books – all the grace

looking for beauty {Spring 2023}

I have all the tools. Know the reasons it is hard for a certain youngsters heart to trust mine. I know why it is hard for my heart to care for theirs. I know it’s the brain doing it’s job. That important things may have been missed, that trauma leaves it’s marks like crevasses and needs are deep. I’m not a bad mom. They are not a bad kid.

It’s still so hard. I’ve created trainings for other parents about it. I still struggle. When the words cut like a knife and the eyes tear at me, I don’t want to care about their needs. And when I over correct or just correct in an ordinary way even, or when I lose my temper and raise my voice, or when my eyes say to them- not again with you!? Of course their brain says to them that they aren’t safe here. They go straight to survival brain and all seems lost.

Knowing that both of our brains are doing the job of protection helps me to step back and reset myself. Eventually. After I’ve calmed down. But often emotion doesn’t follow my lead and shame comes through the cracks. I pray for help. I cry or spiral. This morning I walked fast on the trail to help my body do its work back to being able to think, back to being able to choose love again.

My first assignment when reading this book was to find 50 points of joy each week. I wanted to. But I haven’t started yet. I know I need to focus and do this practice but I’ve been here before and so it’s hard to start again, even when I know it will help. We have been back to this place a thousand and one times, this kid and their mama.

I know the drill. I know what to do. Remember their preciousness. Visualize the wee babe who needs that mama love. Remember what they missed, all they’ve lost. Remember the sweetness I felt in the beginning. Notice the good about them, make a list and check it twice.

It is hard when the mud on the path is thick and treacherous though. When every step could send you falling. But still, we trudge on. And today on my especially needed and sweaty walk, with legs moving fast and that sweet Spring breeze on such a lovely cloudy morning I started to feel better and to see beauty, almost with every step. I managed to breathe deeply. The stress levels lowered. The brain came back to calm and I could think again.

My thoughts start to swim and then settle, I should have said this, and done it that way, and how do I mend this tear? Should I go take them to lunch? They’ll say no. I’ll feel rejected and we will enter that roundabout again. No I should take care of me today. And write this all down, my way to process it all.

And I’ll start with forgiving their hurtful words. I’ll choose to forgive the cutting stares and the anger sent my way by the fistful this morning. I’ll forgive myself for letting emotion and sorrow throw me off balance, for letting my frustration lead the way. It is not their fault or mine, not the way we might think.

I will say prayers for their hearts all day long today. I will bless them with my words and thoughts about them and not curse them for the rest of this day.

After school I will make sure to look them in the eye lovingly. I’ll ask if they want a snack. I’ll apologize for my part in the terrible way their day started. I won’t ask them to apologize. It’s not the time for learning lessons, repair isn’t.

I will brush by close enough to touch shoulders and say, “excuse me baby, sorry about that”. in a tone that does not sound sarcastic. I will find a way, or twelve or fifteen, to say yes to them about something — anything.

And when they say no to my care over and over again – I will remember it is because they are hurt not bad. I will do my best to hold onto the beauty I saw today and the beauty I remembered about this kid and this mama today. I will.

I will bless them under my breath as they walk away and I will be there when they come back to say sorry, because they are so lovely and almost always come back to say sorry. But even if they don’t. Even if they don’t – I will bless them anyway. This is my plan, and I’m sticking to it. God, please help me to do it. Amen

January Yarnalong 2021

I finished Gilead by Marilynne Robinson yesterday. It is beautiful and seemed to speak so much so me. I started reading A Promised Land By Barack Obama before Christmas and I have loved it as far as I’ve gotten although this is not very far at all- maybe 7 chapters. I plan to pick it up again soon.

I am knitting a wee scarf for 13’s teddy bear (that he requested for his birthday) and am attempting a doll or a stuffy or a something that I am a bit unsure about as yet for a purpose that I am just as unsure about (my normal process).

Christmas week we managed to catch planets aligning just so and took what some had dubbed the Star of Bethlehem as a promise that Jesus is with us still. Of course we know that, of course we do- but planets aligning just so the week of Christmas was such a sweet and delightful happening that I took hold of it as such a sign of goodness and hope after this year. I made sure to say it again and again to all of us.

Our Christmas was quite quiet this year. Goodness it was nice. I would have loved to visit family and have a house full to brimming and meet new babies and all that but it was, to us, a kind of soothing balm to all of our scrapes and wounds that this strange year has brought us. I’m not even really speaking about Covid-19 as much as a ton of other really difficult things that happened as well as the wretched virus. We had a lovely Christmas and I am thankful.

We went away to the mountains for a few days after Christmas – very carefully and we were completely on our own. It was such a good break from our house. I did not take any yarn or needles or a hook with me which must have been the very first time since I don’t even know when, and this was a much needed rest for my hands after so long Knitting for Others (HK edition) and all the normal Christmas Knitting.

Three kids asked for socks and three asked for fingerless mitts for Christmas which was nice and easy. I used this sock pattern, and this one– both slightly modified. For the Mitts I used a few patterns (maize, honeycomb and paddle to be precise) from Tin Can Knits – also slightly modified. I made myself a pair of socks and hubby too and knitted several Christmas wash cloths to go into gift baskets but I made those up as I went.

In my journal I wrote that my goal for a certain profile description might someday read, “In between books and work I knit and make.” I don’t feel that the last year had enough completed books or making which is what I call creating things of my own design – in whatever medium I chose- to be able to use that description as yet. Perhaps at the end of this year those words will prove true enough to my heart to use them. I’m half joking but I think that maybe mostly I am not.

I’m not bothering this year with anything even slightly resembling a New Year resolution. I really want to, out of habit perhaps. But nah. Not this time. I’m cherishing my kids and doing my best to give them what they need right here, right now. I’m clinging to my husband, my very best friend ( for real though) as we both struggle – a lot – but not enough to lose faith. I’m shoring up all my edges with only the most necessary. Also cherishing sweet friends in chats and zoom calls and phone coffee dates. I’m biding my time until the day that I can visit family far away. I don’t know what is coming but I do know that He knows. God, I mean and that is a great comfort.

There is yoga in my bathroom and walks at the trail I love and the treadmill although not as often as I should but oh well! There is the sense that I just might use some of the hundred and twenty-seven thousand healthy recipes that I have collected over the years. There is a note in my back pocket (it actually hangs above my desk but I think you get my meaning) that says, “start and don’t stop until you finish.” Also there are quiet times and prayer and I won’t lie, probably too much crying but none of that is new. I don’t spot a resolution in there at all.

All this to say that we are good here. Struggling, hurt, wounded, afraid, anxious, unnerved maybe- probably, for sure. But we are together. We are loved and comforted. We are seen and heard, known and that is huge. We are prayerful and full of hope even in our doubt. I think we know each other better which is a lot, maybe everything. I hope that you are well where you are. I pray that you are comforted when you need comfort and strengthened when you need strength and loved. All of it really. Not to sound too preachy but you are not alone, I hope that is something that we all can know deeply when it matters.

Peace friends, t

PS. I will join Ginny if I don’t forget 🙂

July {yarnalong}

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!