Sprinklings...

He’s been stroppy all week. My sweet, funny, cuddly monkey has been belligerent and angry.  Complaining and grumbling. Crying at the drop of a hat. After three weeks off of school and a two week visit with some of his favorites in the world he had dropped the belligerence. Sleeping until late. Laughing. Snuggling. Playing gnomes and fairies. Noticing. He’s a noticer. But it had been a while. Even his older brothers have remarked lately that he’s just not himself. “He’s never away with the fairies any more, Mom. I think the fairies miss him. I miss him too, actually.” 

I ask myself so often if it’s the school. Is it just not the place for him? He told me last week as he sobbed and clung to me at drop off, “But mama you don’t understand. There’s just no magic in this place.” A couple of folks have suggested he’s “got my number.” Maybe so. But there’s truth in what he says. I don’t reckon it’s manipulation as much as true grief for a world that was.

I ask myself if it’s the environment? He swam in the sea when it was so cold even the oldie “polar bears” who love to swim in cold water thought he was crazy. I had to start carrying a towel even in the dead of winter. If we were at the sea—which was every single day—he was in it. In underwear. In the buff. In his clothes. Didn’t matter. He wanted in. I miss the ocean like I miss people. With a longing and a loneliness I can’t put words to. Even when I try. What must it be like for him? Well over half his life was spent at the sea. It must be torture to be in this dry, brown suburb. 

I do my best. We draw. We read and read. I talk to him about fairies. I try to let him take his time. Magic, after all, cannot be rushed. I take deep breaths and reach for the lessons I learned my last year with him in Oz. To slow down. To see “distraction” as beauty—whether it’s a tiny bug or a gorgeous flower or the world’s best stick. To release expectation. To stick to a solid rhythm, but to let things flow within that. Breathe out. Breathe in. Still…school starts at 9:01 here and there’s no changing that no matter how many great sticks are along the way.

After an uncharacteristically hateful remark about breakfast, “No! I DO want breakfast! I want a GOOD breakfast. One that I LIKE!” I suggested he head to his room and get dressed. That I’d leave the breakfast on the table and he could eat it or not. Up to him. Then requested that he perhaps not come out of his room until he was ready to talk with a little more kindness. So when he yelled at me from his room, “Mom!!! Come here!!!” I didn’t really want to come here. I wanted a second to breathe and rest and choose to talk to him with a little more kindness as well. “Hurry! Quick!” and there was something in his voice…something familiar, but forgotten. Was it wonder?

“Look! A robin!” It took me a few minutes to spot the robin through the blinds, but there he was. Then we spotted another. Still another bird. Hidden in shades of greys and browns, but with one little bright red patch below his beak. He named them all of course. Then named the tree outside his window the “gathering tree.” Then he got dressed. Ate his breakfast with no stropping. And though it took him ages to get his coat, and he did ask once more if he HAD to go to school we walked along in a state of magic. We noticed things. Even though we had to hurry a bit. He clung to me after the bell, but he didn’t cry. 

Sprinklings. Sprinklings of magic. That’s all I’m after. I figured they must be here somewhere. Today, they were.

Independance Day

The Facebook memory posts of this weekend in years past are rife with longing. Homesick references to hotdogs and fireworks. Wishing for Rockies games and American food. Truth is if I could have returned “home” yearly to the US for any holiday I would have chosen the 4th of July over Christmas every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

You know what I’m like. I always cry at parades. I ooh and aah over fireworks and have been known to clap my hands and squeal for particularly good displays. I’m a sucker for a good hotdog and would still choose an ice cold Dr Pepper over a delightfully cheeky rosé more often then my classy-side would like to admit. I know almost all the words to every patriotic country song they’ll play this weekend and have a small stash of stars and stripes decor that come out every year no matter what part of the world we inhabit.

Last year I threw a party. With hotdogs—or the closest estimation I could come up with in Oz—and watermelon (even though it was winter there I found one!), and cokes, and iconic American music. We played whiffle ball in the park across the street and I decorated the house with stars and stripes and red, white, and blue.

I’ll be there to watch at 9:30 sharp tomorrow as the firetruck leads the kiddos on their decorated bikes and scooters around the neighborhood loop. I can’t wait! I know the pool will be stinking fun with its baby games and splash contest and all day bbq. Our friends hooked us up with their yearly firework watching spot and I am looking forward to every sparkly moment. 

Still, as our first 4th of July weekend as US residents for almost 8 years unfolds I find myself filled with longing. Homesickness. The funny blessing and curse of an expat: my heart lives on several continents. I suppose no matter how American the holiday it still brings that point to bear. 

The pool was closed all day. Since I couldn’t wear a swimsuit I accidentally stayed in my jammies all day. Slept a bit. Cried a lot. The sky this evening is overcast and thundery. Even the cardinal rule of absolute family togetherness on holidays in a new country is being broken: Middlest is 600 miles away.

Listen, there’s so much to celebrate and much gratitude for the place we find ourselves in. This incredible neighborhood. This lovely state of Colorado. Old and new friends that surround us. In spite of all of that though the truth is I’m melancholy. Filled with memories and the truth of how far away everyone is. Filled with a bit of worry about the state of things in all 3 of the countries I’ve grown to call “home.” On Independence Day it’s my interconnectedness that brings this emotion. I love all the flags my family has unfurled under. All the combinations of red white and blue that have given me life. Brought my family together. Showed me more of who I am. Taught me in more ways than one about brotherhood from sea to shining sea. 

I’m going to get dressed now. We have a very important neighborhood gathering to attend. With streamers and ribbons and all the paraphernalia needed to make that parade really shine. Love you British friends and Aussie friends. I’ll be eating a hot dog and drinking a Dr Pepper for you tomorrow. I sure miss you all!

Magic

Sometimes the universe conspires. It communicates. Everything speaking in the same words and language. A book suggests the thing you’ve been missing. A movie’s central theme matches that of your longing. A friend speaks the themes your heart has been wrestling. Then as the day closes you read the word in memories from Facebook posts not once but twice and three years past. 

Magic. 

I often described experiences abroad as magical. England brought magical castles visited with sweet boys transformed into knights as they passed the turrets. Magical forests dripping with history and story were most certainly inhabited by the wood elves and spirits of my childhood’s favorite books. Mushroom rings and hollow trees we swore were signs of fairies. Around any corner in London might be a tiny little alleyway filled with culinary delights or hundreds of year old bookstores or tiny toy shops. Everything felt ancient and beautiful and deep. Winding roads. Storybook woods. Here was Pooh bridge where one could play Pooh Sticks. There was Portobello road where Paddington shopped and had his cocoa with Mr Gruber. Not to mention Arthur’s castle or the Pevensie’s train platform or even Bilbo’s shire. 

Magic. Everywhere I looked. Everywhere we went. Magic was the light in our eyes and the delight in our hearts. We found it everywhere. 

Magic.

Australia had magic of its own. It inhabited the sand that squeaked under our toes. The sea shell and sea glass and shark egg and coral treasures left to us by winter waves and collected on quiet mornings walking side by side. The whales brought it. Breaching and blowing and bringing their precious babies closer and more often than my local friends had ever seen them. The dolphins stirred it up around the surf boards of my sons. Or brought it laughing on my birthday morning. Or racing by on camping trips playing and dancing in the waves. They came so often. Saying hello then saying farewell. I looked for them. They nearly always were there to see. It was magical. 

Sometimes it was in the bush. Crazy flowers we’d never seen before. Beautiful gum trees releasing their smell into the briny air on wet mornings. Painting the air with their blue haze over the nearby mountains.  

Australian birds are full of magic. Ridiculous colors and color-combinations that make you grin and even giggle to think something real could be that fancy just by being born. Pink birds. White birds with yellow mohawks. Bright multi-colored birds so loud the three year old once asked if I could turn the volume down. No. There was no turning down the volume on all that magic. All around. Daily in my ears and in my nostrils and filling every sense with the NEW the beautiful the magical.

Even at school! Littlest’s sandpit included buried crystals from the “fairies” to help them learn their pincher grasp. The big boys classes included music and gardening and two languages and drawing every single day. Even school was a magical place.

Not a single week went by those three and half years in Australia without one of us remarking, “can you believe we get to live here?”

Magic.

