wordless wednesday :: james

***just sneaking a note, this is my parent's cat, i love to shoot him, he's so handsome.

home.

it has felt so good to just be home.  this past week i was on vacation.  i go back to work Tuesday morning.  i am not looking forward to it.  i've been enjoying the slow and steady rhythm of my days and evenings at home.  it's been nice to not be rushed, to not be speeding off somewhere.  the girls have been off school for five days; i've been off for ten.  i've even been off this computer mostly and i've found it kind of freeing.  i find when i unplug i release myself from a lot of expectations.  the yoga is helping, so is the meditation, i'm finding as i clear my head of the junk things have just sort of been falling into place lately.

i've been working really hard in the last few weeks prior to this one on learning to stay in the moment.  sometimes it's hard to do that when you've been all caught up in so much for so long.  this week i was actually able put it into practice.  i feel very grounded and content as a result.  i've been more cheerful and i think the girls have noticed as well.  i'm hoping to carry this over as i return to work and the girls head out to school.   i've been starting each day with a metta or loving-kindness meditation.  

it's my little prayer for myself and for the world

may you feel safe,

may you feel content,

may you feel strong,

may you live with ease.

i think it's working.

thanksgiving.

I took very few photos on Thanksgiving day, too busy.  Having the week off  for vacation was a true blessing to be thankful for.  I managed to spread out my shopping and even roasted my turkey on Wednesday.

I put a Facebook request out for a basic bread pudding recipe, I actually ended up mixing two of them and may post the recipe later this week.  I ended up switching out raisins for blueberries, since we love blueberries, they were on sale at the grocery and raisins are just, well gross.

The girls came up with these turkeys.  I had no idea they had made them (was lost in the kitchen) until that afternoon. When we sat down to eat each person read the back which detailed the name of the turkey and what their likes were.   That's poor Frederick on the top.

Our top two favorites:

Frederick:  was turkey for dinner

Harold:  likes yoga, takes lots of showers, has lice

We were seven for dinner, my father and his brother, my sister and her boyfriend, and the three of us.  We moved the two tables together and had a nice place to spread out.  The girls started a toast and Karelyn started us off "let the feast be-gin".

Friday we did nothing.  All day.  I detest Black Friday shopping madness and luckily I wasn't at work to up everyone's debit card limits.  We truly just relaxed, a day of rest.  

Pumpkin pie and bread pudding for breakfast, our Black Friday tradition.  Emily sat back and asked, why does pumpkin pie just taste so wonderful in your belly?

I felt a little lost spending an entire day not going anywhere or doing anything.  I tried to work on some writing or some photographs, but it just didn't seem right.  So we played board games, and took long baths, and ate leftovers.  At the end of the night, we curled up on the couch and watched Rudolph.  We laughed at how mean Santa seemed in that special and Karelyn repeated her favorite line over and over "eat, Santa, eat, no one wants a skinny Santa".

When I went to settle in I realized I had never actually made my bed.

{this moment}

{this moment}

 A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

Wordless Wednesday: Preparations

Positively Tuesday: Be Patient and Tough

I woke up with this post in my head.  I almost thought upon waking not to post it.  Your blog is getting a bit too melancholy lately...your delving too much into fear and pain here....the people who read this or care about you will believe you are suffering.....these are the thoughts I had to myself.

Truthfully, I am not melancholy.  I am contemplative.  I believe there is a big difference in the two.  I know melancholy, this is thoughtful reflection.

I knew this was the perfect quote for this post.

I worked cleaning out and saving photos on my computer last night.  The girls sat with me and we had a grand time looking through and reflecting on these moments they remembered.  Making pies from cherries we picked off our tree, Emily's photo I snapped in the middle of a temper tantrum, mouth pouting, Karelyn in the backyard having a doll party with me on a sick day, birthday parties and countless poses in front of the Christmas trees.  All these photos were from our previous life, in our previous home, back in the days I was married.

