The sun sets behind a building made of wood and stone and earth: time. She is a fireball in the sky. Burning orange with her shoulders wide, arms stretched out over the horizon, head back and into the sky.
I am passenger on swift moving train racing over the miles like wind past this scene. It is slow and beautiful and fierce and fast and sad.
Pale blues give way to deeper shades. I try to remember. I must stir. I must wake. I must write it down.
Lost are those long slender days when pain was less known to these bones. Fists clenched but the days have slipped through. The decades are left, waylaid and unremembered.
With the darkening sky weariness settles in as my eyelids close. And the gentlest wisp of cloud carries even these memories away, tucking them safely into its billowed folds: past.
From the ear buds the soft monotone voices speak slowly enough for sleep to come to me. Silence is too full of the unknown for my tired mind to manage.
Asleep like I am in a race. Running from thought to thought. From dream to awake to the places still and dark between them to running again.
The sound of the dogs breathing heavy, the train in the distance, horn blaring into all the places of the town. long wailing horn rising over fence and building and dumpster and on into the night full with their miles of Winter bare fields. Every sound heard and felt and sending mind to wander and run and search and never find.
Tiny and not so tiny people creaking in over the planks and into our bed wedging themselves into the spaces between he and I. My body unable to turn right onto my back. Unable to fully extend my legs unless I turn and twist myself diagonal.
Words in the smoothest script on so many pieces of paper tossed into the air fall to tables edge and metal chair and hard-wood floors and the scramble begins. Decide what to do, do and decide again what to do.
Over the Summer we added two pets to the family. A husky pup because someone had a big birthday and asked at just the right time. And an accidental kitten. Hubby has always wanted puppies or kittens. I have always fought them off because we had babies or little kids and puppies and kittens chew and scratch and bite and do not yet know that they should not. So I’ve managed to dodge hundreds of wee animals in the name of familial safety.
It was however, on a milestone birthday when husband spotted some cute puppies for sale. He sent pictures. Then called. I said no and after we hung up I texted go ahead and then called him to make sure he knew. It was his birthday for goodness sake. He is awesome and he has always wanted a puppy so- yes. The brown one. but he liked the white one who he could name ghost, you know because of Jon Snow. I laughed and then completely caved.
The next week I’m taking wee ghost for his shots- there are kittens in the front waiting area, in cages adorable and frolicking. I’m not tempted. Not in the least. But our youngest kiddo and I are waiting for more than 40 minutes and the cuteness was just too much. That day we came home with Benjamin the cat. He is a mess! He plays and bites. Chews and scurries and darts through the house like an armed missile. But I do love him so maybe mostly because he seems to know that he is my cat.
– he sleeps when we are awake –
So at this time we have five kids and five pets. It is a lot. But everyone loves them. Well not really. Our oldest dog isn’t at all sure about Ghost and Benjamin and the hair on his neck stands up for a long time when they are around- invading his space but eventually he adjusts and seems happy with them. Big dog number two loves them both immediately and is ready to play and pounce and chew. He is with us and them for for a few months until a quick illness takes him to heaven. That was hard for everyone, he was such a good dog. RIP Quinnie boy.
The big cat was not interested in any new friends at all. She is awesome and solitary and only wants your help getting through the cat doors to food and water and litter boxes. And really she doesn’t need anyone’s help- she can go through just fine- she just prefers that someone help her. She is big and fluffy and really only loves daughter 10 and sleeps with her and basically lives in her room. She has yet to warm to them. She is boss. She is queen of all the pets. One feels so special when she comes to say hello.
I’ve introduced you to our family pets for a reason, promise. The kids were so excited. They immediately loved them both. They clamored to hold them, pet them, feed them, love on them. And everyone handled the kitten and the puppy pretty well, except for daughter 8. She loved them and was excited in the same way as the others but where she struggled was this: kittens scratch and puppies bite. It happened with each of them on separate days in different weeks but it was basically the same. I heard her crying.
Checking on her I found her overwhelmed and weepy. She cried out, “Why is he hurting me?” Alligator tears flowing, spit slipping over the edges, mouth open wide and eyes shut tight, she cried hard. “Oh, baby they are babies still and they haven’t learned not to bite and scratch, to them they are just playing with you.” She cried some more, “But I’m just trying to loooove theeeem.”
I comfort her for as long as it took both times. Both times I fought the tears. I hurt for my sweet heart; giant heart girl. I tell her so. I tell her that I love her heart. Hold her and rock her and tell her that time will pass and they will both learn not to hurt us but that it will take time and we will have to teach them. She gets angry at some point and says she won’t play with them or love them ever again. I smooth the hair back from her tear soaked face. I tell her she will feel love for them when her feelings aren’t so hurt.
