one of my favorites.

2) Shrove Tuesday, also known as Pancake Day in the UK. I guess down South they call it Fat Tuesday, the idea being that you use up all the butter and eggs before Lent. I'm not so hardcore with the Lent thing, but hoo boy do I love some crepes for dinner. Yes sirree. [Strictly speaking, with Easter so late this year, Pancake Day is March 8, which will be in spring-ish weather. Can you tell I'm grasping at straws here?]

3) Coming inside to toasty warm houses. That welcoming whoosh of hot air as you re-enter your home?? Loverly. I mean, walking back in to an air-conditioned room after a steamy summer day? Also nice. But walking into the warmth is particularly cozy.

4) Ice Skating. The players of NilsenLife have just re-discovered this little diversion recently, and all three kids have taken to it like, well... like ducks to a frozen pond. Cecilie doesn't think she needs lessons, because I'm about as fast as it gets!, she told us at dinner last night.

A little out of focus, but how sweet is that girl? She insists on choosing skating outfits that are 'elegant for twirling.'

5) I'll get my money's worth out of this tricky snow gear I scored. What, you thought I was kidding about getting Mama geared up for snow? Well I was NOT.

Sometimes, when shopping clearance sales, it pays to be the biggest kid on the block. Go me!

6) Reading. Somehow everyone is much happier about cuddling up on the sofa to read a new story or listen to an old favorite when the weather outside is frightful. Summer reads for us are lighter, quicker, more on-the-fly.

7) Of course we can still count Valentines Day on our list of things to look forward to. We've had a busy few days with stickers, scrap paper, glue sticks and glitter here at the Yellow House. Don't be offended if you don't get yours in the mail - the kids lose interest before it ever gets to addressing envelopes. They are 'process people', apparently.

8) Last but not least we have the Dad of the Nilsen's birthday. The kids and I love to plan a new theme every year, and as Cecilie gets older the themes only get more and more elaborate. This year, my main man has requested a Beach Party. Even the most stoic of Norwegians needs a little sand, sun and margarita in his February.

*******

So that's it. That's the very best I could do to find positive bits of winter to wax poetic about. What about you, my lovely readers? Can you think of anything I've missed? Throw us a bone here - tomorrow's Groundhog Day and I will weep if that dumb rodent says 6 more weeks of winter.

It's not me, it's you.

2011-01-29T21:37:00.001-05:00

Dear Winter

This may be the hardest letter I ever have to write. [Actually it won't, but I want you to feel I have given the situation and my feelings an appropriate investment of emotion so that you understand I am serious about my decision.]

We have to break up.

Things started out so well - a few beautiful mornings with a delicious chill in the air, stars of frost decorating the kitchen window, the gorgeous outline of bare trees on the skyline as the sun set at five o'clock. I'll admit it, I was completely charmed.

I really thought I was in it for the long haul, right to the end.

Then of course there was that giddy holiday period, with emotions and sentimentality running high. The gifts, the egg nog, the cozy fires. Who wouldn't be in love?

As the hangover of the holidays faded and January dawned, I resolved to love you more. I resolved to work harder, try and see the good, offer more understanding of your grey slushiness and steely skies. I mean, we all have off days, right?

I will say, you have really worked hard in recent weeks. This whole 'snow storm' look really works for you: the magical dusting on all the pine trees, the silent stillness of a snowy night, the sparkling brilliance of an untouched yard of white crystals. We both know how important looks are to me. But already the stunning ensemble of white-on-white is starting to get grubby at the edges, and the grey sweatpant slush is creeping in all around.

Soon all the snow will melt, and we'll be left with the grim remnants piled in blackish mounds in the Target parking lot, reminding me of all that I have come to resent about you.

I am tired of your short days and long nights. I am tired of your bitterly cold mornings that require two layers of clothing for each mile run. I grow weary of your wan sunsets, of your refusal to let the sun shine with any warmth, of your insistence that "frozen mud is the new grass".

I am sick. to. death. of your germs. Of the mounds of tissues all around my house, of the runny noses ear infections and tummy bugs that lay in wait on every door knob. The bacteria that spread like wildfire through the house because we're all stuck inside.

I'm done. I am so over you. You, your slush, your darkness and your germs can pack your bags and head off to the Southern Hemisphere. I don't want to see you even one more day. And don't try to wow me with any of that blizzard stuff again. It won't work, you and your twelve inches. Bah.

Really. It's not me, it's YOU.

Wishing you all the best,
Kirsten

Girls. Women. Growth.

2011-01-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

I had an important conference call last night. We coordinated schedules, we had a WebEx number for dialing in, we had a GoogleDocs spreadsheet everyone was looking at.

What's that, you say? Have I gone back to work? Nah. Just staring down my 20th high school reunion and had a virtual meet-up with some friends to try and get something organized. [any Class of '91 readers out there? You know who you are, gimme a shout.]

So anyway, we're all there on the phone, taking time out of our individual crazy circus-act lives. I'm listening to this group of women talk. As we're saying our goodbyes, our thanks guys, we'll catch up next weeks, I am surprised by the catch in my voice.

Definitely not an attack of nostalgia. Let's be clear: I've already told y'all about how the last day of high school was the Official Beginning of my story.

I sat for a few minutes, trying to figure out why a bit of database figuring and party planning would get me all verklempt. Here's the thing: this was a conversation with a group of amazing women. Women who have done brave things, difficult things, incredibly smart things.