Magic has filled my heart and my mind for much of the last 8 years. Adventures abroad. Shared with these wonderful men in my life. 

It was evidenced the other night. In three different Facebook posts. All posted on the same day, a few years apart. All referencing magic.

We’ve been “home” from our Grand Adventures for 3 months. Months of transition. Unpacking, repacking, unpacking. Jumping from place to place. Then Moving In. A huge task of epic practical, emotional, and spiritual proportions. Boxes of things were put away. Holes were made in walls. Boys registered and sent off to school and sports practices. Doctors appointments. Bedtimes. Packed lunches.

After the hustle and bustle of transitioning and traveling I was surprised that the fairly restful state of settling in and settling down was so unnerving. Sure there was grief at saying goodbye. To friends. To places. To a sense of home. To the adventure. 

Except this wasn’t quite that. This was a small feeling. A nagging, frustrating, off feeling. Little and persistent. Like when you’ve forgotten something and can’t figure out what it could possibly be. Like a niggling pain that never quite goes away.

On the same day that the “magic” posts appeared on Facebook the boys and I watched The Secret Garden. Reminiscing as we pushed play on the afternoons and evenings Middlest and I spent reading that book. Snuggled up in my same bed in a house thousands and thousands of miles away. I had forgotten that lovely story. The depth and beauty of it. It struck me then as it strikes me now. How Colin insists on inviting the magic. Insists they all do it together. That they all pledge steadfast commitment to the magic. So of course…the magic shows up. He walks! His father and he are reunited! It works!

The movie included a story I don’t remember from the book. Mary tells Colin a story her Aya told her in India. About a boy. When this boy opened his throat you could see the whole universe inside of him.

On the same day I saw the “magic posts” of my own on Facebook and watched the movie with the boys a friend wrote about looking for joy and often finding it in adventures and traveling and dancing and falling in love. “Then things got normal” she wrote. And I wept when I read those words. 

“Then things got normal.”

My friend went on to write that when things got normal she tried to find joy in ice cream or alcohol or shopping. Except joy wasn’t in those daily normal things. It was inside of her.

I can be fairly stubborn and thick headed. So it will come as no surprise to any of you that all of these things conspired with one other fact: for weeks I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic. 

Magic.

The word in my posts. 

Magic.

The healing magic in the movie.

Magic.

The words of my friend, though she called it joy.

Magic. 

The book speaking about being part of it. Inviting it. Being a vessel for it.

Inside of me. A universe. Inside of me. Joy. 

Magic.

I looked for it in England. I found it in the woods and the castles and the nooks and crannies of London. I looked for it in Oz. I found it in the sea, in the skies, in the scents and sounds and tastes and feelings all around me. 

Then things got normal.

Except perhaps. Just maybe. The magic isn’t “out there.” 

Perhaps. Just maybe. The magic is “in here.” If I look? If I open my throat? I’ll find a universe of magic right here inside of me. 

The Antidote

Emails suggest I make sure the paint on the outside of the house is clean and every chip of paint on the inside—even the ones noted on the move-in condition report that were already here are repaired and the backyard porch is returned to its ‘pristine’ condition. What?!?! Houses don’t make it into pristine condition after they’ve been well loved for 2.5 years. Even if you take super good care of them! Movers and cleaners and walk throughs and plane tickets and travel arrangements are all in the mix now needing time on the calendar and energy to plan. Already. Even though I’d like to pretend our move is further than 6 and a bit weeks away. 

The calendar fills and fills with end of year BBQs and birthday parties and final concerts and performances and baseball and futsal and swimming and school fairs and holiday get togethers and all the this’s and that’s of end-of-school-year madness. 

As an aside: though it has been an interesting trial I vote ‘no’ on January to December school years. In the future, I’m looking forward to the last month of school insanity and the run up to the holidays being separate things. It seems futile to pretend that one can do every event and remain anywhere close to sane, but somehow the calendar on the wall just keeps filling and filling.

The boys are eager to spend as much time with friends as possible before we leave. Friends come out of the woodwork asking for one last visit and time before our looming exit from the country. 

Plus there are presents to buy for Christmas and turkeys to order for Thanksgiving and Bridger’s birthday to plan.

I know too that there a spiritual and emotional issues at play. We’re returning home to the US after essentially 7.5 years away. An end to a season of life we have loved. The realities of reverse-culture shock loom. Uncertainty and loneliness at leaving our friends here and moving to a season of making new friends in a once-familiar place. The reality of entering another season of unsettledness. Something we know from experience takes a minimum of 9 months to pass and actually in many ways lasts more like 18 months to 2 years. 

Don’t get me wrong. I see the bounty and beauty that all of this muchness represents. The big, amazing life that all the busyness belies. 

Except I find myself spending too much time on Facebook. Watching too many trailers on imdb. Old feelings I’d thought I’d finally vanquished creep in. A low-level anxiety. Uncertainty. Worry. A sort of frantic flitting around from thought to thought. The laundry backs up and meals are haphazard. I can’t quite get my bearings. I want to sleep. A lot. I gravitate towards something I chose in the deepest part of my being to reject—crisis mode. This is the chaos that sets in with a move, with the end of the year, with holidays, with busyness. 

No. I thought a few nights ago. No this doesn’t work for me. I reject crisis mode. I tried to remember what to do instead. 

So I sat on the floor with my 5 year old and played Go Fish. Which naturally turned into wrestling and laughing. That helped. Then afterwards I said yes to my 11 year old and sat in the Big Green Chair and read. Not Facebook or articles online. Books. Real, live books. Better. Much better. Dad was on a late-night work call with the Europe in the kitchen so the nearly 13 year old and I made quesadillas and sat on the floor in my room for a secret picnic and stayed up way past our bedtimes talking about friendship and moving and change. Yep. That’s the stuff.

Also ‘Spoto.’ It’s the Aussie version of slugbug and has transformed car rides into shrieking hilarity. What’s not to love about slugging each other and shouting every time we see a yellow car? We’ve been playing for about 2 weeks. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m winning. Middlest says it’s only because I sit at the front of the car. I tried to explain how much concentration driving takes, thank you very much. He doesn’t seem convinced. I don’t care. Spoto helps.

Today I felt myself drifting towards anxiety so I immediately bundled us off to Farmer’s Market. The happiest place on earth. As we left the bread stall where the man always remembers his name and gave him an extra muffin today, Littlest declared, “The world is FULL of kind people and THAT is one of them!” True, son. True. Then the cherry man gave him nearly an entire punnet of cherries. We were happy and full and we sat on the grass and ate purple carrots with the greens on but somehow he still started to look listless watching the jumping castle I’d said no to. I was considering picking up my phone. Instead we sat on the grass and played Row  Row Row Your Boat with our bare feet pressed together. We followed on to Stinky Feet and then headstands and laughing. 

Bex and Brad showed up and we talked and somehow I felt enough again. Present. With my bare feet in the grass and my bags of local grocery goodness. My happy child and my own unique Cori-ness to share with the world.

“No!” I say to the poison madness of busyness and chaos and anxiety and crisis mode. “Yes!” I say to  delightfully simple antidote of play and laughter and bare feet and connection. 

Phew. That feels so much better.

The Sea

We have learned the ocean is not just for summer days. We have learned to soak up its beauty without getting soaking wet. 

The tide was high this morning. Coming nearly to the steps. So it doesn’t squish, like usual, up between our toes.  It gives, but only a little. Walking along. Stopping periodically to empty the small piles of sand from our shearling-lined boots. We don’t spend so much time in the sand as on it. Traveling over the top. 

It’s quiet. Both of us busy. Never too far from one another. Winter at the sea is for collecting. 

Soaking in the sounds of the waves as they steadily, steadily, swoosh along the beach. Quieter today. Gentler than yesterday. They swoosh instead of crash. Nevertheless they are relentless. 

I am reminded yet again of the enduring metaphor of the sea.

The change—constant. Sometimes generous as we can attest today with our pockets full of smooth sea glass. Other times taking so much. Sometimes gentle. Sometimes fierce. But always, always there. 

And I think, as I often do these days of how I will live without this daily injection of metaphor. The tonic effect it often has on my heart. 

What will I do without the sand? Even when we aren’t at the sea itself it is constantly there. In bags and shoes and little piles in the corners and building up in my dryer vent. 

