The Movers And The Stayers

Summer is here, and I have not been. That's the way with these warm weather months....all digging in the yard until way too late to make a proper supper by accident, reading way too many books and going on way too many exciting outings, catching up with all the friends and forgetting entirely those I communicate with online and far away. Please, let's pick up where we left off and carry-on with grace flowing around us to fill in all the gaps and distances and things I forgot to share and mention. We'll all catch up, shall we?

First of all, the elephant in the room we went on a stupendous trip to Italy. Totally amazing.

I have to write a post on several of the things I thought about our trip. So much to process and so much to share....more on that later.

Secondly, so much else is going on with us. One of my very close friends is moving away, the garden in our second year here at Orange Blossom Cottage is finally starting to come into its own, we had a really fun trip home to Michigan to see so much wonderful family, I have been doing some homeschooling public speaking this summer, and we are still ever in pursuit of giving ourselves a rich vibrant life with lots of space and breathing room in it.

Having a close friend move is a new experience for me as an adult. I realized once when talking with my husband that I had never been dumped by a boyfriend...although I'd dumped guys several times. It was a strange self-discovery. Did that mean I was selfish, pompous, picky, or lucky? I felt like I had kind of missed out on a rite of passage and the ability to claim normalcy in some tiny way. Weird how all the things mean things sometimes. Having a girlfriend move away and leave me is like this too. I have left several times, been guilt tripped, sobbed over and begged to stay. I've had people tell me they could never replace me, that they were mad at me because I had to move or resentful because I didn't consider them in my life location plans. But, through all of that I have always kind of played the same role. Tried to thank the stayers for their love, their loyal affection, their sharing of their time and lives and feelings and tried to walk the balance of showing just enough of my own feelings about moving to make sure that my humanity shows but be strong enough to comfort my friends and help them imagine a good future while not letting the negativity and depressing guilt get to me. I've never been the stayer. My gal is leaving and while I don't resent her adventure or the stress of packing up and shifting all her worldly goods to a new state....its surprisingly complicated for me too....even though I have no real clear role in the moving and shaking. I'm all conflicted about how much to show my cards with her. Do I cry in front of her, tell her exactly what she means to me or try to just keep it light and cheer her on while crying on my own time? Or is it some back and forth seesaw of behaviors. I don't want to be clingy and desperate but of course I'd love to make sure she knows that I care and that I will deeply, rawly miss her when she's suddenly not there for random roadside berry picking and hilarious girl's nights.

This relationship stuff gets me in to trouble in my marriage too. I want to be strong and independent and never have my husband be suffocated by trying to "be there for me" but I really want to be real and open and wear my heart dissected open on my sleeve. I think the thing that really gets me is that I so badly want reciprocity. I want to be sure that I share like he shares, that he wants my dirt and my pain as well as my hips and my best jokes. I start to feel gun-shy when its not clear that we want the same depth. Nobody wants to realize retroactively that they were an over-sharer. Ain't nobody got time for that!

I worry about this kind of thing with my friend too. I want to communicate my pain at her loss and my adoration of who she has been in my life at exactly the same level she discloses with me. I'm not sure I want to feel the same...just control what I tell her to visibly be her emotional twin. I'm always the emotional one, the deep feeler, the raw transmitter and sometimes its fatiguing to be judged as the eternal mess or the out of control girl or the person who is never done processing. I don't mean to be that way and when my feelings stay inside of me it mostly doesn't feel that way....its only when I leak them in disproportionate amounts and people get their measuring tools out and point them my way that I look a mess and seem like a problem. I wish there was a neat way to let my friend know that I will miss her exactly as wildly and deeply as she misses me and that I will probably culture some even darker and deeper feelings that she'll never know too and it all means that she's been really very special to me and I wish her the world. I'm lousy at being what people expect or want although I am one of the most people aware and over observant humans I know. Its tough to wish you could be just right and feel blind about making it happen. Moving is hard, even if you're staying.

Good thing there is shiny, crinkly swiss chard in the garden and orange roses by my front door, the sound of children's laughter in my yard and more phone calls than I can answer from people who love me. Summer ain't so very bad, even if its lumpy in places.