A get-together in recent years. I'm 6 months pregnant. Maybe 5. Yikes, only 4? Anyway. Aren't the others fabulous?

When you are 16, you find friends to hang with who make you laugh. Friends who are in your classes, whose parents enforce the same kind of curfews, who might run track or join cheerleading with you. You don't really pick 'em according to what kind of adult they'll grow up to be.

But I'll tell you: last night I realized that I enjoy these people more the longer I know them. I am so profoundly grateful that I can call them friends. That somehow, the years, the careers, the kids and jobs and partners and houses haven't kept us apart: that instead, we keep finding ways to find each other.

It's almost enough to make me excited about re-living the days of Kid n' Play, Depeche Mode and Bel Biv Devoe. Here's to reunion planning, even if you're not a party-planning kinda gal.

Snow Day 2011

2011-01-26T23:38:00.001-05:00

If you live anywhere east of the Mississippi, you've heard about the snow blanketing us in the mid-Atlantic region. And those of you west of the Mississippi can't have missed all the chatter on Facebook/Twitter/smoke signals. (Huh, that's funny, I have the most distinct memory of typing that exact phrase last winter. Yep, that's because I did, right here.)

That post last winter was all about how the mom of the house doesn't ever quite get through the door, into the snow. She stands in the doorframe, gearing kids up in snow clothes, handing out the camera, never actually stepping foot into the drifts.

This year is different. The kids are eight, six and three. (Three!!!) Big sister gets herself sorted out, and even helps Annika find mittens. Lars does just fine, as long as I'm not picky about zipped jackets or matching gloves. Annika... well. She IS three, so getting dressed always involves some drama, but even more important is hanging with the big kids, so the motivation is there.

This morning, they were all out & in the snow before 7.30. No lie. I shut the door, sighed, and went to fill my coffee cup.

Early morning snow man

But wait - if they're all out there, surely... I should be?

Once upon a time I liked to play in the snow. Once upon a time I would throw myself on a toboggan with abandon, scrape together a snow fort with my brothers, make giant batches of snow ice cream. When was that? How long has it been?

I honestly can't remember the last time I played in the snow. Sometime in the late 90s I borrowed a snazzy one-piece snowsuit from my mother in law in Norway (where snowclothes aren't optional.) My brothers-in-law barely hid their snickers. (I'll see if I can find the snapshot. Maybe.) But before then? I am only remembering a ski trip in 7th grade. To which I wore jeans and a Rossignol ski jacket.

Ok fine, you talked me into it. Norway c1996, ski suit c1976. aka Barbie Goes Nordic.

So that's it then. Time to find a jacket that will seal around the cuffs, find boots that are more function than fashion, find waterproof mittens. It's time to go out and play. Because I want to be the mom that plays. I want to be the mom that shows my kids how to hurl themselves onto a toboggan.

Best quote from Modern Family tonight? "You can't have two fun parents. That's a carnival." Bring on the freakshow and the clowns. Carnival it is, and I'm buying the outfit.

The Hot Cocoa Party!

2011-01-24T13:59:00.002-05:00

Holy windchill, Batman, it was freezing yesterday! So cold that any hot cocoa we spilled froze on the tablecloth. So cold that the hot chocolate turned to lukewarm unless you pounded your drink in the first minute-and-a-half you had it. So cold that snowpants were *the* style statement of the day.

Yesterday was our big ol' Hot Cocoa Party, remember?

That's my girl!

There were two amazing things that happened at the Hot Cocoa for Water stand.

First, with a simple table set up with marshmallows, whipped cream and a carafe of homemade hot chocolate just over $200 was raised for charity:water.org. The best news is that 100% of the money we send to them will directly fund water projects. Can I get a woot?!

Second, it was the kids that made it happen. Friday night we had them designing flyers with a full set of smelly markers. Then during the event, our girls made it their mission to run up and down both sides of the street, going door to door to advertise the stand, even delivering cups of cocoa to those leery of the arctic air.

Little sisters can help too!

My eldest (she of the big ideas and bigger heart) spent her morning at church spreading the word, carefully repeating the address of the cocoa stand, and sincerely but determinedly buttonholing church members to tell them about our fundraiser.

The boys at the party were seriously distracted by a Star Wars battle of some sort, but not so busy they couldn't stand on the stone wall and wave at passers-by with our handpainted sign.

It feels like a lifetime ago, when I wrote a piece for Classic Play about taking my kids to a Habitat for Humanity build. We were delivering snacks that day, and I wondered how I would continue to show my kids that they could effect change.

In the final paragraph, I wrote: A life of service is one in which we share what we have, in an effort to work towards connectedness with each other as human beings.

This is it. We are connected to each other through a basic life-sustaining need for water. By gathering around a pot of cocoa and a plate of cookies today, with neighbors and friends, with our larger community, we connected. We connected with each other in chatting, catching up, and laughing together, but we also connected with the world around us - through sharing what we have, we acknowledge those who cannot. Here, we say. I can share.

Paradise Hot Cocoa Peeps! The lovely Jen, Editor-in-Chief of Classic Play is there in the middle, Mr & Mrs NilsenLife are over on your left, and Betsy Stein, editor of Maryland Family Magazine is in blue, hidden behind her 10 year old.