She reminds me of me, now with some in our family who I chose to love. Mouth open, spit dripping, tears flowing and the immature little girl self in this old woman is wondering why they won’t just let me love them without them hurting me, us. I’ve let the hard years turn me cold and I’ve let negative bias and resentment in often enough to not like myself anymore. I cry out and the Good Father comforts me, my words to my girl ring in my ears as His voice to this mama’s heart.
He tells me that time will pass and they will learn how to let our love in but that it will take time and we will, all of us, need to grow. So often I allow my emotions to run untamed and have felt like I want to throw in towels and run away inside my heart and Father smooths the hair back from my tear soaked face. He tells me how I do love them and will remember this when my feelings aren’t so hurt anymore. As the days pass I sense the deepness and realness of Father’s promise that He is still working in me. Still growing me, moving things around, making me able where I wasn’t able before.
I finished the socks that I spoke of last time. I really love the greens and browns together in this Arne and Carlos Regia line. And they are perfect for Fall. I don’t think that they are for me though. I’ll write something more about that later.
I am steadily working on the wee quilt I spoke of last time as well. I figured out who it is for and now have a deadline. I do despise deadlines. They make me slower rather than faster but I will get it done.
I finished Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott. It is funny and honest and beautifully written. Writers of all sorts are encouraged to pick it up and read it and keep it on a shelf where they can see it and reach it easily.
I started the three books pictured here. We’ll see if one sticks. I hope to read all three- rewarding myself with the most entertaining of the three when I finish the more clinical one, and the more spiritually challenging one. But we’ll see how it pans out.
I started a test knit for Sally Jane last week. It is a lace weight cardigan; the yarn feels so soft and lovely as I turn long rows of knitting into fabric. It doesn’t look like much now because I was near the place where I would divide for the sleeves but then I looked at other test knitter’s pictures and realized that I’d made a mistake and repeated it for too many rows. I went to take back the area and fix it but I guess I was too tired to do it so I tinked the entire thing and cast it on anew.
I am considering doing the same with the gray cardigan I showed last time as well. Something about it just doesn’t sit well with me. I placed it in a drawer where the wool waits for me to make up my mind. So goes my creative process in jumps and starts and back again.
I’m so glad for September to have arrived. It is by far my most favorite month as it signals the end of the long Summer and the beginning of the cooler then cold seasons. Yay and sigh. I am joining Ginny for yarnalong. Be blessed friends. Peace.
I don’t often come here. To the quiet place in my room. To the small brown desk with someone else’s name scratched into the bottom of its drawer. But here I am with tablet and pen and coffee hot and strong. I’ve dusted off my working wheels and pulled the pages from my shelf; pen atop my ear. I’ve gathered toys from tables and chairs and counters and placed them into rooms and closed their doors; clutter our of sight.
The sound of the bathroom fan and my breathing in and out. The click of the keys and the dog gnawing on his bone. Helicopter overhead and semi truck passing on the road. These are the sounds that fill my ears while I wait for…something. You put down your cup and look up at me and we see one another better. I understand what you meant by the things that you said last night and you see, in my brown eyes swimming, how it all might have meant very little in the light of this new day. Time and sleep and sunshine and coffee bringing us back to common ground.
What a subtle grace it is to love ones best friend. You hold my hand even though we fight and I call you terrible names. I stand beside you even when you make me feel small and alone. We cling to one another in the battles of the everyday and we don’t let go and we always mean it when we say sorry and when we forgive. Even if its hard, maybe especially when its hard.
When I am weak and tired and don’t think that I can make it you send me trudging onward with such clever words and laughter and strong shoulders to cry on. When you are low and defeated I take your hand and whisper truth and the curtains open or the clouds part and light comes back behind your eyes to hope and to strength and we go on together.
I know that I can smash my face into your chest and weep and you won’t shove me away because you are busy or tired or angry even if you are feeling any of those things. You know (or at least I think that you know, rather hope you know!?) that even if you need to show me how scared you are that I still trust you, still believe in you, still love you.
I am thinking of braids now; picturing them in my mind. Three strands of differing colors and textures folded in over and under and together making something new. One strand of gold, one of silver and one of silk; Father God, you and me; strong, unbreakable. I am thinking that I am so thankful that we met so long ago in those large rooms among the rows of seats and angst filled youth. Thankful that we stayed friends even after you went one way in the world and I went another. Thankful for plain rides and holding hands and waiting for kisses and all the rest of it. This great love, steeped in sweet friendship was worth waiting on love. Thank you.
I must confess that the photos I stole from my Instagram while the house sleeps are from June and not July. Our five kids and two wee visitors, hubby, the two dogs and the cat are all still, amazingly, asleep. So I type with the phone held above my head in the dim morning light now, unable and unwilling to fetch all my projects and find some lighting and a spot to take real July pictures. My apologies.