I thought to myself as we looked through them that we did have happy times.  That before the worst of it, we were at one time a pretty happy family.  Sometimes you need to sit and remember that.  Even as the road turned in a dark direction I see some peace and joy in the girls; I saw glimpses of true happiness.  There was one photo I recognized that broke my heart.  The girls and I with the birthday cake that my  husband and they had made me. This would be March a couple of months before it all fell to bits and pieces.  I see the look on my face. It looked weary and I recognized the tension, the anxiety there.  At the time that the photo was taken, my husband had us four months behind on our mortgage payment, he had run up several credit cards, taken out payday loans, and was bouncing checks to the pharmacies to support his addiction.  In a month he would be in jail and have a five-count felony narcotics charge against him for doctor shopping.  The girls and I would be living with my parents and desperately trying to sell the house before foreclosure.  Without my family we would have had nowhere to go.  I held on to the anger, the blame and the pain for a long time. What happened is not something I will ever forget, it shapes my cynical and mistrusting ways today.  But now in that moment there in that photograph I can see outside of all of that and see the pride in that he and the girls had baked me a cake for my birthday.

I dreamed last night I was back in that old house, but in the dream there were people coming after us, putting the girls and I in danger in our own home because my husband owed them money.  I know this dream was a collection of the photos, of the recent break in attempt and my thoughts as I've been writing down bits for my book for the girls.  It was a completely different feeling this morning than the laughter we experienced last night.  I woke from the dream startled and frightened.  I had been getting ready to push them out a side window to the neighbors when I woke up.  While nothing like that ever happened in my real life experience, I woke up grateful.  Grateful to be waking up in a house I  knew was going to be here each day.  Grateful that the girls who had climbed in bed with me in the night were sleeping peacefully.  Grateful I was waking up to a warm home, money in a bank account, food in the refrigerator and bills that could be paid.  Grateful in knowing that I know what direction I am moving in my life and that there are no secrets anymore.

At this point I can look back and see where pain taught me a lesson.  I can see that my husband was not a bad man, not deep down in a fundamental way... he developed an addiction. I can also see that even in the worst of times there are those little moments where goodness slipped in.  In baking a pie, or sitting with a doll in the backyard, or in a birthday cake.  The lesson I'm learning right now is that the girls need to honor the good in what came before as well as the tipping point and what came after.

And yes, it's taken a lot of time and patience to learn this lesson.

opening up

i'm reading a book that i'm afraid to mention because i'm embarrassed to say it's called "how not to be afraid of your own life".  ha.  but it's a book on meditation by Susan Piver and it really is hitting home with me in so many ways.  and as a part of reading it i guess i should "not be afraid to post titles of books on my blog for fear of looking like i need help".

meditation.

there are a couple of lines in the introduction of this book which sums up this experience for me:

"I'll offer you a single warning: a meditation practice can have serious repercussions.  If you try the practice a few times and think, Cool, but not for me, that is completely okay.  If you want to practice meditation occasionally as a stress reduction tool, that's also fine.   But if you decide you want to make it an ongoing part of your life, think carefully....Meditation practice creates a new way of relating to yourself...think long and hard about whether or not you really want to examine your own experience this closely.  Know that if you do, they way you see yourself will change...All I can ask you to do is pose the same question to yourself that my teacher presented me with when I told him I wanted to make a formal commitment to this practice: "Are you ready for your life to change completely?"


I know this because I've already experienced it and it's true.  I've been doing a committed yoga and meditation practice for almost a month now.  And while the point of meditation is to free yourself from the trappings of what i call "monkey mind" when you open yourself up like that all the emotions come.  i often do what's called metta meditation which is a loving kindness meditation you do for yourself and everyone else and while it is nice to be wrapped up in the warm thoughts of spreading love there are times in meditation when the dark thoughts also crawl out.

while meditation has given me a gift in knowing that i am human, i am fallible and that i am perfect and worth loving just the way i am right now, it also opens up all the doubts, fears and insecurities.

there is not a source to tap only the good stuff, the vile comes out as well.  and it wouldn't be a proper meditation practice if it didn't.  the purpose is to identify those feelings and accept them.  not so easy.  here is what has hit me in the course of my meditation and now with this practice on fear i can identify what i am afraid of:

i am afraid that my life i have is too much for me and i will never get a real grasp on it
i am afraid that sometimes i get pulled in too many directions, home, work, children that i am not giving enough of what i need to give to any one of them
i am afraid of being alone the rest of my life and never finding a true love again
i am afraid of opening up my heart to and trusting someone again
i am afraid of all the ugliness i am seeing in the people in the world: closed-mindedness, greed, selfishness, violence
i am afraid to try to work towards doing something different in my life that i will fail or find it to be too much for me
i am afraid that i will never find my purpose in life, that i will never be able to say, i did or became THIS.
i am afraid to be alone with myself
i am afraid that i will never be able to stand on my own two feet again, that i have to rely too much on others
i am afraid that i put things off that i don't want to deal with or that make me feel uncomfortable
i am afraid of not being able to complete projects which is a fear in itself of saying something is done or good enough.
i am afraid i nag too much and my daughters don't see me smile enough
i am afraid i have let myself go and will never feel pretty again
i am afraid something will happen to me and then what will happen to the girls
i am afraid that i will never get the chance to do the things i have just figured out i really want to do

see. there you go. that's a bucket, no a barrel full of fears.  just like that.