****all images courtesy of www.classic-play.com***

Hot Cocoa for Water

2011-01-17T22:01:00.007-05:00

So I know I just resurfaced, after falling off the face of the blogosphere for six weeks. You may be here in search of some quality navel-gazing, or a funny photo of one of my little people. But hoo boy! do I have something way more exciting this time.

See, the thing is, I'm having a little shindig over here in Paradise (really. That's the name of my neighborhood. You knew that, right?) And yep, the whole world is invited.

The bright minds over at Classic Play have kicked off an incredible initiative for January. It's called Hot Cocoa for Water: raising money for charity:water.org, which works to provide access to safe drinking water.

You can read all about the whole initiative here. But you want to know the great news?? If you live anywhere near me and want to get in on the action, the only thing you have to do is come on over to Paradise and drink a cup of cocoa with us.

You heard me right: come on down to Paradise this Sunday, where you will find neighbors of all sorts gathering around the fire pit, cups of hot chocolate in hand, right on down to the peppermint stick swizzlers. The kids will be snarfing marshmallows, and maybe some of the adults will be adding a splash of our locally made irish cream to really ward off the chill. We'll be happy to chat with you about ways to get involved in the effort, equally happy to take a few coins in the fundraising coffee can, and happier still to top that cocoa with a swirl of whipped cream.

If for some reason you can't find our little corner of Catonsville on your own, message me and I'll give you some directions. Here's the important deets:

Day: Sunday, January 23

Time: 2pm to 4pm

Bring: Yourselves! And a spirit of neighborliness. And maybe a coin or two for those who might not have access to water this January.

If you can't make it to our block party, how about hosting your own? Classic Play's fab editor Jen Cooper has some excellent suggestions - here - on ways to contribute your own virtual Hot Cocoa: retailers and bloggers all over the world have joined in!

Adventuring

2011-01-16T22:01:00.001-05:00

Had just my big girl with me the other night - the other two were on a big sleepover at Grandma's. We had a boring school-type meeting to attend, but she was thrilled to pieces to have her mom to herself for the evening.

We parked across the street from Chinese Food / Japanese Sushi Restaurant. Seriously: if it had another name I never saw it. Emerging from the meeting, her dad met us there and she was insistent that we should all go to dinner at Chinese Food/Japanese Sushi Restaurant.

Really sweetie? we said. Wouldn't you rather go to PF Chang's just a few blocks down? You know, one that you've been to before?

NO, she quietly insisted. I really really really want to try THIS ONE.

In an instant, I heard it all: two tired parents, asking wearily if they couldn't go somewhere we knew, somewhere 'safe', worth our hard-earned dollars. At the same time I heard an eight year old who hasn't had the adventure worn out of her - a little girl who is curious about absolutely everything, including new places to eat. Who has faith that things might just turn out perfectly, at any given moment. (Even if her hopes are repeatedly dashed by the prosaic existence that is suburban life.)

Under my breath, I said to my husband (who, in his day, has found more adventures for us than is even fit to print) - sweetie. when is the last time you had an adventure? This man, who loves us Nilsen ladies in a very big way, far more than he hates Chinese food, chuckled, and said - great. C'mon. Let's eat over there.

Chopsticks 101

So I started thinking about adventure. The willingness to look past the uncertainty, to go beyond the safe. I am way too prone to stay where things are safe. My husband has always been my adventurer, taking me out to the edges of 'usual' and saying but what if we went over there instead? So when I heard him resist, heard him wonder if we wouldn't like to just find a restaurant we knew about, I realized even the most curious of souls can be worn out by commutes, deadlines, plumbing, phone bills. By the life more ordinary.

Then, inevitably, my thoughts turned to writing. Always back to the writing. I thought about how creative effort is an adventure - taking you to places you never knew about, to places that make you feel uncomfortable, unsteady, but also these places are the truest parts of you that are so much a part of your being they are hard to see.

It's time for me to adventure again. It's time for me to ignore the street signs that tell me I shouldn't travel those roads, to curiously turn corners in confidence that it is the way forward, to actively find new places.

Part of the adventure is knowing I might not have the right gear, the right maps, or even a good sense of direction. This poor little un-designed blog is testament to that. We'll figure it out along the way, shall we?

Cookie Houses, The Slacker Version

2010-12-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

I am ignoring the emails that scream LAST CHANCE FOR FREE SHIPPING! ORDER NOW OR DIE!!!!!!

I am not making the gingerbread cookie dough that was on the docket for the evening.

I am not even wiping the freezer out after a tragic exploded-bottle-of-carbonated-beverage incident.

Instead I am telling y'all about a funny little tradition that sneaked up on me, and became my favorite much like the quietest kid in the class makes his way into the teacher's heart.

Cookie houses. I know. I know: the minute I type that phrase your insides clench up like they do in an particularly mortifying episode of The Office, and you think gaaaaaaaaah. no. NO COOKIE HOUSES. ARE YOU INSANE?

I'm not. Really I'm not. I'm nowhere near an over-achiever, and my perfectionist streak has been handily beaten out of me by 3 kids, and old house, and an extremely phlegmatic husband. So.

We are talking cookie houses of the non-threatening variety. Cookie houses made of graham crackers, and Royal Icing. Now hang on, don't start hyperventilating on me. Royal icing is simply that really hard, bright white icing that they stick gingerbread houses together with, and I'm here to tell you [I'll whisper, in case Martha Stewart's listening in]: it's really easy to make.