Rain And Friendship

 The rainy season is winding down now, just a month or so less of this cooler time of year and I can already tell it is warming up. The flowers are starting to open here and there and the back yard edges are a riot of green weeds. I don't know what anything is because I am in such an unfamiliar world out here so every little lime green vine or fistfull of invasive plant material looks promising and exotic to me. This spring will be a wild bashing bar-fight of a gardening season. I am not pulling much of anything out and I am so excited to put my garden in that I am sure to follow my usual plan of putting more in the ground than is practical or diplomatic. It will be a wild, chaotic mess of growing and choking and overgrowing and learning. I'm so excited about it all. Here's to the weeds and the learning and the hilarious errors and the brilliance of knowing more about what in the world grows here.

 I am so excited about making friends. This is my current project for the month. I am pushing myself to make dates with people, to reply to emails, to set up playdates (how I hate the term!) for the kids and to go out on the weekends for little lady getaways in the evenings. I am hungry for the connections, the roots, the deeply tapped lines that pull us in when things are dicey and send up their macrame'd message of security and belonging and sense-of-self and sense-of-other. The boys are easy to tip into melancholic and self-pitying wallows about nobody liking them and how they've never had friends. We need to belong and to have "folks," we're all hungry for being missed and having people light up when they see up and for knowing there are people who we have to update about the latest exciting happenings in our day to day. Its a weird feeling to have a lot of people you can small talk with at anytime but no real spot for letting your hair down, talking deep or hearing true vulnerability with others.

 I am so glad I have family during this transition and that I have technology. I need to rely less on Facebook (refresh refresh refresh refresh) and more on my own energy to call people on the phone, actual letters and building the real relationships in brick and mortar here. I slide into the Internet when I feel lonely. I think it feels like a safe place to hide and it is a place where I can find people and connection. That's not all bad, its just that I use it for a shield instead of as a break or a spring-board. I have been eyeing up a women's book study and am not really connected enough to any church yet to find  a group to connect to but I decided to just order the book and try to bootstrap a group based on who I know right now. When you can't beat 'em, lead 'em! That's my technique this time. Never really tried anything like that before. We'll see how it goes.

Things That Matter

We are working and working on settling in....I keep taking more things out to the garage again, we keep finding spots for things to live, this week I put up some pictures on the walls and the boys and I bought bulbs (science, you know) and double used them as biology lesson and garden improvement. The garden has suffered, the whole yard has from vigorous tiny-male use and motherly neglect while I have been working on the inside. So many balls to juggle.

Last night something gave and I stayed up....way past my bedtime...I snapped and washed every single dish in the whole house, then swept the floor, then wiped down the counters and polished the stove. And then, I had a cup of tea.

And then I got out my paints in the quiet glow of the office and I made colors swirl together and image magically appear on the blank page...until about 3am. So beautiful, so feeding, so irresponsible. Tonight I am going to bed early.

Boxes matter, dishes matter, gardening matters, school work matters....but painting in a silent house with a mug of tea beside you matters too.

Saffron Robe Unpacking

Moving is so much hard work y'all! Whew.

I am a tired lady. The boxes are taking over my life. I hide in the book I got from the library sometimes, in my phone sometimes, and out in the car on a drive sometimes....because seriously....

Where did all this stuff come from? There is no end to it. I want to cull everything down to four wooden bowls and a saffron robe. We'll share the robe. No need for excess.

These are all my husband's socks....that spot on the right in the drawer is where is socks are meant to go. 

Argh...on the upside, tonight the nine year old made dinner because I was stressed and drowning in boxes in the hallway and his chicken wings and jicama was delicious and hilarious and so helpful. I also managed to make the boys bedroom completely livable today, including a trip to Home Depot for plywood (45 minute wait to get the pieces cut to size! Patience lesson + assertiveness lesson!) I also signed up the older two for piano lessons, scheduled a piano tuner and didn't do any laundry at all. I did however successfully get paint matched for our kitchen cupboards so that I can spot treat as needed in the future and cover the spots where I took the hinges and doors off of one section. (open shelving! Yay!)

See!?! Took the upper doors off! So pretty!