I will miss the sand. The everywhereness of it. The pervading annoyance and comfort of sand.

What will I do without the sea? The quick-rusting of any toy or tool with the merest hint of metal. The filthy grimy windows even after Caid’s just cleaned them. The salty smell on the breeze. The swooshing background wave song that has become a constant part of our Australian soundtrack. 

The constant thereness of the sea. 

In May I was laying on Mom’s bed in Colorado. Chatting about this and that the day before we were returning home to Australia. She asked me if I was a Mountain Girl or a Sea Girl. Told me about a sermon she’d heard about it once. 

There are mountains where I am going. We will get reacquainted. I know I’ll love them again. I used to long for them when we lived in England. 

I have learned the answer to Mom’s question though. One I hadn’t known until I lived here.  

Sacred Space

Irresistible. Irrepressible. He shouts his invitation and my list of ‘to dos’ is no match for it. I am beckoned in. I bring my broom. Preparing this sacred space for our sojourn here. Gum nuts and damp leaves are brushed aside. The broom is discarded. As the zip closes the rest of the world falls away. It’s just us here. Cocooned inside the mesh. 

The light softens—the sun shining its mottled leafy pattern through the wall of magnolias. The breeze whispers her sweet song, drying up the muddy dampness of the night’s thunderstorms. The crows call their bizarre half-human cries. The schoolyard across the way sounds like us playing hooky. Reminding us that for today, we don't have to be there. Reminding me that for a few short months it’s just me and him. 

We have our ball. Our games. Offering each other our shrieks of laughter as precious gifts in our tiny universe. No one can touch us here. No one can reach us. We bounce and jump and the scwerch scwerch-ing of the springs is a song that says to my heart “be here. Only here for now.” I obey. I've been obeying for about 3 weeks now. Still I marvel that there was this universe, this precious world just outside my front door. 

Funny, I had thought it nothing but a rusty old trampoline. 

A Bowl full of Sunshine

Rose posted a photo today and something inside me stirred. A gentle stirring. Like the butterfly tickly flutters of a new baby growing inside. Can you photograph sunshine? She did. A big bowl of sunshine. Yellow pear shaped. Perfect round and cherry red. A photo of sunshine in red and yellow packages. A bowl full of beautiful tomatoes from her Colorado garden. 

Maybe it’s some latent farmer love. A longing for dirty hands and a ripe harvest. Perhaps that bowl of tomatoes awakened something deep in my Northern Hemisphere genetic roots. Harvesting a yummy bowl of tomatoes in August just make sense to me. Back to school and the height of the harvest season = August. Back to school and ripe tomatoes = January? That hasn't quite stopped feeling weird. 

My vision swirled. As it will with me. There were raised-box gardens and greens and zucchini and tomatoes and Steve and I mulling over the best way to fertilize.  There were chickens and flowers and I had on gardening gloves. There were canning and fermenting and preserving jars all stacked up on shelves in basements. Kate and I cooking. Scotty and the boys eating corn on the cob on the back deck. Years seemed to spin and swirl around me and all of the visions they contained were in a backyard. In Colorado. And it didn't feel weird. 

A garden. One that grows in the ground. Instead of pots and boxes that can be easily moved. Tending plants I wasn't thinking would reach their full potential with my friends and neighbors, but with me. At my house. For a long time.  

It felt like something I could enjoy. Planting. Harvesting. Planting. Harvesting. These are things one does when one stays. When one isn't leaving soon. When one enjoys the movement of season into season into season into season. I could picture jars in the pantry and bags in the freezer. Things to enjoy throughout the year. These are the actions of a stay-er. Hmmmm…staying. I could try that for a while. Especially if it meant bowls of sunshine every August. 

My Wobbly Sure

We've lost our way a bit. It’s happened before. The path seems clear. The reasoning sound. The direction laid out. The change looms on the horizon and one begins the one step at a time journey toward another enormous change. You make a few initial plans. Have the conversations. You research shipping the dog and the furniture back home. You talk through the timing. The way is sure and clear.

Then something happens. Or lots of somethings. An event at school means hours spent with other families. You suddenly feel a part. Welcome. You can imagine a life. One without a change in direction. One in which you stay put. You start to picture your children being teenagers with their children. It feels safe. You wouldn't mind their children around the house as friends and maybe girlfriends. You feel you could call on these parents to do the teenage journey with you. You could call them after the party or before. You could count on them to help you look after your fellas and you'd love to help them look after theirs.

You volunteer as a parent helper on the class bushwalk. You smile when you realize you still can't say that one without giggling. This one hasn't slipped into your vernacular just as “walk” didn't in England. You still say “hike.” Hiking along you realize you know the names of each child in the class and almost every name of each of their parents. You like this type of life. A life where you know people. A life where you're finally not new.

You take a camping weekend away with one son. Two old ladies set up camp next to you. They hike in the mornings. Canoe in the afternoons. Boss each other about and pour each other wine as they cook dinner. Laughing and telling stories. They tell you some of them. Stories about bringing their children here to this same spot. Then bringing their grandchildren, and continuing year after year until the numbers dwindled to just the two of them. You smile and a thought accidentally occurs. One of those heart thoughts that comes into full bloom before your mind reminds your heart of the logical details at play. “That'll be me and Suse,” you think. 

Then it accidentally happens again. Except Suse thinks it this time. You're all on what has become the annual Easter Camping Extravaganza. Ten days of tents and walks along the ocean and cooking over the fire. She walks to the toilets (you have learned to finally call them that after 7 years even though it still sometimes sounds funny when it comes out). Some teenagers had helped their folks set up camp and were happily throwing a frisbee about before it got too dark. She mentions how fun that would be when ours were all big. 

You stand at the rugby game with the other moms and they cheer your boy and you cheer theirs and you laugh and all gasp at the tackle and are they all alright and remember last year when that big kid landed on my son’s head and he took it on as his personal mission to tackle that kid every single time and wonder if there’s a weight limit next year for the under 12s? Next year. Next year we won’t be here. 

Some of these thoughts—the “somethings”—that make us lose our way are simple sentimentality. We can logic them away. Talk it through quick and set ourselves back on the path. Except sometimes you just can’t logic away the pain. The pain that comes when you realize you can't picture your son’s friends in the new life. The one you're going to. You don't know who they'll be. You don't know their names. Will you know their moms and dads? Will you like them? Will they like you? Will they squeeze you tight after a weekend spent working on a fundraiser at the school and tell you they can’t wait to see you in the week? Will the girls and boys all mix together in happy friendship where you're going? Will the teachers at the new school be as helpful and fantastic as the ones have been here? What will it be like to be in high school without the great leveler you've come to love in school uniforms? Will the rugby coaches be as great as these ones? The parents as fun and laid back? The boys as encouraging to one another on the field?

One day you overhear the middle son’s friends ask him whether he'll be back, after he goes away? “Yes, but Caid. You'll be back, right?” they ask him in their 10-year-old innocence. His answer stings. Hurts somewhere deep inside. “No,” he says. “I won't be back. Hopefully I can come and visit. But I won't be BACK.” Just like that something inside unlocks and a grief begins you'd hoped could wait just a few more months. A few more blissful months of feeling settled. Included. Welcomed. Sure.

Sure. Suddenly my sure—my sure wobbles. I lose my way. Can we do it again? Can my sweet boys? Will they have the resilience to pick up this one last time? Start again? Dig in? Make friends? Find the new haunts? The new house? The new walks and hikes and just-an-hour-away drives? The camping spots we'll go to year after year? The friends who will want to go with us? Will there be a girlfriend there who I'll some day, years into the future look at across a picnic table at our favorite camping spot and laugh and boss and tell stories of years and years of memories with? 

My sure is wobbling. I've lost my way. I know all of the logic. Each pro and each con. I still see the logical reasoning that says that in just a few short months we leave again. Across the world again. To a new life. To new friends, and this time to old ones too. In a place we've been before. But my sure. My sure is wobbling. I feel afraid and I don't quite know the way this time through the grief. 

You Are Loved

Fifty times I traced the heart. Fifty times I cut along the lines. Fifty times I wrote the words, “You are loved.” Sometimes writing, “YOU are loved.” Sometimes, “You ARE loved.” Sometimes, “You are LOVED.” Over and over again I wrote the words like a benediction. Each one a blessing on the one who would receive it. Each time stamping a belief in the truth of the statement on my own heart. 