Here's the super secret recipe: 3 egg whites, 1 lb of confectioner's sugar (icing sugar, for all my Euro pals), and 1 tsp Cream of Tartar. Whip it. And I'm not kidding - you have to whip the heck out of it. Like, way way past the nervous 'is it getting stiff yet?' stage. You really want it to be, well, stiff. (I'm such a juvenile. Am I really the only one sniggering when reading these directions?)

So you take a graham cracker, snap it in half, then cement the two halves together with a dab of the icing. That's your first wall. Do it again, that's your 2nd. Glue them parallel to each other on a paper plate/fancy platter/piece of cardboard with more globs of icing, then finish your house shape with two single squares of cracker. Snap another in half, and use the two pieces for a leaning-against each other roof (see, a fancy blogger would call it Cantilevered. ooooh.) And you're done.

Really. Let it dry - a few hours maybe. Yesterday I needed to speed it up so I stuck it in my oven at 100 degrees, and it worked a treat. Then, give your kiddos all the leftover icing, a bunch of different candies & sugar cereal pieces, and let 'em have at it. My rule was 'no candy in your mouth until your house is done'. This left the 3 year old's house very minimalist, and gave her a head start on 'tasting'.

Do it with just your kids, or do it with 11 like we did yesterday. It really is the simplest, happiest little exercise that makes you feel virtuously domestic, them happy that they got to play with frosting and make a house, and everyone a little bit cheerful-er about all this holiday nuttiness we get into.

Try it. You won't be sorry. (Unless the royal icing gets in your shag carpet. Then you will be sorry. But you should already be sorry that you believed it was back in fashion. So. There you have it.)

Snow, and stillness

2010-12-10T23:12:00.000-05:00

The Worries clamored like a pack of hungry preschoolers at snack time. I stood in the shower this morning and let myself be assaulted by every single anxious thought my brain could manufacture in the space of ten minutes and the shampoo-soap-razor routine.

Forgot to... why didn't I... need to pay... have to remember... what IS it she thinks Santa is bringing? this bill... that list... those emails. On and on the siege raged.

Out of the shower, drying off, I noticed the very first snowflakes of winter swirling past the window. I peered out into my backyard, and saw the faintest dusting on the kids' swings, on the Adirondack chairs, on the picnic table.

Funny, how often it is that nature will speak to us when rational thought eludes. Stop, Kirsten. Enough. Enough. Be still.

Once dressed, I went outside to take photos, my kids fully occupied by sweeping off the front lawn. [Bizarre, I know. They're just goal oriented, I guess.] The heavy snow-filled air demanded silence of me, and I obliged. I watched as the white flakes covered all that remained unfinished - the abandoned toys of summer, the leaves of fall - and I was still. I silenced my anxieties, and chose peace.

Enough. There will always be more, always be not-quite-right. But for now, especially now, I will simply be still. I will find quietude for my head, for my home, for my family. The stillness of the snow came early enough to teach me.

And so goes November

2010-11-30T20:42:00.004-05:00

In November, at winter's gate, the stars are brittle. The sun is a sometimes friend. And the world has tucked her children in, with a kiss on their heads, till spring.
- Cynthia Rylant, In November

If you're a lover of children's picture books, check out Cynthia Rylant's beautiful text. It is a beautifully illustrated meditation on one of the simplest months of the year.
November closes feeling exactly as it should - ominously cold, anticipatory of winter, and austere enough to be peaceful.
May we all find quiet peace in the next few weeks.

The Tightrope

2010-11-29T23:56:00.000-05:00

Random fact: I am completely obsessed with tightrope artists. Funnily enough, this doesn't come up often in conversation.

This weekend, friends shared with us that they have hit a bit of a rough patch in their marriage. Along with the heartache that quite naturally springs from a revelation like this, I was left with a vague sense of imbalance. I went to sleep troubled, and woke with the vivid image of a tightrope walker on my mind.

A tightrope stretches in front of each of us, in any relationship that matters.

You begin your journey in confidence. Of course you step out in confidence! How else could you be convinced that this was a reasonable undertaking, if not for your blind faith that you absolutely have the skills and abilities to reach the other side? As you inch your way out over the chasm, your confidence is so great that the twist of rope beneath you feels as solid as a twelve inch plank.

You get a bit further out, and the winds pick up. Maybe it is a single gust, that blows you momentarily off balance. Maybe it is a steady breeze that makes each step, each inch forward a challenge. Maybe your legs simply start to tremble.

Whatever the reason, all of the sudden you are wobbling, way out on this woven cord with nothing to hold onto. Every rule of tightrope walking tells you not to look down - never look down - but maybe it's the looking down that made you start to sway in the first place. Maybe you took your eye off the far side, and started focusing on your toes curling around that stupid skinny rope instead.

So you're wavering, and you know good and well that you are the only person who will steady the rope. It won't happen by looking down, it won't happen by flailing your arms around helplessly. The only thing - the only thing - that will stave off disaster is a change of focus. Pulling your eyes up, and finding the far side again.

Maybe some of us won't be able to pull it back. Maybe some of us won't be able to withstand the buffeting wind, or maybe the sway of the rope will have gotten too far out of control. Maybe all that can be done at that point is to consciously look down, to keep looking down, and believe with all your heart that the safety net of those that love & care for you will be there as you fall.