I was doing that thing I do in the early hours of the day where I slide my phone from the night stand / desk and check all the places that I check before the world around here gets moving too fast. Email. Facebook. Instagram. Bible App for the verse of the day etc. I saw that Ginny had posted on Instagram her July Yarnalong was up and I felt I should join her.
I have been slow with the blogposts this past Spring. Weeks of sickness and then recovery left me unwilling to do more than the basics in life. I’ve been fairly productive on the crafting side of things though now that I’m feeling more myself. So here goes it.
I finished The Path Between Us by Suzanne Stabile and picked up (again) Becoming by Michelle Obama. Both are tremendously good books of differing sorts and I recommend them to you and to everyone.
I’m knitting socks (not pictured here) that I started in the Spring. I might add a picture later. I’m also knitting a sweater which is pictured that I started several years ago. Recently I decided that finishing things long left unfinished might be a good practice for me, a doing repressed four on the enneagram. We. Will. See. So far just working on the long neglected things feels really good. Feels like needed progress.
I did also start a wee hand quilted… something. I started out thinking it was a baby’s Summer quit. I’m not too sure of that anymore. As I work with the fabric bunched up in my hand and move the needle up down and over with my other hand I feel such deep joy in it’s making.
When the fabric is pulled taut in my quilters hoop and my eyes and fingers can run over the stitches in their varying lengths and colors, it feels less like a quilt and more like art. I wish every project felt this way. Maybe this is just because it’s a new kind of project for me, I don’t really know yet. It really is so lovely to work on though.
Thanks for stopping by and happy knitting or crocheting or crafting and reading!
Last month my husband and I went on a trip to another state for six days. It was the very first time we’d both left the kids for more than one night. My husband could have gone on twenty trips without the kids at any point in our marriage because he doesn’t have the insecurities and mama worries that I have had. It took me a bit longer. It took hard work on myself and the building of relationships that we could trust when it comes to care for our kids. It didn’t happen overnight. It took ages. It took a lot of prayers and change and growth and for me, none of it was easy. But it was worth the work. I feel like we are now in a new stage in life. Like we have crossed a road that has always scared me and walk in a place of peace.
The logistics were challenging for this kind of trip. Rather than use respite for our FD9 we asked Hubby’s mom to come and stay at our house for those 5 nights. Two couples from our church, people the kids know and love, came and gave my MIL a rest, took the kids for a walk, did crafts, took the boys to lunch and just teamed up to help care for our six kiddos so that hubby and myself could rest and recharge. It was hard to leave. It was difficult to plan. We had to work hard on the budget to make it happen and I had to let go of trying to control everything and trust God and my friends and family to meet my kiddos needs. Was it perfect? Did it all go super great? no, but it did work. The kids were safe. The team worked together and everyone did so well.
We spent five nights in Seattle and it did not rain once. The sun shone down on us. The water lapped and sparkled along the shores and the snow-caped mountains smiled at us as we drove on freeways, stood on towers and relaxed on waterways. It was splendid. It was refreshing and restful and restorative. We met people like us. Folks who are foster parents and adoptive parents who love Jesus and who struggle and question and persevere. It was so great. At the end we boarded flights and ate great food and enjoyed hot coffee and stout beers and when we landed in our own state we were so surprised to find that it was raining.
Tiny raindrops dotted the cracked windshield of hubby’s old work car as we drove into and over the mountains on our way home. We smiled and laughed that the rain was waiting for us in the desert rather than meeting us in the Pacific North West. We smiled at the thought of all the lovely sunshine that we had enjoyed over the past several days. It felt to my heart like a lesson. Like God had smiled down on us and given us this gift of Sun and rest and peace. Like he was saying that it was not just okay that we take the time for ourselves and for rest, but that we must and that He was pleased with us. I’m not sure where my brain and heart had doubted God’s goodness toward us. Maybe only in that this life is so very hard and we often fail and that terrible feeling that God is disappointed in us and that means that He doesn’t want to give us good gifts. But that is just not true. I know it. I would tell anyone else that it isn’t true for them, but I struggle to believe it for me, for us.
As we started the drive home remembering the blessed days before the clouds moved in, blue-gray and hanging over the mountain tops. The Sun set in a fantastic mix of orange, yellows and red hues behind us. The rain became a little more steady. The end of our day was looking just as beautifully complex as all of our years together. When the sun finally disappeared over the horizon and the darkness closed in around us and the car sped over miles of long straight highway the full moon shone out over us as we went. A large singular light in the skies above us. I remembered God’s chosen people, guided in the dark by fire in the sky. It felt like Father’s gift to us again. The tears burned at the corners of my eyes as I remembered just then what a woman whom I did not know said as we walked out of the church a few days before. She reached out and touched my arm as I passed and when our eyes met she said, “God will give you strength in a time of great need.” The moon looking down through the dark and rain now felt to me like a reminder. It felt like a promise that God would be with us when it was hardest. Things I know, things that I would tell anyone, but such a sweet word to my spirit now as we traveled home.