I know that I will manage to spend time with kids in a fun way again soon. I know that I will feel like it is a home again and not a junk heap soon. I know that the chi will return to normal flow soon. I know I will work out in the garden again soon. I know that I will actually walk through the garage again soon. I know that I will someday feel like I can breathe at night and lay down my head with genuine relief soon. Its soooo hard to go to sleep when the house is finally quiet and just "relax" and get some rest when I see every box behind my eyelids! Argh!

In other news, Ru is cooking well and reading well. We have somehow slippingly drifted over into the land of chapter book reading and obsession with returning to the library asap and never getting enough story. So lovely to see it really happen. So much leap of faith breath-holding in parenting and homeschooling. You want to believe that you're kids are of course amazing and brainy and footsy and success material but you also feel so utterly responsible for the whole outcome and all the ingredients and the process and and and..... Its hard to do all you can and let go optimistically. Its so easy for me to trust that "all I can" is a reasonable contribution and that I am not forgetting something or screwing up in some obvious way. I worry about their flaws and weak spots and annoying little ways....although I hope I don't show them too much of that. I do try to make sure that they know I am in their corner always and that they can make it. I'm just their mom and I do worry! These little successes taste like extra rope, a little margin, some safety net of possible "fine-ness" in the ways of the world. Tangibility feels meaty and full of heft.

We had rain this week! I am believing that the drought is going to be over. That this is part of the cycle of nature, just like the wildfires and throw us humans all into panic. I am believing that the hibiscus we planted will live and that the little sprouts that are coming up the front flower bed and something cool and that the 40th year of my husband's life (tomorrow everyone!!!!) will hold wonderful things for him.

I love you babe. I'm going to try sleeping, even though you're snoring.

Poetry Friday: A Moving Tribute

Happy Poetry Friday! I have a poem this week, digesting a bit more about my move to The West Coast from The East Coast.

Its been about 2,000 years since I had a good poetic wander. Feels so good to get back to my principles and be stepping back into a rhythmn of creation and personal, reflective thought. Love writing poetry.

Poetry Friday is a product of KidLitosphere and is a chance to share and mingle together suggestions, original work and sometimes even whole books that feed that poetry section of our brains, help us to think in lyrical form and assist in giving us imagery that is crisp and reflective of experience.

I try to write an original poem once a week to participate, pushing myself to try new ideas and to capture in verse the impressions that slam or waltz through my mind. See the tab above for a collection of all the poems I've spun out thus far here.

Poetry Friday is one of my favorite things to consume on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning. A mug of tea and the host list of links is great early morning brain food to help your inner self uncurl and blink awake. So, incredibly cozy. Try it out.

Our host blog this week is Poetry For Children. Click through and enjoy all the offerings!




New To California

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I wonder what dark January looks like with prickly pear ripening on the side of the freeway and mariachi on the radio.

I hear basketball echoes in the back courtyard, the neighbor kids shouting in Spanish and the gentle hum of the refrigerator in our tiled kitchen.

I see the golden sunlight slanting through the office blinds and the sly Dirt Devil doing the tango along the living room wall.

I want new girlfriends,
luscious, ridiculous ladies
laughing in a circle around me,
arms skyward
bellies full.

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I pretend that I will become a willowy, silver-haired chef in a teeny seafood cafe with open geranium windows.

I feel elastic,
spicy,
full of the buzz of the shift and the high of spontaneous, aromatic creation.

I touch the soft
inner bellies of scallops and the stringy stems of thyme
beaded with tiny, rough leaflets.

I worry about drug culture, pot heads and psychedelic mushrooms eroding personal drive.

I ask the world, if I wasn't scared what would I do Out West, in this new life.

I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

I understand that the bright, blue of the sky, over the gold hills is an illusion of light scattering selectively.

I believe that avocados are verdant medicine and fall from their trees on cords like gifts being lowered to us.

I dream of playing that fiddle that is in a box, on a truck, on the highway and
making it sing past the beginner tunes I learned in high school, 
revving on into huapango, zydeco and bluegrass.

I trust that all things are a lesson, that nothing is without use and that God is filled with compassion.

I hope for rain this winter
green hills and a season of growth.
I am camping in a house with a blow-up mattress, four boys and a sea of pale gray carpet.

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!

A Sudden Jump!

What a very strange thing it is to open up my own blog and see that it is almost exactly two months since my last post and so much has happened in our life without any notation.