Some of us...some of us will make it through those vicious winds. Some of us will find the steadying stillness, and we won't be sure quite how we did it. The only way through the swaying is to continue: stopping - standing still - is simply not an option.

So, whilst I've had that vague swaying feeling all day, having heard my friend's news, I will choose to continue along the journey on my own rope, stretching out over the void. Inch by inch, my toes will creep across the twisted cord.

I have to believe that my friends' toes will keep them moving across the rope too. If not, I sure as hell am one of the people who make up the net underneath.

*********

There are millions of blogs out there - funny, frank, or starkly painfully honest - that will freely discuss our failures as parents. But I find that when it comes to our failures in relationships, we are less able to open up, to admit that we are wavering.

Just for today, let Your People know that you love 'em, no matter where they are on (or off) the rope.

Thankful: for Family, Trees, and Friends

2010-11-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

In the middle of handing out mini-Snickers and Reeses Cups this Halloween, I was busy snipping pieces of kraft paper into a vague sort of tree outline:

It's our Thankful Tree. I ran across the idea somewhere in the blogosphere last year, and it was a big hit here in the Yellow House. The concept is simple: each night, we go around the table and each family member names one thing they're thankful for. If certain 2nd graders insist, they are given rights to the coveted brown Sharpie marker to write their own leaf.

The 2010 tree was extremely prolific: as the leaves tumbled off the oaks, maples and poplars in our backyard, the paper leaves grew and grew on the Thankful Tree. Some of my happiest moments this month have been craning my neck to check out all the funny little things my kids are grateful for. Except, not so funny: many of the adults' and kids' leaves turn up with some version of 'grandparents' or 'my friends.'

Ahh, friends. Today on Classic Play I am guest posting all about a Friends Thanksgiving - the meaning of a holiday spent with The Other Kind of Family. Let us never forget the gift of our families, crazy as they might be, but also? Keep those friendships on your Thankful Tree. There's nothing like 'em.

It's Blinding Me With SCIENCE!

2010-11-02T20:31:00.003-05:00

Hey readers out there!! As if the scintillation of the every-other-week posting around here weren't enough, I have something SUPER exciting for you this evening.

The brilliant minds over at Classic Play have published a new issue of their e-zine, and this time it's all about SCIENCE. There are the gorgeous crafts, activities and gift guides that you always expect from Ellie Bellie Kids, and of course there's the writing. The writing! Classic Play have rounded up an eclectic team of contributers from all over the globe, and you. do. not. wanna MISS IT!!!

Scamper scamper scamper to check it out - and make sure you leave those people some comment love, because darn if they don't work hard to make our lives lovelier with that magazine.

Grandparents

2010-11-01T21:28:00.008-05:00

My eldest got really sick this afternoon, really quickly. She arrived home saying she felt 'tired' and an hour later had spiked a fever of 102 and was shivering on the couch in pajamas. She didn't ask for ice pops, ginger ale, or even Barbie movies. She asked for Grandma.

As I drove home from driving her to my mother's, I tried hard not to feel insulted. I mean, aren't kids supposed to want their MOM when they're sick?

Then I thought about my husband, travelling to Norway this week for his grandmother's funeral. I thought about the stories he told us at the dinner table, the night we heard she'd died: stories of cousins, of chocolate cakes, of a laughing, loving woman.

I thought of my own grandmother, who died in November 2006. My own memories were visceral, tonight - of her kitchen table, of her beautiful white hair, of her long graceful fingers on piano keys. She is present in so many of my day-to-day choices.

Today is November 1: All Saints Day. A day to remember the "great cloud of witnesses." Today, I am grateful for grandparents - those magical people in our lives who have the extra time, the extra space in their evening for sick little girls or the surreptitious morsel of cake to share.

Today I focus my heart on the gifts and wisdom of those who have traveled the path ahead of me, and I'm not insulted. I - we, we who have had loving grandparents in our lives - we are given the most profound gift.

The Grandparents of NilsenLife on the beach in the Lofoten Islands (and lil ol' me)

Here Comes the Sun...

2010-10-20T21:23:00.011-05:00

Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.

Elizabeth Bowen

Does anyone else notice the light changing? I was looking back through some summer photos and observed the 100-watt bulb quality of the afternoon sun: strong shadows, a yellow-white light that makes you want your sunglasses, even looking at photos late at night.

Early in the morning (I am so well acquainted with the early-morning sun right now!), before my eyes have fully opened I am aware of the golden quality of the sunlight. Its liquid gold pours through my east-facing windows, glowing in my terracotta laundry room like treasure in a red velvet bag. The summer light was more of a hyper-shiny platinum, urging you out into the day, spurring you on to activity and accomplishment. The autumn sunrise is less... activity oriented. It invites you to take time with your coffee, to savor the warmth of the day, to enjoy wearing a sweater with your shorts that afternoon.

the view through my laundry room window

This fall light is gentler, cozier. 'Mellow' is the word the poets keep tossing around. To me it feels more....nostalgic. The afternoon sun has a regretful quality to it, as if it were urging us to get outside while we can. The light seems to apologize for its nearing departure, and as it prepares to go it lingers in the rosy skin of apples, in the golden sheen on the pumpkins - I swear you can even taste it in the cider from our local farm.

Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

Fall isn't the hyper young Spring, gamboling on the lawn, it isn't the glamorous and impossibly gorgeous Summer wearing nothing but a bikini. It is the slightly older Autumn who has seen enough to know she doesn't know it all, who is more forgiving for that knowledge, who has the wisdom to treasure the fading light. This makes her gentle, and ineffably, more beautiful.

It's Thursday, my readers: a gorgeous fall day in which we may all gain in fruits. Enjoy.

**************

This is a repost from October '08, but just so perfect for this morning I wanted to share some Samuel Butler all over again. Apologies to the 2 readers who've been reading since then.

Being a Hater

2010-10-19T15:32:00.000-05:00

If you read any so-called mommyblogs - heck, if you read any new media whatsoever - you are bound to come across an essay here or there about how us moms need to be gentler with each other. More gentle, less judgmental. Usually the article will make some version of the point that all of us are doing our very best, and needless criticism, holier-than-thou opinions, and general negativity isn't helping any of us parent any better.

Agreed. WHOLLY AGREED.

But I have this problem. No matter how supportive, affirming, and positive my mom friends are, there is always going to be that one person who will pronounce the icy words of judgement on my most recent parenting efforts. When at the end of the day I review the high and low points and, let's face it, start to obsess over the 'distinctly low', there is always the one individual I can count on to remember every profanity [accidentally] uttered, every pointless accusation I threw at my small offspring, even my failure to provide nutritious and/or balanced meals. Remember? Remember how you served mac n' cheese TWICE today? With HOT DOGS?!?!

That reliable individual is always me.

There is a simple name for what I pour upon the ash-heap of my day's failures: condemnation.

What a loaded word, condemnation. When I say it out loud I can't escape instant associations with over-zealous televangelists, with loud pronouncements from an anonymous pulpit, with memories of The Scarlet Letter in the 10th grade.

Fascinating, that I instantly have such, well, condemnatory associations with the word condemnation. Doesn't stop me from doing it. Honestly, I wouldn't dream of judging others in my community with the same words I use for myself. Not others in my church, not others in my neighborhood, not even the mom I see in Target hauling off and smacking her two year old upside the head. (Okay, I don't have kind words in my heart for this woman, but at the very least I have an element of compassion for what I perceive to be her 'limited disciplinary toolbox.' Me? I know better.)

It has to stop, this judging. As I said at the beginning: none of this negativity is helping me parent any better. In the immortal words of Yoda: Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Condemnation encompasses all of that fear, anger and hate, and yes: it leads to pointless and unproductive suffering.

Condemnation is the absence of compassion. Can I really justify withholding compassion for the mother of my kids? When you put it that way.... I guess not.

**********

I've written about Condemnation today as part of the One Word at a Time blog carnival, and I am grateful that I waited to write it until having read some of the other posts on the subject. It wasn't until I read other posts that I realized just how damaging my thought patterns are, how limiting my judgement is, and how universally all the bloggers who've posted seem accept that to live in love, we cannot live in a spirit of condemnation. For anyone.

Those Pants

2010-10-18T13:25:00.002-05:00

No, don't shake your computer, or tap at your screen. Nothing's wrong with your Google Reader. I have in fact posted two days in a row. Outrageous, I know.

Well I'm just popping in this afternoon to tell you about a nifty little guest-post feature I did over at Mommypants. Cheryl hosts a Monday feature called 'Mommypants Moment', and so today I'm there talking about the first time those Mommypants dug into my postpartum flesh.

Ever worn something that fits you so perfectly that you forget you have it on? Something that you love so much that you wear it to death, but every once in a while you look down and can't believe you've still got it on?

Those are Mommypants. They're standard issue, and you can't be a mom without 'em.

So go check out the guest post, and then while you're over there you could look around - Cheryl is so damn funny that her incredible talent as a writer is almost taken for granted. If you visit, you'll definitely be back, so be prepared to bookmark a new fave!

Thanks y'all - I'm just going to go scrub the pizza sauce off the knees of these here pants.

Run Like a Mother...

2010-10-16T19:41:00.009-05:00

Way back in January I told y'all I'd bought a pair of running shoes. Told you I wanted to be a runner again: not to lose weight, not to look better, not even to run fast. I just wanted to be the person who had the shoes to lace up, who had the willpower to roll out of bed at 5.30 on a summer morning to run through the steamy silent sunrise.

I wasn't sure, when I posted that here, whether I'd keep my word. Whether I'd grant myself my wish. Because life is crazy - I am up late in the night attending to details, adult details of my life that get ignored all day. I have three busy kids, one hardworking husband, and a million little things that demand my attention.

Well I have big news.

Yesterday morning I ran like a seven year old. I ran with abandon - up the hills and down the hills and around the lake and around the potholes and... I ran with unfettered joy.

I ran in a marathon relay: I was the fourth leg, with a run of 7.2 miles. This was the first race I'd run in 20 years. The longest distance I've raced ever. I ran and ran and ran and smiled the biggest goofiest smile you've seen on a mom of 3. I had a blast.

And guess what. Turns out, running for joy - for the sheer fun of it? Makes for a smoking fast time. Well, smoking fast for a girl who was planted firmly on the couch watching CSI reruns last fall.

