habits

Dear Reade,



As you may well remember, tonight when we came home from picking you up at work, I parked the van on the street. We all got out of the van as though this was completely normal, a perfect place for parking our van. We trundled in to the house.



I closed the door to the house and realized I had fallen prey to the force of habit. In this particular instance, not an evil habit, just a habit, but one that causes me to attend to the other habits of my days.



We have a driveway. For five months we have been parking on the street because we have had a portable storage unit providing warehouse space for our household's largest de-clutter ever. Last week the storage unit went to its next home (and there were smiles all around!) and in the intervening days I have been pleased to park on the driveway.



Tonight we were eating ice cream and talking about our days. You were at work late today so the children had more than usual to tell you. As I parked we were clarifying the head-inside, get-showered, get-jim-jamerino-ed, read-books, lights-out plan. I was distracted from the task at hand and found myself living out of last week's reality instead of the current reality.



And so I ponder:

• What other pathways am I following that hinder me from arriving where I want to go?
  
  
• How am I thinking that distracts me from being who I want to be, becoming who I want to become?
• What are the "key stones" that cause my routines to crumble?
• Where am I allowing auto-pilot to take me as I walk through being and wife-ing and parenting and friend-ing each day?
  
  

I would like to be more attentive, more present most days.



I love you.



Jenn

And let's don't forget

Dear Reade,



And let's don't forget that Girlie calls her ankle her foot elbow. Adorable.



Love, Jenn

Beard crumbs and bread bones

Dear Reade,

Just the other day I was sitting on our back step. Girlie was bustling about. Talking about wellow flowers. Which then had me thinking about The Boy and his version of yellow which was lellow.

Some endearing turns of phrase that I want to remember even as they grow and change:

Girlie
pox-a-puhl -- popsicle
carry me up -- pick me up and she hardly uses it anymore. :(
pease I have ... a freezie, my sooth-a, my toofbrush
I love that -- the food on her plate, the flower in her hand, going in to the library, her shoes, her baby doll, the hot wheel car in her hand
My Boy -- what she frequently calls her brother

"I running round the tree. Running makes me happy."

Reading the Psalms and arriving at Psalm 139:4 (Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. ) she shouts out, "I've got a word on my tongue."

And at night as we go through the liturgy of "Goodnight Boy-o. I love you." "Goodnight Girlie. I love you." she always is quick to say "Goodnight Girlie. I love you" to herself. I love it.

The Boy
beard crumbs -- small hairs left from your beard, wherever beard hairs might be left
bread bones -- bread crust
do you know something? -- quickly changing to "I know something" because that's what he really means anyway
Actually, especially and certainly -- He uses them all, in context, but often they seem confusing to people outside of our family because they don't expect these words coming out of a four year old's mouth.

I know there are many, many others, but those will do for today.

Love, Jenn

Hot, hot, hot

Dear Reade,

It's a great, scorching day out. Girlie and I napped while you took Boy-o to the store to look at plants. Now you're reading books with Girlie (Leaf Man by Lois Erlich) while the Boy plays with friends. It's hard not to wish for cooler weather but I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

Love, Jenn

Quiet

Dear Reade,

I just got word that one of the elder sages of my spiritual formation group passed away on Thursday evening. I remember being in a group with her in April last year. In the midst of the conversation she related being in discussion with a friend of hers who was praying all the time, asking God what she should do. E answered, "If you would just shut up, maybe you would be able to hear what God is saying to you."

I've enjoyed time today to be silent. I am grateful.

Love, Jennifer

A birthday party

Yesterday, six months after The Boy's actual birthday, we celebrated the anniversary of his birth with his friends. And my friends too, to be fair. We bowled. There were cupcakes and presents and a wonderful time was had by all. We even had the bowling alley mostly to ourselves for the whole time. Huzzah!

Dear Reade,

I've been gone from this blog space for a long time. I can't say what shifts bring me in and out again, but I am here now.

The last ... five months have brought some pretty big changes to our family and our house. Girlie speaks dependent clauses in a sentence now: When I get into the bath I wash my feet. And she asks for things using the construction "Pease I have..." The Boy is shooting up in height like the perennials in the garden seemingly tiny one moment and then there in fullness. He's making shifts as he learns about obedience -- not harsh, forced external obedience, but an obedience that allows him to be himself. Settled, bright, and relational.

And I've been packing, sorting, cleaning, shifting and letting go of so many things and ideas. After these many years of hoping I would get to sewing and quilting projects (Yes, she without a functioning sewing machine) I've let go of those piles of saved up clothes and cloth. Someday I'd like to enter that world again but for now being released from the ongoing expectations is so freeing. Even to have given you the garden feels freeing.

Each night as we do bedtime with the kids we say these words, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..." Depending on the translation "I shall not want" is also "I have everything I need." Except I have been living in this space as though I need to keep a stockpile of everything I might need. A stockpile of things to do to keep me distracted. My reserves of things -- to do, to be, to become -- have taken up so much mental, emotional, psychological and physical space. I don't want the space for it's own sake but for the freedom to become my truest self.

Kathleen Norris in her book Acedia and Me says:

Perform the humblest of tasks with full attention and no fussing over the whys and wherefores....To dwell in this desert and make it bloom requires that we indulge neither guilt nor vainglorious fantasizing but struggle to know ourselves as we are.

There are echos in that of these lines I have loved from Buechner:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

I don't want "stuff" to get in the way of attending to the realities of my life, our life together, our lives with our family and friends. We are blessed beyond words. We have everything we need. We lie down in green pastures. We rest beside quiet waters.

Thanks be to God.

And, I do love you.

Love, Jenn