A Little Bit Mennonite

I'm making a collage of the pieces of myself right now...(Pinterest!!!) and one of the pieces that went in first was a Mennonite visual. My horse and buggy self is about my roots, simplicity, feeling useful  and maybe most of all belonging with other people. I am determined to build community here in California...but also, here in my mid-thirties, here in motherhood and here in the middle of the 2000's .... to surround myself with other women who are willing to work shoulder to shoulder, laugh together, cry together and help  mother each other's children.

 I am meeting interesting people out here and I am slowly piecing together a mental patchwork quilt of who in my acquaintance looks like the type who would be up for impromptu picnics, late night emergency calls from the bathroom and random canning adventures. I crave connection and can't even tell you how deeply it feeds me to have real soul like that in my life and yet...and yet.... I'm lazy. Super lazy. I don't want to be the organizer. I'm tired, I'm overwhelmed, I'm not "together," I'm super great at following. I'm also just scared. I'm intimidated by other people, I feel inhibited, I worry about all the choices, I'm uselessly perfectionistic about my plans, and I worry that reaching out might be more painful than staying here alone, in my shell. I mean, seriously, I know way better. I know how great it is to reach out, even if you're received warmly 1/4 of the time. Its always worth it. Its way great.

I am considering leading a little book study for women....a small group, a group not freaked out by Bible-y things but not too uptight either. Willing to really get into the meat of issues and talk about the rabbit trails and the puzzles and the weirdness. I bought a book, I even got as far as floating the idea to the proposed women. Then I froze with my paws in the air and have just twitched my nose for about three months. So much scarey!!!! Yipes!

I am also interested in having a super random and stand-alone women's night where we do things together, practical, solid things we can touch with our hands and see finished at the end of the night. Simple sewing, canning, photo transfer projects, medicinal tinctures, natural dye work, maybe even brave stuff like simple welding. I want to work with tools and creation and messes and things that tip over and splash and look scary. I want women to take turns coming up with ideas and leading project nights...sometimes something they love to do and want to share, sometimes something they need help with and want to share the burden and sometimes something they have always wanted to try and never felt brave enough. I have no idea how to do that and I haven't posted any bills or nailed down particulars but I'm dreaming. In my dreams this group meets (on my rotation) in our garage, right off of the garden in the backyard....on a summer night  and there is golden light shining out of the windows and lots of laughter and maybe a little wine.

Today, there was no wine, but there was a very big mug of hot herbal tea and a very short chat with a couple of new friends about the overwhelm. There were hugs and smiles and understanding looks and there was even a self-care assignment which led me to the bathtub for a long, hot soak, reflecting on the ways I feel isolated and need connection and want a community. The things I need and ought to look to, and the ways in which I can be a little Amish and pull some of their simplicity, capability, warmth and peace into my friendships. I am after all, a little bit Mennonite in my soul, thank you Mama, farming roots, Ma Ingalls, and Stutsmanville Chapel (my home church which was truly a Mennonite congregation once upon a time), its part of who I am.

Vacuum Salesman And Veggie Gardens

It was a long day, lots of things got sorted out in the garage, piano lessons got plonked out in the living room, video games got played and school was worked through. I got a little bit more work done on the veggie garden I am putting in and I am feeling optimistic about our chances of getting some real food out of it. I have a little more to plant and the boys are all itching for their own gardening plots too so there is still more hacking of weeds to come. Handily, some of what is growing all vigorously all over the beds is delicious wild chickweed. Free salad! Have to come up with a way to harvest it all and not have boys stomp it to bits afterwards. Maybe I run out in the early morning before they are up?

After dinner tonight an Afghani vacuum cleaner salesman talked his way into the house and gave an in depth cleaning session to our living room carpets while I washed up dishes, A finished his evening tele-commute and I read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to the boys in their beds while the carpet man grinned and vacuumed in the background. I experimented with exercises in holding boundaries and said kindly, "No, we don't want your vacuum, yes, we see that it works well, thank you for the demo but no, no, really...no." And smiled and smiled and smiled. After the spiel wore out, the Aghan man told me wistfully that he has triplets at home, plus one more child and that he has been here in California just about as long as we have. I hope he's home now with his family, enjoying some rest finally. He and his sales partner were out on the curb waiting for their corporate pick-up van for a long time after we locked up and hit the lights. Its strange to think of his wife out there somewhere in the dark, making a new home here like me, taking care of four, crazy kids like me and wondering what time her husband will be done working...like so many of us. Life is universal, all of us are treading this wheel together, be we tired salesman or unwilling customer.

