Tomorrow I’m going to start my first of four posts reflecting on 2015. I know! Already! But with that in mind, I wanted to capture what the last few weeks have been like around here, in photographs. Most of these images I’ve shared on Instagram (lemead) with the hashtag #everydaylife, because that’s what they are. By photographing and memorializing the details of my regular old life in words, I hope to remember them, since I know that it’s in the grit that the glitter lives. That was, after all the original purpose of this blog when I started it over 9 years ago.
When I was working on this post I read Katie’s gorgeous piece, Lighting Our Candles, her acknowledgment that ordinary work is a refuge, all we can do, and an occasional source of great joy. I adored her words, and felt deeply reassured by them. They reminded me of my own reflections from years ago that life’s quotidian demands can both hem us in and keep us together.
Katie’s post felt like an exhale, a reminder that I’m not alone, that my sense of rawness and raggedness is both internal and external, that feeling buffeted by the world these days hardly makes me insane. So, with her words echoing in my mind and with my renewed sense that celebrating the small moments is both all I can do and simultaneously the most important thing I do, are a few scenes from around here lately.
What a gift that Grace and Whit still enjoy reading picture books. The Christmas Magic
We put up our tree. As we decorated it, we discussed how some trees are decorated with beautiful, coordinated ornnaments and some are decorated with sentimental ornaments and sometimes those two things don’t coexist. Ours is the latter, they concluded swiftly. That’s ok by me.
I traveled a lot for work the first couple of weeks of December, and one night I was away Matt sent me this photo of dinnertime. I won’t lie to you: it made me cry. But I love it, too.
Finally, some skies, because there’s no faster and surer way to bring me back to right now, to wonder and gratitude, to realizing how very full with beauty this life is. I realize that admiring the sky doesn’t necessarily qualify as the “ordinary work” this post is meant to celebrate, but maybe, in some ways, it does? Looking, watching, seeing, noticing: in some ways those are a big part of my everyday work. I know that now.
Sunset from my office, December 7, 2015.
Sunrise from the air between Boston and Chicago, December 9, 2015.
This is what I have. This is what I see. This is what I feel. In a moment that feel so intensely dark – literally, but also metaphorically – these feel like small, small things. But maybe they are also as big as life itself.
– Grace and I both read and loved Rebecca Stead’s new book. It broaches timely and important themes in an approachable and entertaining manner. Highly recommend!
– I’ve mentioned Whit’s passion for Percy Jackson and he’s now reading the Heroes of Olympus series. This book is already set to go under the tree of him. It reminds me of 
which is a book I myself loved as a child (and which Whit already has).
– Gordon Korman’s trilogy riveted Whit (and was his only recent non-Rick Riordan reading).
– This picture book is my favorite recent find. It has a dreamy quality and describes Einstein as a curious child who just can’t stop asking why things are the way they are. Whit, my little wonderer, adores it. 
– Another picture book that has recently captivated our house. It evokes Cummings’ joyful childhood and shares some short passages from his work. A beautiful reminder that there are many ways to dent the universe, and of the power of paying attention.
– Mary Oliver’s new collection of poems has a lambent lightness and a new focus on human love (rather than the natural world) which seemed like a departure to me. I love every word this woman writes.
– Sally Mann’s lyrical memoir contains pages of gorgeous photographs. A great gift for lovers of modern art, of the South, or personal history.
– Elisabeth Egan’s debut novel was one of my favorite reads of this year. I reviewed it 
– My other favorite novel of 2015 was, rather than a debut, a final book. Kent Haruf’s beautiful story manages to be grave and graceful at the same time. I adored this book.
– I 
While Grace cheered on the boys’ race, I watched the sunset over the Charles River. I admired it, and photographed it, but felt a vague and inchoate sense of uneasiness too. The sky looked thunderous, dramatic, full of portent. Like the strange, eerily truncated rainbow earlier, there was something unsettled in the sky. It was as we drove home that we learned about the Paris attacks. The sense of accomplishment and pleasure of watching my new teenager running quickly dissolved into desperate sorrow and worry about the world. 
