to be loved and adored…
April 28, 2013
Sometimes when there is too much around me and I am just not sure where to start or what to do in my life, I head to the vault. It’s a collection of pictures, a group of moments I keep buried in my files waiting to be held, processed, finished somehow…At times the vault tortures me as I can never seem to get to the task and at other moments I think of it as the vessel where little bits of treasure rest, where stories wait to be told or the reminder of how sweet things were resides.
I often wonder how many small moments of our lives are still there waiting for us, hanging out in the back of the vaults of our hearts…places for us to escape back to with a more gentle and kind view of our lives…maybe this is the best part of leaving things undone, unfinished, and not exactly having it organized the way we think we should.
As I looked through the pictures of Lyra’s birthday last September, all I could see was what it looks like to be loved and adored.
The love started by Jen offering her back yard for the party and I was reminded that no mother should ever do birthday parties alone… and how love doesn’t always look like a Pinterest page and is often more of a modge podge of simple kind offerings.
Things like…
One princess tent already infused with joy from a birthday of another dear girl earlier that year was lent for fort goodness.
One old slip n’ slide that gave many a never-ending slide was shared to double the awesomeness of the new mega slide.
A last minute decorating job to a store bought cake made mermaid cake dreams come true.
…and each person shared what they love about Lyra on magic rocks that she will keep in her own heart vault to pull out when times are rough, or she loses her way, or just to know what it feels like to be loved and adored…again and again.
And it isn’t so much about perfect parties and picture moments but how each little part, each little offering adds up to something bigger …and that when we love each other and share whatever we have, the circle of love and adoration grows wider and wider, including us all.
step in with your whole heart…
April 25, 2013
family mornin’…
April 24, 2013
we don’t always have to get it right…
April 23, 2013
what change asks…
April 22, 2013
What change asks of you…
change reveals what you care about the most
change checks your perceptions and judgments
change makes space for you to fall apart, then asks you to get it together
change shows you the path to grieve
change asks you to take a chance or risk
change calls us without our permission
change invites you in… and out
change asks you to stretch in ways you never planned or imagined
change asks us to honor our needs
change invites power or let’s you be the victim, it tells you to decide which one
change surprises you
change leaves no where to hide
change knows our secrets and even the parts we haven’t discovered yet, like our resolve and tenacity
change asks you to widen your heart
change connects our shared humanity
…and whether we survive, celebrate or fight it, it always wins…and where we find ourselves and souls in the midst of it is up to us.
there’s a crack in everything…
April 18, 2013
hollywood tantrums and making friends with the dark…
April 14, 2013
“Mom, you just said something nice about the new house, I am so proud of you!” my new teenager said.
“Oh MY GOD, I did?! I didn’t mean it, I take it back.” I replied.
I am finding it’s one thing to make hopeful declarations and another thing to have to actually live in the Old Trashy House. There has been more than one Hollywood tantrum (as my sister calls them) this week…and maybe a few Anne of Green Gables “depths of despair” crying moments as well. I know it’s one of those times that I will return to years from now and wonder how I ever could have been such a brat, or maybe I’ll be evolved enough to remember myself in kindness and love that dear girl because everything made sense after all.
I wake up every morning and desperately miss the view of the sun rising and watching the pink light creep up the walls to fill the old magic house so easily, with no effort at all. I keep looking for the light here, both literally and figuratively. I see how much the old place and people kept me going, how the light was held for me… and this just isn’t that. Even so, while I kick and scream, I am discovering there is something about the dark.
It’s the kind of dark where you finally say you don’t think you can do something and you acknowledge the need for a light that carries you in a new way, or you must sort of struggle and sit in the dark before the light comes to rescue you or you find your own. Or maybe no rescue is needed at all, maybe the dark is the way. The need or the one thing that makes you unlovable may just be the thing that takes you where you are meant to be or go. It may be in this honesty with ourselves that we find the way…and each other.
…and I am finding that our kindness doesn’t have to come from the best part of ourselves, it can come from our pain, our healing, the darkest places of who we are…because those are the the birth places of our humanity and the exact places we are all connected.
In some strange way even while it’s still shitty and hard, this lets me sigh, a deep sigh…as I make friends with the dark.
Kindnessgirl 