being alone with yourself is not so easy.

this morning i woke from a very strange dream and turned over and stared out the window to reflect on it.  immediately, thousands of thoughts invaded my peaceful morning.  i shoved my head underneath my pillow and begged to banish them.

through it all, meditation is a friend i turn to, don't get me wrong. through this process this last month, i've suddenly unblocked this type of freeze i was caught in.  my immediate response to overwhelming circumstances is to shut down, completely.  in the last few months a lot of emotional and fearful things have happened.

but i have taken something from this time with myself.

i have realized i need to unplug more:  less time on the computer, more time with the little living beings in my home, both human and animal.

i've realized i need to (ahem, this is very, very difficult for me, which i have said before) organize myself better: making myself lists and see my responsibilities here at home in bite sized pieces rather than one overwhelming whole that locks me down from doing anything

i've realized i need to stop thinking ahead.  right now, is right now and while it is good to have an aspiration, you cannot live in that perfect place you want to be, but work on all the little steps along the path that will get you there

and lastly i've realized i need to give myself down time.  i need that quiet time.  i need to take that forty-five minutes to an hour four or five times a week to do yoga and meditation, and i do need to give myself Saturday afternoons off to just be while the girls are away.

On the far side of the ugly is the acceptance.  It's not easy to get there.  I'm making my way.  I'm a month into meditation and only three chapters into the book, but in the end I think Susan Piver is right, it will change your life and change who you are, or at least give you a clearer view.

{this moment}

{this moment}

 A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

Debbie and I continue our Friday Just Now series over on Notes Across The Sea.

giving.

a shoebox

and for the price of what i will spend on one thing for each of them

they gave a gift to someone else
we've done this before
but i watched it in them all over again

realizations that a bar of soap is a luxury for some

that a party blower could make someone's day

and watching them with a sense of pride

was a gift in itself to me

i had to slow them down,

no i don't think we can fit a pillow into the shoebox

in past years we've collected our change and donated it each year

heifer international

SOS children's villages

world wildlife fund

the nature conservancy

but i'm sensing my girls want to do more

they want to see a physical side to their giving

this week we sat down and decided to do or give something each month

this month the Christmas boxes and food to the food bank

next month they want to make fleece blankets for the homeless shelter
their idea not mine

the ideas poured from them

donations and volunteering at the animal shelter

soup kitchen

baby supplies

teddy bears

when my relationship went bust this year 

one of our biggest disagreements was over money

he needed a lot

we need very little

we don't have much by way of money

but we have our necessities

and we are rich in love

we have some to spare,

both money and love

that my friends is what i want my girls to know
but i think it's a lesson they've already learned.

 

wordless wednesday: defining

Positively Tuesday: On Failure

I am equally as impressed with her own story as much as the story she has written.

When I want to throw in the towel and quit writing

I think about those seven books

and a single mother on a train

starting her life over again.

sweet sunday

it's 7:34 a.m.

waking in fresh flannel sheets

heavy with blankets as the weather turns cold

heavy and comforting

yet the room very light

from the new morning sunshine

and a late last night clean

it's 10:46 a.m.

we are heading up the path with flowers

red and yellow kissed sunflowers

in a vase for my grandmother

she is creeping, creeping very slow

she settles in her chair while i listen

to the girls talk and laugh hysterically

with my aunt in the kitchen

it's 3:28 p.m.

chilly with falling leaves

in my right hand an iron

wax paper pressing them

the girl's tolerance long since waned

my own as well, so i've taken to multitasking

enjoying that soft scent of melting wax

it's 5:25 p.m.

darkness has fallen

feet propped up

the girls have begged for christmas songs

and i've given in but told them

they must wait until after Thanksgiving

to watch Rudolph

the dog is snoring at my feet

and the cat is by my side

cuddling a blanket.

