everyday life

The first day of school 2011

On our way to school on a very gloomy rainy morning.  Had to wake both of these guys up from a sound slumber!  (not so myself: the newest incarnation of my life-long friend, insomnia, is that I wake up at 4am and can’t go back to sleep.  yesterday this found me running in the pitch black and pouring rain at 5am).

Whit in his seat at the Red Group table in 1S.

Grace at her desk in 3P.

How is this possible, when these days were five minutes ago?

September 2004, Grace’s first day at nursery school

September 2007, Whit’s first day at nursery school

All That is Holy

I read about Carrie Newcomer’s song, Holy As a Day Is Spent, on Dominique Browning’s lovely blog Slow Love Life.  I’ve had the song on constant repeat for the last day and am hearing the lyrics over and over in my head.  The celebration of life’s ordinary divinity reminds me intensely of my reflections that everyday life is a practice and a poem.

Sometimes I think I focus overly on the practice part of the equation, on the relentless rhythm with which I trip and then, humbled, begin again.  Newcomer’s song made me think about all that is sacred in my life, the little things that I believe tend to hold the most holiness.  I didn’t sleep well last night at all, and I lay there thinking of some of those little things and moments, places where divinity lives in my ordinary life:

Running a washcloth over my son’s back, water sluicing over his wings

Wearing my mother’s wedding ring while she is in and out of medical care for an accident.  I look down at my right hand and see her ring and am filled with connection to her.  I wore her mother’s wedding right on my wedding day (she was my only grandparent who was no longer living, and not there) and am always reminded of that too.

The mumbled, mostly-asleep “I love you”s I get from the children when I tuck them in before I go to bed, pressing kisses to their foreheads, pulling the sheets up, closing my eyes and falling back, for a moment, through all the years of goodnights.

The sky, at all hours, in all weathers, in all seasons.  The way light, from a source beyond our knowing, streams through clouds.  The endless permutations of clouds, texture, and color that exist in the sky.  Watching weather roll in on the horizon.  For me, that is where divinity most surely lives.

A framed, handwritten copy of Yeats’ When You Are Old that Jessica gave to me on my 21st birthday which sits on my desk.

The way Grace and Whit notice birds in the backyard.  “Look, Mum, a cardinal!  A blue jay!”  Likewise, Grace’s mingled delight and worry (“will they be hit by a car?”) as a family of geese stroll across the major road in front of us.

My morning cup of coffee (now with rice milk and agave instead of milk and splenda).

Clean white sheets on my bed, where I often seek refuge surrounded by books, a darkened room, a fan blowing.

The tinkling notes of familiar lullabyes drifting through both Grace and Whit’s doors after they’ve gone to bed at night.

Folding laundry.  I love the smell of clean laundry, love the practice of smoothing out well-worn and well-known clothes, love creating neat piles out of a tangled basket..

Hydrangeas on the kitchen island, freshly cut from our front bushes.

The pink shell, decorated with drawings and splotches of sequins, that Whit gave me.  I have it on the windowsill of of my office so I see it a hundred times every day, each time I turn to look out the window at my tree.

Tell me, where do you find holiness in your life?

Full of magic

Last Thursday morning we dropped Grace off at sleep-away camp (is it sleepover camp, or sleep away camp, and is there a hyphen?  I cannot figure this out) for 10 days.  Her anxiety about going had been mounting for the week or two prior to July 21st, and I was expecting some tears, and then some fireworks, at bedtime that last night.

Instead, she was calm, and quiet, though visibly sad.  We read several extra pages of Harry Potter, with Grace curled up close to me, rapt as we heard Hagrid’s story of his summer tangling with the giants.  I stopped reading after our normal amount, she looked at me with saucer eyes, endlessly deep and shining with tears, and I didn’t even say a word before turning back to the book to finish the chapter.

Then I took her to her room, and tucked her in.  I lay next to her on her narrow pink bed, as I do many nights.  “Sing me your favorite song from camp, Mummy,” she asked.  And so I did, whispering Christopher Robin to her, our heads leaning together, foreheads almost touching.  She had to have been breathing my breath as I sang.  I rubbed her back through her pajama top, singing the song twice through. When I was finished I heard her murmur, “I love you, Mummy.”

“It’s time for you to go now, isn’t it?”  she lifted her head up and looked at me.  I nodded.  My own eyes were glassy.  To miss ten days of this?  What was I thinking?  She swallowed and glanced over at her yellow and brown bears.  Then, back to me.  She nodded.  “Okay.”  She lay back down and twined her arms around my neck.  “I’m going to miss you,” she started to cry softly and I felt her tears on my skin.

“I’m going to miss you too, Gracie.”  I pressed a kiss to her forehead.  She pulled back to look at me.

“You will?”

“Oh, yes.  Grace,” I began, haltingly.  “One thing to remember is that you will be at camp, having all of these new experiences, new friends, and adventures.  Singing that song, for example!” A small giggle erupted out of her at that.  “And I’ll be here in my ordinary life.”

“Mum!”  Grace sat up suddenly.  Her cheeks shone in the dusk of her room, dark except for the light that slanted in from the hall.  Her voice was practically stern.  “Your life is not ordinary.  Your life is full of magic.”

Why, yes it is.

Halfway through

I’m stunned that we are already halfway through summer. This surprise is not unlike the way spring’s arrival startles me every year.  We round the curve to the Fourth of July, cheer at the wonderfully small-town-ish parade at my parents’ house, and suddenly things seem to move more quickly.  Grace is off to sleepaway camp tomorrow.  Whit is hitting tennis balls over the net with increasing regularity.  Everyone (but me) is getting blonder and tanner.

This is the full, hot, high noon of summer.  We have actually drifted past noon, I suspect.  A few images from the past weeks:
She wears her glasses everywhere.

There was much rejoicing when I told Grace and Whit that we are going back to Legoland.

This guy?  Makes me laugh. Every. Single. Day.  I try to let him pull me back from the melancholy that pulls at me like a tide.  Some days, that works.

A beautiful, peaceful walk on our last morning in Martha’s Vineyard.  Lighthouses, like maps, are an ordering theme for my whole life.

Whit got his own library card.

The kids and I made a rainbow cake.  I was reminded of how the chocolate cake for breakfast surprise blew their minds.  They are easily thrilled, these two, and I admit I consider that an excellent thing.  One of the things I want most for my children is that they remain open to moments of wonder, even – or especially – in the smallest details of life.

The annual overnight hike in NH was simply lovely, a respite from real life, a re-immersion in these two women, whom I love so dearly. who are my vital extended family.  The three of us hiked all the way up together, an experience that I adored both in reality and as metaphor.

And then there was a lot of laughing on the deck of the hut.  A whole lot.

And a stunning sunset that, of course, brought tears to my eyes and tapped me immediately back into the eternal, the divine, that which we can glimpse – if we believe in it – all around us at any time.  The truth is I see it in all of these photographs.