A week ago my sweet husband announced that I had an appointment with my friend Jess to go shopping. With a budget that I had to spend. To buy new clothes. So naturally...I panicked. Seriously. Why wasn’t immediately clear even to me. It’s been a long week. One that brought to the surface questions and realizations that have been a long time coming.

Like the realization that I don’t even know what I like to wear. I somehow missed that phase of life. Perhaps because I married and had kiddos so early in my 20s and was dead broke for the period of time that many women evaluate their likes and dislikes, their no-thank-you’s and must-haves, their favorite places to budget shop and their go-ahead-and-splurge places, etc. I never did that. My closet included mostly stuff that was either handed-down from my fashionista sister or happened to be on the clearance rack at Gap. Which isn’t even my favorite store.

There was also the realization that my closet was almost completely full of items for me to “fit in to.” This is I think what prompted Wanderer to call Jess. He was taking me on a date. A dressy one. Which I was stoked about. Except that I wasn’t. Because I had nothing to wear. He was gently incredulous. I have a full closet. How could it contain nothing for me to wear? He brought me in and I pulled things out. I had cute dressy clothes. A little black dress. A fun funky top and black pants. Except--like nearly every single item in my closet--none of them fit me. “How long have these not fit you, love?” he asked me. “Hmmm...,” I had to think about it. “Since before I got pregnant with Littlest” I answered sheepishly. “Love,” he was ever so kind. “That was FOUR years ago.” 

The problems with this were many. Why was I willing to buy clothes for every other member of our family when they outgrew things or wore things out? Why hadn’t I updated things here and there? The biggest question of all though was this: Why was I unwilling to buy things in my current size? My waiting to do so drawing out into multiple YEARS because I could not accept the size that I currently was/am? 

Many women, doula clients, and friends have heard my love and genuine enthusiasm as we discussed how birth and years passing and gravity itself change their bodies. How they must learn to enjoy what their bodies become. Feel comfortable in their skin--THIS skin. This right-now skin. Own their loveliness and lovable-ness and see that they have worth beyond measure. See the beauty in the marks the journey leaves on them. Except apparently not MY right-now skin. Not my journey’s marks. Not my loveliness and lovable-ness.

I could believe in the beauty and worth of all the other women in my life. Why couldn’t I love my own body for what it was?  A strong, warrior body that had housed, birthed, and breast-fed three, BIG strong baby boys. Boys whose sojourn has left my body soft and marked. Boys who themselves have no problem honoring it. 

In fact just in the last few weeks both of my younger boys have made sweet remarks of love for my body and its current shape--not the one I should or will or wish I had. Middlest said recently after asking if he could snuggle me and “lay on my belly” (even though he’s nearly too big to do so) “I love to lay on your belly. You’re so soft.” Littlest stood before Wanderer and I recently when we were watching a movie. His daddy offered to let him sit in his lap. “No, Daddy. I want to sit with Mama because she’s SO soft.” Not my skin. Or the soft T-shirt I was wearing. My body. Snuggled up against the curves and rolls that made my lap so soft and comfy to him. This body. This one. Today. 

This is a body I couldn’t bear. I said words to myself like “fat” and “out-of-shape” and “just needs to lose a bit more weight.” So I didn’t buy clothes for this body. I just daily looked at the clothes I wished fit and morning after morning, for the three years since Littlest was born I have reprimanded myself for not fitting into the clothes contained in my closet. 

I spent the week thinking and talking and crying about all of this. I shed a lot of tears. Which is good because I haven’t been crying much lately (which is a whole other blog). I cried body-image tears, not-feeling-comfortable-in-my-own-skin tears, lonely-for-my-close-girlfriends-who-are-so-far-away tears. I just cried. I realized lots of stuff. That I’m not kind to myself. That moving across the world so much has been awesome but has really taken its toll on my body and my spirit. That I’ve lost a great deal of “me” along the way and that clothes aren’t the only area where I feel a little lost and a little unsure. I cried for my lost sense of purpose and focus and how hugely that contributes to my being uncomfortable and feeling unsafe in my own skin. I cried for the sorry I felt to other women who I want to love their own bodies and selves so much and to whom my own unwillingness to love my own self is actually a type of betrayal. 

Oh man. How could a shopping trip bring up such deep crap and pain?!? After all that crying and talking and praying I hoped I’d have it sorted, you know? That through the tears I’d wake up Tuesday morning and I’d love my body and I’d have had some sort of catharsis and be fine. Except I don’t want to be “fine.” I want to be ever so much more than “fine.” 

So I took a leap of faith. I went shopping with Jess on Tuesday anyway. I chose to say, “I love you” to the body I live in right this minute and buy it--and buy ME--some cute right-now clothes. Not clothes for the interim. Not a few things hastily bought until I “lose the rest of this weight.” Clothes. Clothes that fit. Right. Now. Holy cow. It was HARD. Hard to spend money on me. Hard because I wasn’t sure exactly what I liked. Hard because I had to try real hard to love the image in the mirror every time I put on a new item of clothing. Oy vey. When you shop--you have to look in mirrors and SEE what is really there. 

Guess what though? It was fun. Jess was super helpful. She took me to fun shops. She helped me pick out clothes in my right-now size. I actually look kind of cute when I wear my right-now size! Jeans that fit look ever so much better than tight I-wish-they-fit jeans or loose I-kept-these-to-wear-after-pregnancy jeans. Shirts that fit! A little fabulous flattering jacket. A pair of everyday flats--as opposed to the duct-taped Birkenstock sandals that I’ve worn nearly every day for about a year. 

Then...THEN?!?! Then I wore the clothes! Cause that’s the other thing I suck at. Not wanting to just return them all the second they’re bought. Or leave the tags on just in case miraculously a lose a zillion pounds in five minutes and they end up being too big.

The craziest thing happened you guys. Get this--somehow not being defeated by the first decision of the day--What should I wear?--it has totally helped. Going in and taking something that fits and that I feel cute in out of the closet and wearing it--it has helped me feel more cheerful about my days. I have even put mascara on every day this week to go with my cute clothes! Having that decision sorted has made me more able to live my day in a purposeful way. It has made me a little more confident in myself. A little more able to feel...well, ME. In a good way. In a way that even flowed out to those around me this week.

Like when on Friday I took Jess shopping--to the Farmer’s Market. I’m much more in my element there. I pointed out the good produce. I explained the benefits of sourdough bread on our digestion. I took her to the good free range butcher and delighted as the dairy-lady explained to us how much better the un-homogenized milk is for our guts. I suggested gluten and grain-free, kid-friendly packed lunch ideas. We talked about ways this thing that I am passionate about--healthy eating for our families--is part of my passion and therefore my purpose. It was fantastic. I was paying it forward to Jess who paid it forward to me. I was less distracted. I felt like I was carrying less pain. Not because I bought new jeans--though that was part of it. No, because I’d said, “I love you” to myself for the first time in a long time.

So I suppose when my assignment for our Sunday night church gathering came through on Thursday night I shouldn’t have been surprised. My job was to make 40-50 hearts with the phrase “You are loved” printed on them. Yeah. I know, right?

I also suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Anne Lamott posted these words as part of her Facebook status on Friday morning (read the whole thing here it’s so good):

I would tell people that no matter how awful their thoughts and behavior, God HAS to love them--that's His job. And I am Exhibit A--God has to love me, and this is not my fault. I didn't trick Him or Her, or hide the grossest stuff. God just loves; period. Go figure. It's a great system. 

She says in that status that we are loved and chosen. I am loved and chosen. Me. And this is the thing--I believed her. Not a lot. But I did believe her a little. For the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time ever.

This morning I got out watercolor paper and paints and painted--something I have in the past done only in moments of self love and self exploration and something that I haven’t done at all for over three and half years. I painted. I painted color. I painted hearts. Then when I really got going I even painted words. Words like, “lovely” and “beautiful” and “chosen” and “worthy.” Then I traced 50 hearts on the painted paper. I cut around the hearts fifty times. I borrowed pens bought by my sweet friend Alex--realizing as I wrote that she is also a friend who reflects back to me that I am loved and valued. Fifty times I wrote, “You are loved.” Fifty times I prayed those words as a benediction over the person who would receive the card on Sunday evening. Hoping that when the person picked up that heart and read those words they would believe what the words said. Fifty times over realizing that I couldn’t very well pray that, believe that, for someone else and not believe it for myself. Fifty times in a row. Over and over for a couple of hours I painted, traced, cut out, wrote, read, and chose to believe the words, “You are loved.” 