i wonder if everyday was Sunday

would Sunday cease to be so special

safe flight.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

(i found this video the other day)


i love when i hear them first
then see them coming
the great flocks of birds
i was tending the rabbit
bent over murmuring to her when i first heard them
then they came
overhead
all of them together
making their way

when they rest in the treetops
i imagine them there
pausing....resting
i imagine them sitting
making a little sound that says "whew"

i walked out of the enclosure
stood in the yard with my head to the sky
and said it over and over
"safe flight, safe flight, safe flight"

for a second i thought that one day
some day, i'll get a great big gift in the eye
or that perhaps a neighbor will drive by
and shake their head at that silly woman
standing in her yard, head up, blessing the birds.

but why wouldn't i
for i learn more and more each day that i am not alone
we are all of us, all living beings alike on a journey
i am heading inside for a warm cup of tea
and they have so many more miles still to go

{this moment}

{this moment}

 A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

shaken.

i am shaken.

every time i seem to find my footing, my balance, something comes along and shakes it. i've been so prosperous these last few months at being at peace, of feeling grounded.

no yoga practice can fix this, at least not right now. no meditation practice can sweep this from my mind.

it's 4:28 a.m.  i'm awake in my bedroom.  every light in the house is on.

someone tried to break into our safe little haven called home tonight after i had tucked my sweet girls and myself into bed.

i am shaken.

just finished yoga practice, preparing an email to a friend.

a car hesitates, voices, and then the pounding three, maybe four times of someone trying to break through my front door. by the time i jumped from bed, grabbed the light and my cell phone to call 911 and made it to my bedroom window they were gone.

no trace.  called my parents, stood in the bedroom window on the phone with my mother waiting for my step-father to arrive and check my house.

then they came back.  twenty minutes later.  pulled into my driveway, lights shining bright onto my home, paused a minute and then left.   i don't know why they came back. if they had forgotten something, someone.  i am still trying to process it.

the police said stay inside, lock your doors and keep your phone handy, you aren't the only call we've had in this area.

it turns out they tried three houses on my sweet, quiet, rural country road.  from the time frame, it seems i was the first attempt.

thank goodness for heavy metal doors with deadbolts.

i guess we weren't an easy enough target.  i guess i should take comfort in that.

Sally our scarecrow never moved from her chair on the porch, her sombrero still on her head.

but two great ugly, dirty footprints by my doorknob where they tried to kick their way in, uninvited.

the police on my porch like a crime scene television show getting prints and taking photos.

all those worries are back.  the ones i had when my girls were first born.  how to keep them safe in a world where the rules don't always apply?

the smallest sounds, the cat, a book falling off Emily's bed, making me jump through the roof, eyes scanning out the windows.  how long until i will feel safe to sleep again? not tonight, maybe not too soon.

never have i been so scared as in those few minutes when i heard the weight on that door and sat frozen for a second with the knowledge that my babies were here inside. when my mind stops i hear it all over again.

i am going to stay with my gratitude.  gratitude for strong doors.  gratitude that i triple check locks.  gratitude i was awake.  gratitude for police.  gratitude for parents fifteen minutes away.  gratitude that my girls slept through the noise, the police and my step-father and i downstairs drinking tea together for four hours in the dark.

shhhh.  i will not tell them.  let them stay safe in their dreams.

karelyn already full of so many fears.  they should not have to bear a burden like this.

be innocent, be free, and stay in that sweet cocoon where mama can always protect you.


** I wrote this Tuesday night.  We did not want my grandparents to know anything about the attempted break in while my Grandmother was preparing for surgery  Tuesday night and Wednesday.  As I update this it is Wednesday night and it is dark again.  I am sitting here trying to listen to the sounds of the girls playing in the bath, not the pace of every car that drives by.  I'm trying to not continually steal glances out the window.  I have never minded living alone with my girls until these last two days.  For me to have come to so much resolution about raising this little family by myself, I suddenly feel very vulnerable and alone.  My grandmother had her back surgery today and is recovering well. The surgeon said it was a success, we hope to have her home Friday.  Thanks to everyone who has sent me well wishes and prayers for her.  Please keep me in your prayers and meditations as I sort through the rest of these fears over the coming days.

wordless wednesday: self-portrait

Positively Tuesday: Sylvia Boorstein

"What We Nurture" with Sylvia Boorstein from On Being on Vimeo.

