When I was little, whenever it rained, I would stand at the back door and beg my mother to let me go out and dance in the downpour. Running around in summer rains are some of my earliest memories. There is some magic in those droplets. How they can transform your landscape and the air all around you.
K is for….
He is a powerhouse of perpetual motion most days.
He is going to be an inventor. He is going to design houses. And work with his dad and his brother.
He says he will build me a house. But it has to have purple inside. He wants to know what I want to be when he grows up. When I tell him, I dont know, he thinks for a moment and then tells me I can work with him. We will build houses for people that don't have anywhere to sleep he says.
He is fierce and wild and more than he knows himself to be.
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Welcome week
Today we kept with a long held family tradition of celebrating this day of Irish pride by not donning green. As a child my mother objected to the wearing of green on St Patrick's Day on principal, saying "We are Irish all year long. Everyday. We don't need to wear green and wrap ourselves in shamrocks on this one day to prove it." This is what I told my son on the drive to school this morning. (Just more light heartedly and cheerful.) Mostly because I didn't remember he had a green unifrom shirt that was a size too small, but would maybe fit, shoved in the bottom of his drawer until I came home from drop off this morning. Could have saved myself some trouble if I had remembered that little tidbit. I also prepared him that we do not have corned beef; having been brought up with the notion that it was not authentic Irish food. That and we are vegetarians. We have different Irish food, I told him, like Colconnan. He excepted all this happily. Saying "That makes sense." By the afternoon our world view has changed drastically.
I can tell you that next year? Everyone will go to school in green, with cheap St patrick's flair to boot.
Fields full of harps and shamrocks indeed.
This photo is from a few years ago. For some reason I thought of it today and then had to spend a looooong time looking for it. This is when you discover that your "system" is in fact not a system. I probably was inspired to remember this image given it's St Patrick's Day and there are rainbows with pots of gold splashed everywhere. It has me feeling very nostalgic. Look at those cheeks.
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welcome week: scones
I love scones. (These are mine pictured above).
But no one can touch J's scones. His are amazingly good. Mine are good, they get us by, but it's just not the same. Even the kids say so.
Pictured are my chocolate scones without much cocoa powder and an orange sugar glaze.
Also those bowls. They are from a pottery studio in New Hampshire, called Salty Dog Pottery.
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Scenes from the week
Keats peeking over the belly.
It has been a long day. And it's only the afternoon. There has been hellish trip to the library that I am so emotionally damaged by I can not recount. All I can say is no one can touch a three year old's skills when it comes to psychological toture. And leave it at that. Long day.
I am going to shake it off by hopefully watching this: Gerhard Richter Painting .
Here's to tomorrow.
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Welcome Pancakes
Happy Pancake Day!
I can not make pancakes. They come out terrible whenever I do make the attempt. Lucky for us J can and does make pancakes. And they are fantastic! I was pretty excited that he took this on this morning so we were all saved.
J's Pancakes
1 cup flour
2 tbls sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 tbls oil (or butter)
1 cup buttermilk
Mix dry, mix wet, add wet to dry and whisk!
Hope you were as lucky as we were today to have someone make a delicious pancake stack.
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Happy places
Do you have a "happy Place". A place that has a calming effect or just makes things right in the world. Mine is without a doubt the beach. There have even been studies that prove large bodies of water reduce stress. (And if I ever bookmarked all the interesting articles I read I could find them to reference.) Some have suggested people that live near water are happier than those that do not. I don't know about all that. I do know, I have been lucky enough to have lived near the shore my whole life. It has always been a part of memory and personal history.
Last week I was having a stressed moment; sick with the flu, the boys sick with the flu, being 32 weeks pregnant. Being 32 weeks pregnant! And a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn't bare mentioning. While driving to my doctor to get checked out for flu complications I drove by the beach. Even covered in piles of snow, just seeing that expanse of water and sky calmed me on the spot. There is something about that vast body of water that just puts you in your place. Everything lines up when I look out at that water.
Driving past (because it's COLD out there) I was reminded of all the times I have found relief at the shore. One such time was during my mother's struggle with terminal cancer. Towards the end, when she needed full time care and I had taken a leave of absence from work; a health aid would come a couple times a week to offer me a few moments away from the house. It was an hour or two at most. But I would jump in the car and drive to the beach, where I would then swim out and embrace the feeling of being surrounded by something larger than myself. I would just tread water for as long as I could. Then I would jump in the car and drive back soaking wet, not having time to dry off. Those trips saved me during that period. I don't remember these moments with sadness or a sense of morbidity. I remember how grateful I felt. I will never forget the relief I felt when I would get to the shore.
I still feel that relief when I see the ocean. Like I've been holding my breath and can finally let it go. I have a strong beach love. It's my balm. It's a sanctuary. For me it is a place of empowerment and inspiration. Even when chasing the boys up and down the beach in the summer and fretting over sun block coverage, it's my happy place. My children are already asking when we can go walking along the shore. Talking about the discoveries they will make. already thinking up names of the islands they will discover at low tide. We just need to be 20 degrees warmer. Overcast and chilly don't bother me so much but frigid and arctic wind do put a damper on ones happy spot.
So what about you? Do you have a happy place? Is it near the water or in the trees? Where are you calm cool and collected?
*Photo of me and my father at the beach
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welcome back, welcome week
I have plans to get back on the wagon here. Make some changes and find a place and balance for all the things I have swimming around on the infinite to do list in my head. So many things I want to do. For now I am rekindling my affair with light.
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