What I felt yesterday goes beyond proud. Beyond 'accomplished.' Beyond happy. What I felt yesterday was Joy.

It Feeds Me

2010-10-05T06:20:00.008-05:00

The phrase was uttered quietly, that Thursday morning, without flourish. I am here, a fellow student told our class, because this is what feeds me.

That simple sentence has resonated all week. I am here because it feeds me.

The question started niggling around in my head as I ran, as I sorted laundry, as I spent an hour online. What feeds me?

I thought about McDonalds. I thought about how you can order an entire family's worth of food, have the crowd swarm around the table, stuffing french fries and picking breading off chicken nuggets and dripping Special Sauce from their chins and at the end of the meal feel ... unfed. I may feel bloated, greasy-fingered, maybe even full, but without fail, when I leave a table at a fast food restaurant I feel unfed.

Conversely, cooking does feed me. The act of sourcing ingredients, of methodically chopping the vegetables, of remembering that thyme tastes better in this soup than basil, of simmering beans and tomatoes and garlic and onions in a cast iron pot all day: this is feeding myself. The warmth of soup in my throat, the melting parmesan on top, the crusty bread to dip in, the appreciative humming of my companions: this is feeding my people.

Writing feeds me.

Cleaning does not.

My Thursday morning class feeds me.

Filing papers does not.

Teaching feeds me.

Running feeds me.

Sit-ups do not.

Connecting - genuinely connecting with people - it absolutely feeds me.

Funny: once I started asking the question, the answers came thick and fast. This feeds me, that does not. This feeds me, that........ meh.

Saturday morning dawned a beautiful autumn-y gold. There was so much on the schedule: tight timeframes, a lot of shuttling back & forth, parents juggling duties to fit it all in. I finally rolled up to the sidelines of the soccer pitch, coffee in hand, thinking This day won't feed me. It won't feed any of us. I said as much to Torbjorn.

So we ditched the day's agenda.

I made our apologies for unmet commitments, and we took off for the country, for a day in the fall sunshine. There was some time spent on our backs in a Virginia meadow watching clouds, there was some spiced cider and kettle corn, there was art and music and... simple. And there was soup at the end of the day.

Is it so much to ask, that your occupations will feed you? I'd argue that no, it isn't much to ask of your life, that you pursue those things that will make you full, sated, content. And yet easy, so easy, to navigate your days, mindlessly ordering the spiritual equivalent of Happy Meals, constantly 'consuming', and never ever feeling fed.

So let's do a little experiment, shall we? How 'bout you go through your day today and ask yourself what feeds you - ask if what you're doing feeds you, or if might be filling your life with psychic Big Macs.

I'd love to hear what feeds you.

Girls & Dolls

2010-09-29T20:39:00.000-05:00

Nothing new under the sun - including girls who need a little time to wake up in the morning.

Annika 2010

Cecilie 2005

Kirsten 1975

Where I'm From

2010-09-24T05:30:00.000-05:00

I am from ancient quilts reeking of mothballs, from lemony furniture polish and well-tuned pianos.

I am from suburban bricks on a cul-de-sac, from spaces filled with books and inherited furniture, from darkened rooms with flickering Super8 family movies on Friday night.

I am from the redbud, the azalea, the tall oak and maple - the riotous daffodils, the drifts of cherry blossom.

I am from Friday's meal of potato and beans and from the Family of Righteous Indignation, from Joan and Jack and generations of Klooster.

I am from the corner of Stubborn and Devoted - the two intersect in many places.

From a house where rowdy boys riled a peace-loving sister; where quiet quirkiness was venerated.

I am from a remnant church, a community in the world but not of the world. I am equally from the wider world that then found me. I am from faith, I am from love, and I am from a life that offers grace at every turn.

I'm from Malaysia, from England, from Veja-Links and cucumber sandwiches.

From the steel-grey and ever-elegant piano teacher who guided a crowd with laughter and poise through war, heartbreaks and car crashes, always taking the higher road. From the gifted and also-elegant elementary teacher who is everything and nothing like her mother, who has a heart forty three times her size.

I am from no place - I am from Family, located on eight hearths before I was eighteen. I am the books, the photos, the film reels, the stories: the memories of a host of genetics. At the core is Family.

***********

This post is linked as part of The Red Writing Hood, over at The Red Dress Club. The assignment this week asked us to participate in a long-running writing exercise in which we were all invited to complete the same basic form, delineating our perceived roots: where we are from. You can read more about the exercise here. I'd encourage you to try it, even if (especially if!) you don't see yourself as a writer.

The Complicated Fairytale

2010-09-22T21:31:00.002-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved stories. She loved stories of families: Little Women, All 0f a Kind Family, Stuart Little. She loved stories of quirky mothers, of steadfast fathers.

As the girl grew, she did not suffer with a wicked stepmother, she did not lose her father to a mystical dragon or a noble quest. It could be argued that she lived an almost-fairytale life. The girl dreamed many dreams, imagined many things for her life, but one future was certain, in her mind: she would be a mother.

She would have babies. She would change diapers, she would wipe noses, she would read stories, she would bake her specialty chocolate chip cookies. She would sit at the table and work on homework, she would cheer at soccer practice, she would get through adolescence somehow.

Sound like a fairytale? Yep.

Once upon a time, this same girl found out her dream would come true. She read the books, she rubbed her belly, and she read Goodnight Moon aloud to the small being in her belly.

