Pre-Season (Kale Chip) Harvest

I grow kale everywhere. Outside in the garden. Outside in the front garden. In the greenhouse (read: ugly hoop house in the front of our yard.) Inside to get a jump on kale starts when the greenhouse is full. It's pretty much an insatiable love for kale chips.

Er.

Kale.

5# of kale. Phase 1: Harvest the kale from the plants. Go for the outermost leaves
and use scissors for easy leaf cutting.

Homecoming

I thought when we found a place, began forcing roots into the ground, determined to settle ourselves, that we had arrived.

I thought we'd found ourselves in a new relationship to one another, in a new community, in new hobbies and fresh starts.

I thought my life was full of beauty and joy and richness that I never could have imagined.

I thought we'd come home.


Now, as I curl my arm around my feisty bundle of life and pull him closer to my chest, the past looks different. Everything I thought before was true, but I can barely remember the days before Baby Bee, similar to how I can barely remember life before getting married. It's like our souls have all always been intertwined.

Baby Bee's arrival feels like coming home. Instead of coming home for the first time, it's like returning home after a long absence. It is warm and familiar. Soothing and still exciting. Very different from the place you just were, but precisely the place you know you need to be.



**Thank you for your patience with my 8 month silence. We're back now. Just as we should be.**

Fear

Early on, my life was framed in hyper-vigilance and matted with a fat border of fear. The glass covering was so thick you could hardly see the picture underneath. Still, I worried it might shatter if some foreign, unpredictable object or action came in contact at just the wrong/right time, in just the wrong/right way.

I was terrified of doing the "wrong" things, of saying the "wrong" things, and ultimately, being the "wrong" person. The only encouragement I needed was an environment fraught with the unpredictability and criticism hallmark of a family centered around addiction--from there, my biology and temperament were happy to take over.

As I grew, those dreaded wrong/right things happened (sometimes by choice, sometimes by mistake, sometimes by chance). Each time, the glass covering indeed shattered. And each time, I would replace the glass, perhaps with a lighter, less foggy version of its former self. But the fear never went away.

To this day, fear, or some iteration thereof (i.e. anxiety) is my most commonly experienced emotion. I worry about meeting deadlines, about what I said to a stranger in line at the grocery store, about being perceived as incompetent, about whether my dishes are actually getting clean and whether I am working hard enough in my relationships, all within a 5-minute time span of an average day.

Note: It's impressive, really, when you take into account how much mental coordination it requires to keep all of those things at the forefront of your mind for instant recall. I suppose it is also exhausting, but do give me credit where credit is due!

I have done well reducing the influence these "daily" fears have on my life or my actions. I'm now more inclined to let them pass by unengaged like clouds on a windy day rather than fixate on their shapes and try to make meaning out of them. Instead, it's the big things that paralyze me.

Or should I say big thing, singular?

You see there is one thing I am terrified of still.

Joy.

Yes. You heard me right. (And if you are honest with yourself, you may be equally afraid of this powerful emotion too.) As usual, researcher/storyteller Brene Brown put it into words before I could find my own, in a recent interview. As she puts it:

How many of you have ever sat up and thought, ‘Wow, work’s going good, good relationship with my partner, parents seem to be doing okay. Holy crap. Something bad’s going to happen'?...You know what that is? [It’s] when we lose our tolerance for vulnerability. Joy becomes foreboding: 'I’m scared it’s going to be taken away. The other shoe’s going to drop…' What we do in moments of joyfulness is, we try to beat vulnerability to the punch.”

She goes on to say that when joy is in the moment or just around the corner, instead of practicing gratitude and vulnerability, we "dress-rehearse" tragedy. I'm very familiar with tragedy and trauma. Most of us are in some capacity. I know what it is like to hurt more deeply and more fully than I ever imagined humanly possible and wise enough to know the depth of future pain is not bound by the threshold I've previously experienced. I am more comfortable hiding from my vulnerability through known and self-induced fears than sitting with the joy that is inside me knowing that at any time it may end and bring about worse hurt than I've known to date.

Of all the secrets I know about myself, this is one I am most ashamed of. It is the one that keeps me from moving forward from my past, achieving my personal goals, and ultimately relishing the beautiful life I know I already have.

Now, its usefulness is no longer as relevant to my life and it's time to find a way to let it go.