Poetry Friday: A Family Link, In Verse

Happy Poetry Friday! Its the weekend y'all and we made it all the way across the line. Having a little Flashback Friday moment tonight, not enough inspiration or time tonight to pen a poem of my own and so, I'm sharing a great one by Jacqueline Woodson about family.

My parents and I and my first baby sister Jen, sometime in 1984.

I feel increasingly connected to mine as I age, as my boys grow bigger and form their own connections, as I research my family tree, consider my genetic testing I got for Christmas this year and soak into my new life so very far across the country. I'm lucky, I have a wonky, bumpy, lovely family full of grit and jokes, woodsmoke, doubt and other delicious things. They are wonderful people all of them and I am working on sorting out who I am in relation to them and who I am not in relation to them, but no matter who I turn out to be, I know I will belong. I am part of these crazy people and they are part of me. Its a strong thing to feel that internal wire, stringing you all together irreversibly. May the cable never sever.

My parents and I, December 2015.

Here's my contribution to Poetry Friday this week. Enjoy.

genetics

BY JACQUELINE WOODSON

My mother has a gap between

her two front teeth. So does Daddy Gunnar.

Each child in this family has the same space

connecting us.

Our baby brother, Roman, was born pale as dust.

His soft brown curls and eyelashes stop

people on the street.

Whose angel child is this? they want to know.

When I say, My brother, the people

wear doubt

thick as a cape

until we smile

and the cape falls.

Catch the rest of the submissions this week at The Miss Rhumphius Effect, click over and have a marinade.

Isolation And A Washing Machine

All the experts say that one of the keys to "good blogging" is to be perfectly consistent. Oops. I took a month off, with no warning or explanation and as one reader pointed out....it looked like quitting. Surprise! It's just me, blogging erratically while aiming at consistency. Things I am learning in my life...



We now have a washing machine, which feels very luxurious. Our old dryer is on the moving truck, driving across the country with all of our belongings. We have one week left to get our plans straight for where things should go before our world becomes a chaotic whirl of boxes and homeschooling.

All this moving craziness has meant pushing formal homeschool learning off (except for math and reading) until this coming Monday. In California you have to pick a method of homeschool registration and that research has also taken time. I have decided that I am going to give it a year and basically continue our current model while getting to know area homeschoolers. Then in the fall of I want to try connecting to a charter school or an umbrella organization (options here in CA) I will know a little more about the options and have had time to decide what I think. Sometimes it is good to defer some of the crazy and the new and the pressure and give yourself a few outs to keep things a little simpler. These are lessons I need to teach myself.
We have found a park day, homeschool playgroup to hang out with which is really encouraging and fun. Love getting these little pieces built into our life again. I am also looking into joining 4-H and have a co-op that is studying science on the docket for options too. There is a much larger buffet of choices out here.

I am starting to get to the point of moving where you feel a little lonely. I know my way to the local grocery store and I remember my own zip code now, I have a library card and favorite neighborhood walks but I don't have chums yet. I wish we had a babysitter for a night out once a week to explore and reconnect and I wish I had a community of mamas to kick back with and laugh hysterically beside for Lady Night outings, I wish I had a church community to share the sacred and support my children with an undergirding network of faith and to serve as a safe place for spiritual letdown and restoration and I wish I had a little circle of painters who were growing and making and observing the world in streaks and puddles of paint and advice.  I miss al of that but I know that it will all come. 

This part is a little frayed. It's hard to keep settling and nesting and making and finding and learning and starting over because it's depleting even though it's fresh and fun. Must refill. So I am reading Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet which is crazy good and I am working out every single morning (day 12!) and I am drinking coffee and deadheading my new roses. Prayer is good, texting is good and family rocks.

Rise above, friends! I will too!