I'm not quite sure how I made it through almost forty years of my life without the wise words of Sylvia Boorstein. I listened to this interview some time ago and was pleased to find it on video so I could see her lovely face as she spoke. To me this is one of the best interviews I've heard about loving oneself and about nurturing as parents.

Sylvia Boorstein lists herself as a wife, mother and grandmother before all her other worthy credentials. She nurtures a Buddhist practice as well as her Jewish heritage. I love the sound of her voice and I wish she could talk me through my days.

One of the things I most value in our spiritual leaders is when they can speak to us where we sit with their own lessons, their acquired wisdom and a fantastic sense of humor about life.

So I am sharing her here today on Positively Tuesday. I recommend it for all mothers, not just Buddhist ones.

in the company of women

I have a best friend from 5th grade.  She has a crazy-hectic life, but at the first sign of trouble I will have a message from her or she from me.  We can go months without talking and then reach out to each other when the opportunity arises.  I can tell her anything and she listens.  She can for me too.  She knows my fears and and my pride, as I know hers.

One of the best parts of blogging has been finding so many more friends.  Friends in far places, friends I connect with in a way I might never have found here in my little rural section of the world.  In ways it seems proximity doesn't seem to be necessary to really connect with someone anymore; you are reading someone's blog or following someone on Facebook and you really are there in daily life.  A lot of my friends are so much further away, so many of you scattered around the States, a couple in Canada, dear Debbie in London.

I wrote something on vacation when we were in Nova Scotia the summer before last.  I wrote it after I met Sue, who I met through my parents.  They being close friends with her husband's parents, now passed on.  My parents becoming surrogate summer Grandparents.  I met Sue in her kitchen  for the first and only time that summer.  What I wrote that day was how motherhood draws us together.  Regardless of our geographical location, regardless of our differences in vocation, regardless in our way of life, there is a common bond out there called motherhood.   Motherhood makes us all alike.  Motherhood can bring us together.  Put two mothers in a room together and see how long it takes for them to begin trading childbirth stories, reminiscing on the memories and the struggles they have had with their children.

Today I came home to this letter from Sue.  I fixed a cup of tea and went out to the front porch to sit and read it.  I learned so much more about her in this one letter than I have known before, that she likes the comfort and simplicity of toast and that she prefers colored lights on her Christmas tree.  We as women really know how to know one another. Men, to me at least in the majority, glance over the little things.  Women get this.  Women will take the time to learn things like this. Women know the details of each other's lives and they have a beautiful way of stating them.

I wrote something today for my book for my girls about being in the company of women.  I was writing about the stages of life and recognizing the women around you who are both ahead and behind you on this journey.  I was never so lucky enough to have the amount of women friends as I do now.  So much of my life in the past was caught up around the men in my life, I wish in high school perhaps I had created a circle of girlfriends rather than being caught up with a relationship, or the search for one.  I wish when I had been going through the worst of my husband's addiction I had reached out and embraced friendship rather than letting it go and hiding away from it.  Today I realize the value of having a circle of women in your life, a thing I want to teach my girls.

Saturday I sent cards to two important friends, tonight I will sit down and send an email to Debbie beyond our normal blog correspondence.  I will also email another friend I've found here who reminds me constantly that it is okay to question as I go along.   Then I will sit with a cup of tea and send a letter back to Sue.  If I have to say the one thing I am most grateful for right now it would be the wonderful company of women I have in my life.


*****As a quick P.S. I have a request.  My oldest daughter Emily is looking for a pen pal.  We've tried an online service with no response.  She is a vivacious ten year old girl, but if you've read this blog you know that.   If anyone out there has a daughter who would be interested in corresponding with her by mail I would love to set them up.


*****Also my girls are looking to do an online Christmas swap. They did one on a previous year where they exchanged a Christmas book and some little goodies with two other children.  If anyone is interested in doing this with us, please let me know.