Radical Love

Perhaps I, like the rest of Americans, have been subconsciously influenced by all the candy hearts and chocolate boxes. I try not to be too consumer-focused, but it is true that I've spent the last month contemplating love. And here it is Valentine's Day and I've got a love-filled post ready to go. Coincidence? Perhaps. All I can say is that correlation doesn't indicate causation and you never know the other factors influencing the outcomes. Right?



Zelda reference or otherwise, bringing your heart along for love is the difficult part of the journey.

In any case, I'm beyond expounding the wonders of puppy love and cheap love wrapped in low-quality tissue paper. I'm talking about Radical Love. It's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. And you know, in the funny little way that you feel small yet as expansive as the Earth, when you practice it.

It is the silent chant inside your heart, as you stare at the screen watching a heartbeat and listening inattentively to the doctor speaking her foreign language of abbreviations. "Please don't die, please don't die..." is all you hear inside.

It happens when, after you hear that dreaded diagnosis, the nightmares return, recovery gives way to relapse, or life requires you to move in a direction that you otherwise wouldn't, you step out of the shame and anger, and say, "I can do this. We can do this. We get through things. Remember?"

It courageously surfaces when you decide to take on the great risk of vulnerability for the equally great reward of authenticity. You purchase baby clothes before the doctors are certain the life inside you is "viable" outside your protective womb. You get excited about the great interview and let yourself tell a few friends about its potential. You open your heart to a foster child and come to view that child as your son, before you know if they'll even stay another week. All the while, you remind yourself that allowing yourself to move forward doesn't diminish or increase your sorrow if things don't go as planned.

It is not some "name it, claim it" doctrine that guarantees great outcomes if you ask right or act like they are coming your way. Nor is it willful ignorance of the facts, or a belief that you'll beat the odds this time (because, trust me, I have a tendency to lose even when the odds are in my favor). In fact, it doesn't impact the outcome at all.

Radical love is knowing everything you can know, leaving room for everything you don't know yet and may never learn, and choosing to be vulnerable enough to love wholeheartedly anyhow.

<3 <3 <3 Happy Valentine's Day

Morning Meditation

Sunrise is free.

 

The overly analytical part of me disagrees and insists on refuting my point before I've begun. Everything costs something. Even wonderful, beautiful things come at a price. The payment is often time or money, and at minimum,  the cost of any now foregone opportunities that exist because you chose an alternative.

 

I digress.

 

I mean to say that sunrise requires almost nothing of you. It gives without hardly asking in return.
 

It does not demand of you the herculean task of pulling a giant rope to hoist the sun into the sky like the raising of the grand curtain at the playhouse. It does not leave you  wondering whether the sun will indeed show up for her morning debut or worrying that today the moon will shine brighter than its daytime counterpart. It doesn't matter whether you've cursed its summer heat or resented its lack of warmth and compassion during these dark winter months. It will continue on in the same monotonously beautiful way regardless.

 

You are free to tilt your head toward the Eastern sky, breathe the fresh mountain air deep into your warm lungs and relax as you lean into your insignificance knowing that you played no part in the making of this routine wonder.

 

All you have to do is show up.

Yard (and any other viable space) Decor.

Did I ever mention that the former owners of our house, really, really liked yard "decorations"? This picture doesn't do their love for tacky ornaments justice. 

Take this photo and extrapolate. 

Imagine a complete collection of cow memorabilia. (double this)

Imagine how every "special place" might have it's own unique set of decorations. For instance, you can picture a set of "fairy furniture," arranged comfortably under a large tree, complete with a pink rocking chair (pictured above) as a perfect resting place for any mythical creature tired of flapping its wings to relax.

Imagine how the owners' love for "things" like this may have crept into the windows and crevices of our house and how interesting it must be to pull open the blinds in the spare bedroom, only to discover a set of twirling crystals wrapped in wire and attached so firmly to the blinds that it requires near demolition to remove.

Imagine my surprise, a year into home ownership, when we explore a new area of the property and come across another "find." Most recently, I unearthed a wooden patriotic eagle that doubles as a wind spinner (yes, I looked it up, that is the proper term.) I imagine it looking strikingly like this one in it's glory days...

Imagine your dear partner who has a fancy for rhyming (and real poetry, much to his credit), and a particular penchant for memorizing anything non-useful, discovering these posters with the caption below. 