“Hey Cori, YOU are loved. You ARE loved. You are LOVED.” 

And so are YOU. For reals.  

Bus Stop Dementors

Surely Dark Chocolate Toblerone would ward off the dementors we both were no doubt battling. I know the icy chill had gone to my heart when Alex called from the school. Middlest was at a preschool, across the Roseville Bridge and several kilometers from his school bus stop. He didn’t cry on the phone, and Pippi the preschool headmistress was so sweet, but gee whiz. He’s only 8!

Not one to wallow he had set himself to making paper airplanes from the book Pippi had lent him. He had a pretty good stack going by the time I arrived. I wanted to swallow him in a mama bear hug, but I restrained myself and honored his manhood while he completed the final airplane in his fleet. Cocooned in the back seat of the car together he allowed me a hug and told me his story. 

Apparently when he had realized he’d missed his stop he’d alerted the bus driver who had explained he couldn’t stop the bus in the middle of the bridge. “I crossed the street to the other bus stop--a girl helped me--and I looked at the bus schedule just like you showed me, but there was no 136! Only a 280! and then I didn’t know what to do!” Then finally some tears and he let me snuggle him up. He’d kept his head though. “I remembered our routine, Mom.” When he couldn’t find a policeman he found a parent with a child and asked for help. They took him to the preschool, who found the name of his school, who called me, who brought chocolate, and snuggles. 

Sometimes I think they’re not listening, but they are. 

Sifting Sand

I stood on two sandcastles today. Don’t get the wrong idea. I did not go down the beach with a maniacal “Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!” destroying children’s creations. We were there after hours. After all of the castle creators except my own had gone home. There were only some training lifesavers re-enacted their emergencies. An older couple with hip 1970’s attire batting a ball back and forth with beautiful teak ping pong meets badminton paddles. A couple of joggers--a young man tall and skinny and an old man short and hugely muscular. A hard bodied woman trainer in her pink “Bring It” shirt and her sweaty recruit looking like she wanted to beg for mercy. A mom not much older than me stopping to collect her not-much-older-than-mine sons. Flagging them down in the surf, arms waiving above her head, shaking her head as the older one signed “One more” several times then disregarded her head shaking and paddled back into the surf. She didn’t seem annoyed. Her boys were only maybe a year older than mine. Tan. Long haired. Well worn wet suits. Such a good microcosm of Australian life. 

The beach was quiet but the water was full of surfers. Waiting all in a line. They look a bit like ducks when you watch from the shore. Mine were in the water too. Not quite as far out as the experts. Managing their unwieldy styro boards. They stood up a few times. Huge grins on their faces. Then came in and spent the rest of the time jumping off sand dunes and covering themselves in sand. Wanderer and the Littlest played in the surf. Hilariously cute in their matching wetsuits.

I was too cold to brave the water. So I walked along instead. Picking up seashells. Watching seagulls. Glad to be free of the house--which was Wanderer’s point in bringing us here so close to bedtime of course. Tears put aside for a few minutes. The frustration and anger with inflexible landlords. Negligent management companies. Frustrating exchanges. Written and re-written then tweaked and re-written again emails trying to be firm, but not put anyone off. A seventh week gone by with a dysfunctional oven. Kind of an important feature when you can’t eat anything from packages and cook nearly every meal at home. A nagging feeling that originates from old wounds of being trapped, of not having a home.

Near the rockpools at the edge of the beach I spotted the sandcastle. Already partially reclaimed by the tide its ramparts were softened, towers brought down to size. So I stood on it. Feeling strangely connected to this soft and slowly disintegrating piece of art on the sand. I was a small island raised slightly above the waves as they rolled in. The clear truth of ‘what’s wrong’ hitting me somewhere near the lump in my throat, the tears just behind my eyeballs. 

Lately my homes feel much like sandcastles. There is the joy of their creation. Hard work shared among our little close family. Friends invited to add bits here and there. The  chance to enjoy our handywork for a few fleeting moments, but knowing that the tide will come in soon. Not sure when or how quickly. It will come though. Sometimes gently and slowly washing away our work. Sometimes crashing in and taking it back all at once. Then on we go. Pack our things and move to the next space. Not too discouraged to attempt a new masterpiece, but perhaps making things a little smaller, a little less grand. Enjoying the feel of the new materials. The new view. But knowing that the waves will come and wash us away to another location. Wondering where it will be. Who will share the new adventure. How long we’ll sojourn there.

The waves have completely reclaimed my sandcastle island. I cry a bit. Then walk along until I find another one and enjoy the view from atop it until it too is reclaimed by the waves. 

more laundry therapy

Shorts and underwear, towels and tshirts, a few napkins and socks and miscellaneous items from the top of the counter. Whites and darks and reds and whatever was in the pile all getting thrown in together. Today I just couldn't be bothered. I just want it all clean. Done. Over with. So I threw everything in haphazardly, picked a nuetralish temperature and hit 'go' on the washing machine.

My dryer is sitting on my porch. As my sister will tell you--we're half redneck.

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me when metaphors arise--as they often do--out of the stack of laundry in my baskets. I spend a great deal of my life doing laundry after all. Sorting, inspecting, scrubbing, washing, moving around, folding, putting away, repeat. How could metaphors not arise?

I think sometimes I come off as too deep. I think too deeply. Feel too deeply. Talk about things that others maybe find a little too close, a little too deep to share or talk about. I'm kind of messy sometimes and I don't shy away from messes and well, I think some people it bugs and others it makes uncomfortable and it leaves me holding back a lot of the time. Not wanting to cross a line I'm not very good at seeing. It's hard in the "making friends" place for me. Maybe not everyone is a struggle-through type? I'm cool with that. But every once in a while I wish I was different. That I didn't find a lesson in the school run, or grocery shop, or the pile of laundry.

Like today when a laundry metaphor smacked me in the face. I just wanted to throw it all in and push a button and have it done. "It" you know? I want "it" done. The messy pile of stuff.

We're doing a cleanse of sorts. The Whole30. It's 30 days of totally clean, paleo eating. No grains. No sugar. No dairy. Just clean protein, loads of yummy veggies, and lots of good fats. It's actually going really well. Several annoying everyday symptoms passing by the wayside. I'm too holistic to expect that cleaning out the toxins in my body isn't going to kick up toxins in my heart, mind and soul though. Or the hearts, minds, and souls of my compadres on this journey--the fellas.

I expected it would happen. A cleanse with several weeks off together. With a first major holiday in a new country. With a visit from family from far away. With homesick boys and heartrending loneliness and loads of new adventures and the culture shock of beginning to get comfortable with location but not yet with culture. It's bound to kick stuff up, and it has. Old, yucky toxic crap that has clearly been making me deeply sick and exhausted. Other less entrenched stuff that has become just a frustrating nuisance. All of it piling up a bit in a big smelly mess. And today, I just want to throw it all in together. Just toss it in, push a button, give it an hour or so, and hope it comes out clean.

Except just like the laundry if I do that some stuff will shrink that needs to stay big. Colors will bleed or fade and won't be as vibrant. Things will be ruined. Things won't get properly cleaned and later on it'll just make for more work and more mess. So I'm trying to be brave and even a tiny bit organized. I'm trying to pluck up the courage and gumption to sort it. Inspect it. Scrub at pre-treat and wash away the toxins, move things around a bit, then put away what needs to be kept and learned and gleaned from the process. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more as long as necessary.

starting from scratch

I'm lonely. I don't know how else to describe this feeling. This emptiness. This sense of longing. It's not without hope or expectation, but still this loneliness is defeating as well. It's hard to be lonely.

Loneliness is a byproduct of a life lived the way we live. It's bound to happen when you move as much as we do--especially international moves where you're dealing with a new culture and not just a new place. We all feel it. Deep in our bones. It makes us a bit frantic sometimes. At least me and Biggest. Biggest and I get frantic. We want to call people and make playdates and we hope no one is mad and we want to invite everyone over all the time and we hope we'll do the right thing and they'll like us and we'll be 'friends.' But I'm not sure either he or I are all that realistic about what this means. "Friends." We try hard to lower our expectations but try as we might we know they're still so high.