Then, one early morning in September, this girl-grown-into-a-woman got her first indication that the fairy tale may have an alternate ending. That dreams come true are complicated. Her tiny daughter made her appearance over a month early: arrived with dark eyes and huge feet, and a serious little face. She fixed those old-soul eyes on her mother, and her mother knew instantly that life would never unfold like it had in the stories, but would reveal itself just as it was supposed to.

I don't quite believe it either. Still.

What the young mother learned, on that stunning September day, was that her fairytale was just beginning. That she had no idea what her story would include, but that it would be full of mystery, of surprises, of uncertainty and magic.

My changeling transformed the narrative completely, as all firstborn babies do. My complex, enchanting and enigmatic child leads the way, is writing the story, and I am delighted - honored - to be part of the adventure.

Happy Birthday to my amazing daughter. Her day is also mine: anniversary of the birth of the real fairytale. We are living: messily, neurotically, busily, noisily, ironically, and yes, happily - happily ever after.

Hit the Trail

2010-09-21T21:41:00.012-05:00

Oh, it was a hard bump back to reality. Today the rosy glow of our first weeks of homeschool turned into a harsh glare that highlighted the lack of schoolmates, the absence of a "Real Teacher", and no freakin' bus ride.

There would be no happy lessons today. No grin of satisfaction over a whole page of straight lines well done. No science 'speriments. He was having none of it.

That's it, I said. Put away the pencils. We're going into the woods.

Grumble grumble grumble.... I hate the woods. I don't wanna hike. I only wanna walk on pavement. I'm not going up the hill. I only want to go to the playground. SIGH. [Says the kid who would normally, and happily, play outside for 12 of his 13 waking hours.]

Not going on your dumb hike.

Oh FINE, I'll follow Annika just to that tree. Because I want that stick she's holding.

Ooh, this is weird, Mom. What's growing on this dead tree?

My guy triumphing over escaping from the girls again.

But littlest adventurer never gives up the chase.

As one of my Facebook friends commented, "there's a lot to be learned in the woods." Indeed there is. Not least, that sometimes the plans most carefully laid are those best laid aside on a day of I Don't Wanna.

Not Perfectly Thin, but Perfectly Happy

2010-09-19T09:00:00.001-05:00

I dropped a fair bit of weight this summer.   (If you saw me in person and didn't notice, that's ok. These things don't tend to be obvious when spread over six feet of me. And honestly? We're still not talking sylph-like dimensions here.)

It was weight that had hung around since Kid #1: nothing dramatic, and I certainly wouldn't have made it onto the opening lineup for The Biggest Loser. But it was a fair chunk of flesh that had over-stayed its welcome.

Without any real plan for Losing Weight (I am extremely anti-diet), I started running more. Working out more often. June and July were spent at the pool, and snacks were watermelon chunks, roasted almonds, and fresh raspberries.   All of the sudden, my clothes started to fit differently. In fact, most of my wardrobe started to get really too big: as a running joke I would tally the number of shorts and skirts that I could pull off without unbuttoning or unzipping.

But here's the funny thing. I lost weight, and it didn't change my life, making me happy, successful, or, well, perfect. (I know. I was devastated to make this discovery. But there you are.) The goal weight that I'd fixated on for so long was nodded at on the way down the scale, and passing it didn't change my life one iota: my husband didn't love me more, my kids didn't find me a better mother, my writing didn't improve commensurately with the dropping numbers on the scale.

In one of those rare insights that Oprah calls an "a-ha! moment" and I call an instance of "well, duh" - I realized - so freaking late in life! - that the lifelong pursuit of the beautiful body, of the elusive 'perfect' body was so much emptiness.   That having once been spectacularly fit, then not so fit, then outright chubby, and finally kinda-sorta-fit all means.... not much.

So what next? Do I just stop running? Do I give up, sit down with a bottle of wine, a slab of cheese and a half-kilo of good dark chocolate? Because, after all, what we're saying is that being fit doesn't change your life, right?

Au contraire. This fitness, the weight loss? It DID change my life. What changed my life was this: The outrageous sense of achievement when running five fast miles. Lifting weights whilst standing on one foot, knowing that my core was supporting me.   Hoisting my 30 pound toddler up and down behind my head in a sneaky attempt at a triceps workout.   Swimming laps for an hour and loving it.

Losing weight did not make me more interesting, more intelligent, or more loveable. But the path towards losing weight has changed my perspective entirely. What has changed is that once again I know I am strong. I am taking care of myself. I'm not giving up and rolling over and getting old. I'm taking time for me - even if that has to be at 5.30 in the morning.

When I came across this video on Facebook this week, my heart sank. Because what the speaker - Jean Kilbourne - is talking about here is the opposite of all the things I learned the hard way this summer. She's discussing the insidious idea that our girls continue to be sold: the idea that if pretty enough, if thin enough, they will BE enough.

It would be disingenuous for me to pretend that I never dress my girls in pretty clothes, or marvel at the way my 8 year old looks in skinny jeans (the girl's built like a grasshopper: she was meant to wear this particular trend, even if she hates 'em.) But daily I pray that I am doing enough to let them know how valuable - how significant they are, regardless of outfit, regardless of accessories, regardless of body type.

It may be the biggest gift I will ever give these girls.

Or indeed, myself.