"May neither drought, nor rain, nor blizzard.
Destroy the joy-juice in your gizzard.
And may you camp where wind won't hit you,
Where snakes won't bite, and bears won't git you!"

Imagine how often I hear Mr. Bee repeat this bizarre little ditty because he thinks it is so weird and funny. 

I guess some things can't be blamed on the previous owners. 

Week Four End/Week Five Beginning

Well, the "babies" are 28 days old and heading into their fifth week of life. Which means they are really not babies at all. "Teenagers" would be the more appropriate description.

Sweetening the Lemonade

"When life hands you lemons..."

No, it's not the 1990's all over again. And I'm not about to force you to read "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten." Well, you can if you want to.

In general, I hate cliches. (I try not to think about the fact that hating cliches is cliche.) This whole lemon/lemonade saying isn't one that I am particularly fond of either. So when someone who I consider very dear to me and very wise, asked me what I sweetened my life-made lemonade with, I paused.

I knew what she was getting at. I did that mental scan thing where you try to pull up the brain file labeled "sweeteners, life" and nothing came up. There was a whole file for "sweeteners, artificial" and "sweeteners, alternative" but no amount of Splenda or Stevia would answer this one.

I know I am good at working, good at being productive, good at achieving goals. I'm pretty sure I'd have no problem reading through this new book and check off my hidden talents on every page. It's not that I lack the ability to identify my strengths. Or even lack the strengths themselves. Like I said, I'm really good at making lemonade. Out of anything.

The truth is, I am not sure I really know what sweetness is--let alone how to add a few scoops to my life. I wonder if most people do and they seek after it or if other people don't and it just comes naturally. For me, I think seeking out the sweetness is something that will require intentionality and commitment. Now, all I need to do is learn the definition.

What's in your mailbox?

This is what we got in the mail a little less than a week ago.
14 ducks in total (they threw in an extra khaki campbell).

Make sure your sound is on for the full experience!

I don't think I will clutter this posts with many more words.

We'll have weekly photo updates so check back often. 

Go ahead, just hit "replay."

You know you want to.

 :)

Gray Houses

We've been seriously house hunting for 6 months now. And when I say house hunting, I really mean dream chasing.

First there was the fixer upper with barely developed but beautiful land. A private driveway off a gravel road and acres of soft grasses and tall trees. We envisioned years of work--on both the house and the land--but a peaceful, quiet existance.

(It was snatched up by an investor, with less time and more money. I imagine w'll see it flipped and back on the market soon enough.)

Then there was the farm house. Solid, no frills house with pastures and barns and places for pigs, chickens, turkeys, sheep and horses (not that we want horses). It was like one of those packets of sea monkeys I had as a kid, where all you have to do is add water--only all this place needed was the livestock. We would be homesteading in no time.

(The day we put in an offer, the owners got into a car accident and took it off the market.)

Within a few weeks we found another house. I couldn't believe our good fortune. We dubbed this one "the mansion." It was by far the nicest (and most expensive) house we looked at. Giant kitchen, perfect pantry, electric pastures, a beautiful chicken coop and wrap around deck. High-class country living. And acres of forest to trail blaze.

(A few weeks out from closing, we learned that the house was one of oh-maybe-twenty-houses-in-the-whole-city that wasn't covered by emergency services. As in, they don't necessarily come when you call 9-1-1 because you don't pay taxes. We rescinded our offer.)

Even though the houses share some similarities (read: land in the middle of nowhere) they are all so different! Our realtor even commented on it, which sent me into a self-conscious spiral and eventual acknowledgement that she was correct. The funny thing is, I feel like we could have been happy in any of them.

Let's get this straight: I like things black or white. You know: right & wrong, good & bad. I love it when there is an optimal choice to be had and, let's face it, when the "perfect" decision is readily available. I feel unsettled knowing that there are multiple life trajectories in which I could envision myself thriving.

I know I "shouldn't." I know that life's beauty is in the subtle complexities of gray. There are ups & downs, risks & benefits, pros & cons--a hundred colloquialisms to describe the dissatisfying reality that very few things are ever solidly black or solidly white. So what does it mean? What happens if there is no one "right" choice? If there isn't a perfect choice, then I can't have the risk-free thrill of making it.

My logic and OCD prevent me from leaving the equation unfinished. If I string these two thoughts together it means there are any number of imperfect scenarios in which I can be happy. 

Imperfect = happy?

I guess I have some contemplating to do.