Wanderer and I feel it too. A dance of close and yet far away. Only each other to talk to--really TALK to. So we share a lot. But it's difficult to be the others only sounding board. And so we say too much or not enough or the wrong thing and getting it wrong is a much bigger deal. There's no other substitute or surrogate so when we get it wrong then there's NO one to talk to about that and we're far away again. Sometimes we stay far away for while. Meandering and stumbling and blazing through our lives and feeling unsure when to try again. Interject. Reach out. Having only one person as your go-to for community is not very wise. Sex, parenting, friendship, laughter, just the inane talking that sometimes a girl like me needs to do. Only one person should never be expected to absorb all those things. The good news is I try very hard not to make him. The bad news is much of it gets kept inside. Words. Dreams. Thoughts. Questions. Hurts. Fears. Worries. Exultations. And somehow they get dulled inside. And sometimes they get sharper and all I know is that it feels very lonely to carry them around by myself. But I don't have anyone else to share them with yet. So. I feel ever so excruciatingly lonely.

I hate moving. I hate it almost as much as I love it. The exhilaration of a new city, country, continent full of new adventures in direct proportion to the heartache of having to start again from scratch.

Scratch is a funny word for it actually. Like cooking from "scratch." I prefer that. I almost never buy things in boxes or pre made packaging. I prefer to wing it with what I've got. Adding a little of this and a little of that until it's yummy and just right for me and my fam. I guess that's what one does with a new locale as well. But the same hard thing is true of building a life from scratch that applies to a recipe--you can never recreate the same yummy dish twice. And when you have a yummy dish of a life going it sure is hard to leave behind.

Our last two locations were by no means perfect, but they sure were yummy. I'm only four months in here--I've got plenty of time--but damn it if I'm not down in my belly longing for some of the yumminess. I'm gathering ingredients. Some of the basics are in place: a great Farmer's Market for weekly shopping and an identified regular grocery store whose aisles and products I am beginning to shop with ease. Two close fantastic coffee shops. Even a fun boutiquey shopping area for girlish afternoons. I have the house all set up the way I like it and enjoy being here. I haven't found a regular doctor we like yet. I haven't even attempted finding a babysitter. School was set, but it's been so hard I'm not positive we don't need to switch that one out. Plus the most important ingredients of all--we have some people we've hung out with. Perhaps-ish ingredients in the settling-in recipe. We enjoy being with them. They invite us back--which seems to mean they enjoy us too. We do play dates and family dinners and it goes a long, long way towards cutting the loneliness down. Early though. Four months isn't quite long enough to say whether we'll be FRIENDS friends or not.

FRIENDS are the ones who come over when you're sick and take your kiddos somewhere so you can nap and try to get better. Or make you a cup of extra sweet tea and cry in their kitchen with you when your brother-in-law dies or even just when you've had it with your kiddos and need a moment with another adult. FRIENDS plan girls nights and breakfast mornings and remind you and ask you again and then again because they know you're an airhead or at least very distracted with everything going on and they don't get mad or at least they never tell you they are. FRIENDS sit around fires and chat long into the night about all things wrong and right and good and hard in the world and they don't try to fix you, they just let you talk but they do say hard things if you need to hear them or kind things and they MAKE SURE you hear those too. FRIENDS walk in the woods and pick through flea market finds and introduce you to their favorite breakfast place. FRIENDS rescue each others cars from the sea and tents from the wind and hearts from the gutter of despair or depression or just a really bad week. FRIENDS love your kiddos and are fiercely loyal to them and let you be to theirs. FRIENDS are the ones you call on Friday night at the last minute and say "I don't feel like cooking" when what you really mean is that you feel like company and you all order take-away or throw something together--together--and bring wine and chocolate. FRIENDS.

I'm just so lonely. The thing is I have those FRIENDS. Those lovely precious ingredients in such a yummy life, but they're all so damned far away. They're not gone. They're only a phone call or an email or a Skype or FaceTime date away--and I do reach out into the distance for them often and am often comforted. But the thing about a new place, a new neighborhood, city, country, continent is that you have to start over. You must. You have to set out again on a road to making friends into FRIENDS. You need those folks 2 doors away. A short drive away. You have to find someone to cry over a cup of tea with. To walk, and eat, and explore, and laugh, and hang out with. You have to make FRIENDS nearby. It's essential. That process takes time, and energy, and the willingness to be vulnerable and brave and make mistakes.

In fact it's part of the beauty and enormous blessing of moves--that each time your heart swells to take in new places, people, stories, FRIENDS. It's just that the swelling often occurs after the heartbreak of leaving your delicious life behind. You know the new recipe will emerge, but damn if you weren't quite done enjoying the one you left behind.

Australia is...

Thought I might make this a regular list for the blog. Below are some of my observations from our first two months.

AUSTRALIA IS:

Crazy weather--down coats and flip flops, freezing cold temps but no central heat in the houses, bundled up in the morning & steaming hot by noon. 

Laid back! Phrases like, “No dramas!” and “How you going?”

Ocean/beachy fun! After school and weekend activities at the beach, little piles of sand on the floor after sorting the laundry, sand in my sheets, sand in our food, sand everywhere!

It’s buying whole fish at a time because it’s cheaper. (Then leaving the fish market with the  bones & the head for stock. “Madame? Do you want the bones & head for stock?” “Um...yes? Ew. Okay! YES!”)

It’s being woken up by kookaburras laughing in the trees in the back garden. (Because it’s ‘garden’ not ‘yard’ and ‘gardening’ not ‘yard work.’)

It’s pretty darned great so far!

Taronga Zen

It’s quiet and chill at my house. I’m not sure the last time those two words could describe this house--especially with all four of my men home. 12:37 and I’ve only just had a shower and dressed. Spent the morning rocking in my Giddyup chair, drinking coffee and reading a book about Tuscany. Also a few books about animals and trucks and superheroes with little boys on my lap rocking too.

About 95% of me feels deliciously content and rested and at peace. The other 5% keeps wondering if I ought to take advantage of the pretty day and take the boys surfing. If we’ll miss out by staying at home all day. If they’ll resent it if it rains tomorrow as forecast and we didn’t DO anything today. Even though they are all content and resting and peaceful.

I do this as a mom. I have guilt attacks. Where I worry I’m not doing enough or too much or maybe not the right thing? I hate that stupid guilt monster. Some days though, some days I can quiet the beast and enter into the day and just be. Those days are always so delightful.

Thursday was such a day though it didn’t begin that way. The puppy had barked much, much, much of the night. Oh my. I kind of wanted to kill him. We had a trainer come and we were trying some new things and man a livin' he was struggling. So anyway, I was pooped. Also Littlest was just a stinker that morning. Demanding. Whiney. So very two years old. Then I accidentally opened a blog from one of those 'super moms' suggesting a clothespin game to play with your toddler in the living room that helps them work on the pincer grasp. RAWR! Guilt monster attack! I thought, "OH NO! I haven't been working on that. Was I supposed to? Now he'll have poor control and bad handwriting. Which means he’ll be a poor student and get behind and it will be all my fault. I've failed!" It sent me into a yucky space. Spiraling down into not-so-nice thoughts about myself and my mothering and how he wasn't in preschool and I wasn't doing preschool type things with him and would he be okay, was I wasting the short time I have with him, maybe we should have stayed in the US where he had a lovely preschool, etc. etc. On top of that the bigs just couldn't seem to get their act together for school. I was patient, but it was really irritating. There’s only so many times you can suggest that they get dressed in a serene voice. I had told Littlest I would take him to the zoo and I nearly bailed. In the end though we dropped the bigs off (late) at school and headed to the zoo.

It was so delightful. He had a cupcake and I had a coffee. Cupcakes and coffee always help. I need to paste that note up somewhere for myself. It seriously made a huge difference for my weary, cranky attitude. Then we just wandered.

The Taronga Zoo is amazing. It overlooks the Sydney Harbor--so it has a fantastic view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Gorgeous. Also I didn't bring a stroller or the backpack. So we just wandered around at toddler pace. Which was so restful and restorative. Slow but deliberate. Another toddler meditation practice like I’ve written about before.