My email if you don't have it is underthebigbluesky@gmail.com.

a comparison

when i was a younger girl i was a ballerina.  most girls, not all, but a lot of us, were ballerinas.  i started with gymnastics and moved on to ballet.  skipped the whole tap era, too noisy, and then went en pointe.  many years of my parents ushering me back and forth to practices, rehearsals, performances.  at some point i switched over to highland dancing, funny how the mind can remember events but not necessarily their placement in your life.  more practices, this time competitions.  dance was something i loved and was good at. in hindsight, perhaps i would have liked to continued dancing as i got older.  i know the reasons we didn't continue, the crunch of time, homework, multiple children, if you've ever seen a highland dance routine (see here) you can see the damage it can inflict on your feet.   Girls ahead of me were having surgeries, even today i feel the impact of all that jumping on the balls of my feet in tightly laced  shoes in my ankles when i try to run or on a bad day.

but Saturday morning i was up early.  the girls were upstairs hiding out in K's room playing.  i had Pandora on my Yo-Yo-Ma station and this piece of music came on. Mozart's Serenade No. 13 in G Major, you will recognize the music if not the name.  It is a wonderful piece of dance music. It made me want to dance.  So I did.  In the living room by myself.  It is amazing the things you can do with little to no embarrassment when you are alone in the house.  The interesting thing is it all kind of flowed.  I haven't danced in years, but I did right there in my pajamas in the living room yesterday morning.

The startling thing which made me want to post this was that I felt a connection I would not have made otherwise.

I realized how closely connected my feelings toward ballet and yoga are.  The stretching of your body, the reaching to hit a position, allowing yourself to flow and express through your movement.  Finding bits of yourself in the expression.

i am rediscovering as i rediscover myself this year that my heart has always belonged to the arts.  i grew up feeling at home on a stage, in a theatre.  i was lucky to grow up with these experiences.  thankful for ballet lessons, for parents who would drive you through two states to compete and listen all day to the bagpipes repeating over and over. all the evenings spent with my father in dark theatres watching actors on stage.  In my failed experience at college the only great pleasure I got was my semester I studied theatre and then working with theatre the following summer with a group of children.

I love to watch artists at work.  a painter lost, staring at their canvas,  musicians, when you see them let go and the music takes over, the workings of a symphony and composers still blow my mind wondering how they can put all those individual notes together and create something so beautiful,  actors transforming on stage, photographers finding the truth of a photo in editing, a writer losing the topic of the original post in something else (ahem).

i know that my time for dance shoes is over (though i am still sad that neither of my girls has chosen dance as a serious interest).  but perhaps i can still find that feeling on the yoga mat.  in this next phase of my journey i have made the decision to have yoga reflect back to myself who i am  and saturday i realized it is the same thing as dance was to me in the past.

stretching, reaching, balancing, grounding, expressing

a sense of control that makes it look effortless

one form makes way for another

 no one says you can't grow old dancing to Mozart in your living room when the mood strikes

{this moment}

{this moment}

 A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember

(saturday, 10/29/11)

My Just Now is now over at Notes Across the Sea with Debbie on Fridays, come visit.

Quitting

Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo.  I sat at the table with my laptop and all my notes and I quit.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.  No seriously I quit.  I'm serious.   Quit.  Just like that... the first day.  I didn't quit writing.  I quit NaNoWriMo.  Too much pressure.  I'm reading about search engines for names.  Who can't come up with a name?  Check these forums for plug in theme plots.  Churn it out, churn it out, churn it out.  I was reading a writing magazine at the library at lunch.  "selling points", "corner the social media market", "how much can you stretch your memoir to make it more enticing".

This is not me.  This is not how I write.  I write what I know.  I write what I believe and I write what I feel, when I feel it.  It has to come from that soft spot in me.  So I put the pressure of the novel on hold, tucked the papers and their outlines away for another day.  I want to write the novel but the time is not now.

What I did instead?

I sat at my computer and I started writing another story

one to tell my daughters

copied pages of blog entries and back seat conversations

 little scrawlings and lots of photographs

I've tucked away over these last few years

there is a book right now I need to write

one that requires no research, no stretching of the imagination

because it comes from my heart

and it's held within these four walls right here

I am writing a book that I don't have to market

because it has an audience of two

the two most amazing people in my life

who deserve to know my story and theirs

for me it is easily the simplest

and the best first book

I could ever write

Positively Tuesday: Never Too Late

Today is Day 1 of NaNoWriMo.

  I am not taking it too seriously, but I plan to write....a lot.

Once upon a time I dreamed of writing. 

The words that I write may never see the light of day.

 But I will write.

Perhaps one day my children

my grandchildren

will find a pile of my papers, my notebooks.

They will sit surrounded by them

And say, wow, this is who she was.