We are no longer New Englanders! We've taken a leap, pulled everything together madly and flown to the other coast. We are now official residents of Northern California. It's so strange to say that we no longer live in that big house in Connecticut and that it also feels completely natural.

Moving like this (we still don't have any of our things beyond suitcases with clothes) and we haven't sold our house yet and we still don't have a new homeschool group) is a little jarring to consider but ultimately very freeing. It's light and open and full of nothing binding. I cried and agonized and kissed the house and friends goodbye and then just leapt. I am astonished at how perfectly at home I feel in our new home (a little one bath, one story cottage) and how "Friends To Get To Know" keep piling up warmly in my Contacts list (everyone seems to know someone that I need to meet).

This is not to imply that everything is ideal; we are camping out in the house with no beds or chairs or other fancy goods. The cottage comes with no dishwasher and although we've been here for three weeks without a washer and dryer (on order!) and there's not much in the back garden besides dry California dust around a giant concrete pad and some fruit trees. The window screens are torn, there's ivy climbing up inside the walls of the garage and the time difference is a lot tougher to negotiate via phone calls than I anticipated.

But still....still things are lovely. We are happy and warm and lucky and safe and having all kinds of adventures. This afternoon, for example, on our afternoon walk around the neighborhood my boys dragged home a giant banana leaf to play with! A banana-frickin-leaf!!! It's amazing.

That's our new place!

There are pink and yellow and red and orange rose bushes in the front yard that bloom more every day. When I had a sore throat the first week we were here I made myself lemon honey tea with fresh lemons off the tree by the kitchen door. A pair of doves just raised three babies and launched them from the back patio. One bathroom is unspeakably easy to clean. It's real and zany and fabulous! I recommend adventures, every time. Viva California!

Stairs? Check.

Somebody climbs. 

This week he made it to the top  of the stairs that connects the downstairs with the second floor for the first time. All self propelling....zip, zip, zip, right up  there. No pauses, no refunds.

Its official. He's a climber. Let the Olympics begin!

Still working on teaching him how to back down them again. Might want to get serious about those lessons right about now, eh? 

He's a wild one. Fits right in.

Craving Pretty

A mysterious cache of pearly marbles left amongst the foundation stones along the west wall of our house

I'm totally to the part of the move where I am so sick of sorting out boxes that I really feel like, "Does anybody mind if we just burn what's left?" But of course I would be married to the type who minds intensely. There is no throwing anything away unless there's a really good reason. *sigh* (and other small ways we balance each other out)

So, since there's no torching technique escape available I find myself daydreaming about pretty instead. I crave prettifying at the moment. I want so badly to make beauty instead of trying to find a spot for the spices and sorting through the kids clothes for what should actually go in their drawers again or flying madly through the packing paper in a million boxes trying to figure what in blazes happened to the knife rack. (which we found last night by the way! Hooray!) I want to paint and hang curtains and arrange vases of flowers, and set up displays on the built-in next to the fireplace and hang art on the walls.

For the moment, I'm trying to make myself unpack at least one box a day and satisfying my artists itch with little bits of pretty. And its working...slowly the boxes are disappearing (none left in the dining room!) and little spots of beauty are showing up too. Here's a tour of the latest little pretty bits.

Isn't this little end table/ magazine bin/ lamp combo cute? I love it. Totally found it on clearance for 25 bucks.

Stained glass sun-catcher in the playroom window.

Ficus tree in the office.

A china cabinet! All set up with pretty things! I look at it about 38 times a day for reassurance.

And then....ya'll....my aunt sent me a totally spectacular care package and included hoards of pretty things. I'll share a few of them. (I have really great aunts)

Look. The most stunning salt and pepper shakers ever...who came with a little china trough for their feed, or your butter....whichever you wanna supply.

A handmade sign...to remind me which way to go for a swim. Its a replica of the one at the family cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan.

And these amazing hand-blown glass napkin rings. The little starburst is a hollow tube for water so that each napkin can be encircled by a little vase with little flowers tucked into each one. Is that incredible? I sense a dinner party in my future.

So great. I feel more pretty in the wind. 

(for instance, wait until you see me hand the lace curtains that were in the same box!)