We went to the seal show. Which I LOVE. Hung out at the chimpanzees for a while. At one point he found a seed pod. A big one. He calls them 'shaka-shakas.' He loves them. If we were home we’d be collecting the US version from the yard at the top of Columbine Street on our way to Sandburg Elementary every morning. He shook it and danced and sang. Which was stinking adorable. Then he just plopped down right in the middle of one of the main thoroughfares and started pulling it all apart. At first I suggested we move and take it somewhere else. I was sort of embarrassed and not in the mood to beg him or negotiate with his two-ness. Then I thought, "you know what, why bother?" So I plopped down with him. Waited as he pulled apart all 5 pods one at a time. Unwrapped each of the 40 some seeds from their fuzzy-wierd shells and handed them to me one at a time. Right in the middle of everyone's way. It was so great. I nearly cried with the simplicity of it. The beautiful relaxing reality of just sitting anywhere we could find and doing ONE thing until we were done. Together. In the sunshine.

About 10 minutes later we were walking down a hill and he dropped his sippy cup. He realized that it would roll down hill and he just kept picking it up and rolling it over and over. Then he started to kick it. "Play soccer, Mama!" Again I was tempted to tell him no and worried about if it was a suitable area and about how filthy his cup was getting and would it break? Stuff like that. Then I just thought, "you know what, this isn't a big deal either!" So we played soccer. He just giggled and laughed and had the BEST time. Anyone whose way we were in was chuckling at him and his 'soccer ball' and his adorable laugh.

It was all pretty profound for me. I felt like I learned so much. Like that there is something both magical and meditative about being totally present with another person. Especially when that other person is very different from you--i.e. a toddler. Just to see the world at his pace. Through his eyes. Letting him take the lead--something I don't do very often. It was...well, magical! I also felt like I was able to be present with myself in those moments. Really honoring his personhood but also my own. It felt wonderful to sit on the warm concrete in the sun. To watch each seed come free of it's outer and inner case. I enjoyed that immensely and not just because he did. I also noticed that no one seemed particularly bothered that we were in the way. We broke some "rules" and weren’t particularly polite and it wasn't that big of deal. Then it occurred to me later, ha! We worked on the pincer grasp, vocabulary, science, physics, and a bunch of other preschoolish stuff! All just by being together!

It felt like such a peaceful, kind, precious way for God to say to me, "I love you. You're who I pick for these boys. I love YOU for just being YOU. Thanks for taking such good care of them. Thanks for taking good care of you."

Phoning it In

Phone it in. As in Jillian Michaels pointing her finger through the TV screen at my working-out ass and saying, "Do NOT phone this in!"

Or there's "phone a friend." As in Regis Philbin suggesting to the next 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' that you phone your designated friend if you just can't figure out the answer to the question that might make you a million dollars richer.

I'm more fond of the latter. There are just sometimes you must phone a friend. Tonight I picked my friend, Kelly. Well, actually Wanderer phoned Kelly. On my behalf. I don't know what he said to her, but all of the sudden he handed me the phone with her on the other end. After just a few minutes my sad, discouraged self quit sitting with glazed-over eyes staring at the dining room wall and started laughing, listening, gabbing, and--as she would say--setting the world to rights. Well, my world and Kelly's anyway.

It wasn't long enough. It wasn't face-to-face. She was an awfully long way away in England. There wasn't a strong cup of tea or a tall glass of wine involved. But it was my friend. Who gets me. Who I get. There's just something about that, isn't there?

My mumsie FaceTimed me from the US today. Must have been late, late at night her time. She'd got my message though. She'd read my blog about what in the world to do about my sweet, sad Biggest boy. So we talked. She told her own story of similar struggles with me and my siblings. She made a few really helpful suggestions. We talked and laughed a bit and she admitted she had no idea how to set mine or Biggest's world to rights but she loved me, she was available, and she was real sorry it was so hard. She gets me. That's why she called. She knew I needed to phone a mama.

My silly cell phone doesn't work at my house. We're having trouble getting the Aussie cell phone companies to give me a phone that's not a top-up so we're having trouble remedying the poor-phone problem. But tonight Wanderer and I Skyped over the 3G network while he rode home in a cab from the Sydney airport. He sounded a wee-bit like a robot. Littlest kept asking him, "What you in, Daddy?" Not understanding why on earth you'd have a conversation through the computer if it wasn't video-enabled. Still we talked. He made me laugh and asked about everyone's day and let me know how much he loved me.

Biggest asked me a few weeks ago when I got my first cell phone. "Hmmmm..." I answered. "I think I was about 23?" He was incensed. "WHAT?!?! Your parent's didn't let you have one in high school?!?!" "B, they didn't have them when I was in high school," I told him. "Whoa Mom, I didn't realize you were THAT old!"

In 1996, I spent about a year in Kiev, Ukraine. The internet was a tiny baby. You could email, but not everyone had an account and getting online was patchy--especially from the Ukrainian end. Making a long-distance call involved a trip to the post office to pay for the time, then a call from a land-line to an operator to connect you, then finally the placed call which must be kept within the time limit purchased and often included interruptions of various other conversations over the same line. Still we were amazed about how much modern conveniences had changed the process of keeping in touch. That in spite of the fact that all minute-purchasing, connecting, etc. had to be meticulously practiced in Russian ahead of time or else facilitated by a Ukrainian friend as none of it could be done in English. Still we felt quite well-connected given the enormous distance between us.

I am living now in a completely different hemisphere than my family or any of my friends. I almost always speak to them in a different day--most often we talk in their evening while I have already experienced part of the next morning. Still we talk while walking or driving (hands free of course) or doing dishes. Anytime, any place over our cell phones. We see each other over phones, computers, and iPads. Showing each other our houses, our children's newest tricks, our new puppies, our tears and laughter. We connect. We phone it in. We phone a friend.

I'm enormously grateful for technology in this moment, but not nearly as grateful as the precious friends and family it allows me to connect to.

What's a mama to do?

Drop toddler boy off in the morning at Parent's Day Out. Stand outside door listening to boy sob and sob. Hear from teacher at end of the day that he "only cried until lunch time." Continue to take him.

Try out two days a week the next year. Watch him hold his ears along the sides of the room rocking back and forth because the other children are too loud or too naughty. Worry. Learn he needs to eat gluten-free and dairy-free. Notice the difficulty this makes with school snacks, playdates, etc., but also notice how much calmer he becomes over time. How much easier it is for him to embrace the activities and relationships with the teacher and other kiddos.

Third year. Two days a week again. More "school-like" situation. He loves his teacher and she loves him. They both eat gluten-free and sometimes she brings him special snacks. He flourishes.

Fourth year. Move to England. Enroll him in local school. He skips kindergarten and its "learn to do school and play a lot" mentality and moves right into full-day, full-on school because of his age and the way they do school there. Boy cries again every day when I drop him off. Boy cries so hard his teachers send him home with his brother at lunchtime because otherwise he cries all afternoon long. Everyone is patient, but this doesn't get much better. Even after a few months. The afternoon teacher yells at the kids a lot. Never at him directly--he is the epitome of the 'good kid,' but it doesn't matter. The yelling sends him to tears even after he learns to be away from home all day. He loves to learn, makes friends, and enjoys his morning teacher. Mostly though he's miserable. So we take him out at Christmas.

We teach he and his brother at home for a year and a half. This is a delightful time of exploring things he's really interested in. Teaching him to read. Loving our math curriculum. We go to lots of castles. Visit tons of museums. Have a wonderful time. But...boy is lonely. We welcome another baby into the family so mama is busy. Boy asks to please try school again. We acquiesce.

Boy begins school at tiny local village school. He struggles a bit, but his main teacher is lovely and he soon makes lots of friends. The Wednesday teacher upsets him so much we go to talk to the principle about it. Later finding out we are one of the first parents to report her bullying, name-calling, and belittling behavior even though it has happened before. We are shocked by this. I want to call it quits. We hang in though. The principle confirms the teacher's behavior with other students, the teacher is suspended, and the boy learns that standing up for the underdog (he wasn't the one being bullied by said teacher) is important and can bring about change.

We move after his first year at this school. Boy is utterly heartbroken. He pines for his friends, his teacher, and his school and never quite recovers for over a year.