After more than an hour the moon and its light was swallowed up by the darkness and the clouds were heavy and the rain was hard. Now the roads were narrow and the wind was fierce and my hand gripped the door as we flew across the miles. I was scared. We could not see well through the window and I could feel my husband’s tension build. I have learned that it does not help my husband to ask him to slow down or to be careful. He wasn’t driving that fast but I was filled with fear and as we went I prayed quietly and whispered to myself- God is good and faithful. A reminder that He is trustworthy even when I feel all the terror of my circumstances. The drive through this storm lasted a long time. I fought with myself to hold tight to the truth of who God is even when I felt so much fear. What if we wrecked and the kids were left without us? What if more loss and hurt bled into their lives from all the edges? What if we’d had days full of sunshine and the rest and then the worst would happen an hour or two from home? It had not ever been so clear to me just how fearful for my children I had been. Or how I did not trust in our good God for them. I prayed. I Asked for His forgiveness. On that dark road, our car pelted by rain and wind, I laid them all down and asked Father to keep them and whispered again, God you are good and faithful and I can trust You, no matter what I feel.
It seemed to me, the whole journey, was a picture of the years ahead of us with our children. There will be sunny days and stormy days and days when the darkness and rains last too long but God would always be good and faithful and we can, all of us, trust him.
I knit a bunch of radiator mittens for the kids in December and started another crochet sock yarn blanket. This is the place where I found a pattern that I’m using as a guideline.
I cast on 294 + 2 and this blanket will be twin size. I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it yet. Of course I want to keep it, but it feels like something to gift.
I haven’t read much of this book at all in the last month or so. I’m only half way through it. It is a beautifully written book but all the pain in its pages lands a bit too close to home for me.
I’m starting this one today for a fresh start in the New Year and I think when it’s not so gloomy outside my windows or inside my rooms I’ll finish the other.
I didn’t make any resolutions this year. I did write something a bit broody and poetic about 2018 and made a list of longing for 2019 but I have no tidy New Years resolutions to share. It just isn’t that kind of ending/ beginning this go around and that’s okay by me.
Did you make resolutions? Set goals? Have plans for 2019? Do share!
I pray your year is filled with hope and peace for you and yours. And please remember that God is for you.
When I close my eyes and think back on this past year I see mud on shoes from days and months of rain. Too much for our soil to take in. Heaps and heaps, rivers of rain. Storms that opened wide the skies and emptied themselves out all over our little lives.
I hear the sound of falling feet smacking the wet earth all around me. Mud splashing, mess making, sticking earth to clothes and skin and hair. Raindrops mixed with burning tears on cheeks, of heads aching and faces flushing.
I see seedlings, green and stretching, springing up from watery earthy places seeking the sun. I see willows weeping, hanging heavy from too much growth. Branches reaching down from the desert skies so blue and pale. I see muscles expanding and spaces widening. The kind of stretching that can leave us hurt and sore and questioning.
I ache now for sun and warmth and the comforting sounds of gentle springs treading over miles of smooth stone. Of lying body onto soft grass and of sun on cheeks, warm and still. I crave the slow breath of Summer swirling lazily through trees covered in hearty, clinging leaves. Of slow shade traveling across the flat green landscapes, we walk. The sun slowly moving from one end of our earth to the other.
I’m eager for comfort. For warm spaces and cozy pillows and handmade blankets made in every color. I don’t know if 2019 will be so gentle. I hope so very much that it will be though. More than that, I pray for that for this year. Comfort Lord, please.
I won’t be so brave or so foolish as to make a list of resolutions. Every year I fail them. But I’ll make a list of things I long for just now. As I sit in the quiet of my sleeping rooms. Christmas tree lights and the sound of Ray Charles songs sung in his honor by so many different voices on the television screen.
My list is not the kind of list I’ve made before. It is the kind of list that grew from a year of so much deep work and the uncovering of what is really important and the discovery of what is not.
In no particular order, this is my list of longing for 2019.
1. Words. To read them and write them.
2. To do rather than speak about loving others well. Especially when it comes to my kids and husband.
3. To mend. To teach my children to treasure and save rather than the alternative.
4. To make and create with my hands.
5. To slow down and tackle the things that bring me joy, one at a time and finish them.
6. To sing a new song.
7. To love God with all of my heart, mind, and soul.
all the grace 