We enroll him in the local neighborhood school in our new town. It's bigger, but has an art, science, music, P.E., and computer specialist. I am stoked about these things. Surely they make for the best sort of education. Boy is less than thrilled. He struggles to make friends. A group of girls totally stress him out with their chasing, song-singing style of crushing on him. He doesn't bond with his teacher. He has hours worth of homework. It gets so bad that he cries every morning and holds onto my clothes begging and pleading not to have to go to school.

I sit down with the teacher and the principle. Asking how we can help him solve his predicament. He meets with the girls--it goes really well. He meets with his teachers--gains a better understanding of the homework and relaxes into the school year. This takes almost until Christmas. I look at other schools. Should we change? What is the solution?

We leave him at the school. He flourishes academically. They enroll him in the gifted and talented program and test scores show what we often suspected--he is beyond his years in reading and math abilities. He does make friends, but never good friends. His main friend treats him poorly and his brother worse which upsets boy. I don't know how to help with this. It's very difficult to watch.

We make him do swim team at the local pool and finally he is making neighborhood friends. He seems really happy. Then we move. Again.

This time he heads to an even larger school. In yet another country. Boy makes friends right away. Even going on a playdate within the first three weeks. He loves the kids. He's stoked about his friends. Relief. But...the reports of the teaching style worries his dad and I. Calling children "babies" when they misbehave. Principles belittling from the front. Constantly communicating their disappointment and what an "embarrassment" the kids are. We worry about the academics as well. Granted, it's the last three weeks of term, but there is no homework at all, they watch a few movies, and the lessons are deemed boring and "really, really easy."

Mama worries. She worries about his future. Welcoming the sage advice from her mother that she too worried about each school change, move, teacher and friend situation. Worrying at each turn that my future hung in the balance. Yet I turned out okay.

Mama still worries though. About the teaching. About her smart boy not being challenged enough. About what it communicates to a child when adults speak that way to them or to those around them. About what it communicates to them when their parent knows it is happening and doesn't stand up for them. About what in the heck one does instead? Is this the real world full of mean people and he needs my love and support as he learns to navigate it now? Or does he need to be protected from it. Is my role to stand in the gap and say, "no way!"

Academically what do we do? How do you find an education that meets the individual academic needs of such a child? One who just sits in a different place learning-wise than his peers?

Mama struggles. That's what she does. She worries and fidgets and talks it through with his daddy and prays and tries to listen to deep Answers. She tries to see the pattern. Of struggle and triumph. Of his resistance to change and of his ultimate resilience as he muscles through. She tries to remember the remarkable experiences of education outside of any classroom. The global citizen she is raising. The boy whose love of culture and adventure flourishes through his expatriate experiences.

Mama practices the excruciating process of letting go. Knowing ultimately that the boy does not belong to her. That she was chosen as his mother and his guide for a short time. That she can only offer her journey, her heart, and her own story. Doing the very best she can. Trying to take a long view. Trying to be as courageous as she urges him to be.

She listens to his tears as Spring Break ends and he begs not to have to go back to school. "I love the kids, Mom. The teachers though. They're so mean! They never have anything encouraging to say! They've never been mean to me, but they are to the other kids and I HATE that! I can't stand it!" She assures him she's listening. That he can tell her everything. That she's open to thinking through some solutions of how to solve this big problem. She says how sorry she is that it's hard.

Mama drops him off at school on the first day of Term 4. Then she cries.

The Grinch who stole my sanity...

"Oh the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!"

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Biggest achieved his highest consecutive jumps ever this week. 564 forward jumps in a row. Plus 51 "cross arms." Also various other feats of jump roping prowess and lots and lots (and lots and lots) of practice. Super impressive. I'm stoked that his current favorite activity is so active and healthy. Over and over on the bouncy timber floors with loud hurrahs and announcements interspersed. Over and over and over. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Oh and his back-up activity? Wall-ball against the living room wall. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. "ARRRRGHHHH!!! I MISSED IT!" Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

"Know why I love to do this guys?" Middlest asks last night. "Cause I love technology and I love music and this is my favorite way to do it. Hey Dad? What are some more FAST rock n' roll songs?" He's crazy about making mixes. Holding the iPad in his lap and spending hours scrolling through Wanderer's iTunes collection and trolling Spotify for songs. He's careful to listen to the beginnings and ends together. Several times. Making sure they fit just "so." I'm really enjoying watching his eyes light up when he finds a great new song he loves. Fun when it's an "old" song and he's discovering it for the first time. Also, it's hella-loud.

Littlest's new favorite thing is to climb on my head. Especially as a means to wake me up in the morning. He loves to ride his bike across the empty living room and crash into the walls to stop himself, the puppy yelping and running this way and that to avoid the wheels.

Middlest is doing that thing again. That thing where he just climbs on my lap or my back or wraps himself barnacle-style around my legs at any time--especially when I am cooking, typing, or talking to someone else.

Biggest can tell I'm a little touched-out. So he hovers around the edges. Not wanting to bug me, but wanting in on the affection action. Makes me feel crazed and guilty all at the same time.

Boys in our bed early to snuggle. Boys in our bed til they fall asleep and need to be carried to their beds. An awesome week at the beach which included much coaxing of small boys to please walk along so we could watch the bigs surf lessons and would it be okay to maybe not stop at every single seashell? Whole afternoons of reading on the outdoor couch. The big boys suctioned to my sides and a few gentle reminders that digging chins into my shoulder hurts. Then reminding Littlest not to jump on me while I'm reading. Oh, and not on the glass coffee table either. Puppy cuddles interrupted by puppy lessons not to chew on my clothes, toes, fingers, or love handles. Puppy checkup with Littlest in the backpack so he doesn't try to vaccinate his brothers with the vials on the counter or run away to let the cats all out of their cages.

"I'm just going to sit down for a few minutes," I tell Wanderer. So I pull up a little patch of floor and plop down. Two seconds later the Middlest has sat down with his head on my shoulder and one leg drooped over the top of mine. Littlest is jealous and has started climbing in my lap and telling his brother to "Scoot OVER!" while Biggest wants to know what my favorite character was in x, y, and z movie and how did I think the actors did and is that my favorite movie that actor was in or do I have another preference and how about we play rummy while we discuss superheroes, "Want to?"

Yes. But no. But...Can I please just have a minute. Just one. I just need just one little one. Of quiet. Of time. Of SPACE?!?!

Every once in a while the mean ol' green guy shows up. All I want to do is tie a horn on the puppy's head, and just let my "bad banana with a greasy black peel" out! I want to race down and steal all their Jing Tinglers, Flu Floopers, Tar Tinkers, and jump ropes. I want them to quit playing their noisy games like Zoozitter Carzay (a roller skate type of LaCrosse and Croquet) and wall ball! To quit already with making ear-splitting noises deluxe on their great big electric hoocardio schnooks or iPad mixes.

I want them to stop pestering me for food. It's exhausting to feed them when all they do is feast, feast, feast, feast, feast. Finally it gets to a point where I swear I must stop this whole thing! For 53 years (it feels like) I've put up with this now! I must stop the noise and eating and touching from coming, but how? Then I got an idea. An awful idea. My inner-Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea...

I finally locked myself in my room. No, it's not totally sound proof. One wall isn't really a wall but a temporary partition through to the kitchen. Unfortunately, it's also not totally private. The two curtains don't cover the windows completely so boys can peak in and still have lots to say and show me through the windows. It's also not totally boy-proof as my bed was full of sand and I don't think my house will ever not smell to some degree like feet. But it did the trick. A glass of wine. A couple of homemade brownies. A chick flick with noise-canceling headphones on. By myself. In my bed. With no one touching me or making (very much) noise.

Does anyone else feel this?

The interplaying emotions of deep gratitude for warm little bodies. Awareness of the shortness of this time when they will want to be close. Want to snuggle up and be with me. Yet the intense feeling of being overwhelmed and longing for just a tiny bit of SPACE for the LOVE!!! I love my kiddos. I know what a blessing they are. I feel so much gratitude for them and for my life. Almost all the time.

I fell asleep to my movie and woke up to puppy yelps, toddler butts, and thump, thump, thump, thumping. Somehow though, I didn't feel like stealing anyone's toys or last cans of Who-Hash.

They say that her heart grew three sizes that day!