Time sure is moving along at a plucky pace...what with all this slow moving going on around here. It's thick, sludgy time. The kind that squishes up like mud in a boot around my toes. I have grand ideas each morning and by eleven AM I've decided it's too much work. By noon I have renewed interest and by 3 its nap time. About the time I'm awake in my mind again (a good hour or more after I've awakened), it's time for dinner and to get the girls off to bed. Somewhere in all that mix I've been managing (much to my surprise) to make good headway on some projects calling to me. Even in spite of the fact that nearly every room of our house has been in some sort of transitional phase for months now....far longer than necessary.
It all started with separating the girls' into two rooms. They've shared all their lives and the 12 (almost 13) year old and the 9 year old are going through a relationship phase where space is needed. The short three years between them is stretched a bit for the time being. The differences seem so much more polarized. The oldest one gets the little cave of a room with a tiny window that has been our office (which is now on one end of our bedroom still waiting to be completely organized). Her room has been freshly painted a beautiful smokey blue. She has much less "stuff" than the 9 year old...who still has dolls and toys and a stack of childrens' books a mile high though she's preferred "chapter books" for a few years now.
Tonight, just now after I typed the first paragraph, I took a little break to tuck the wild ponies into their beds. In separate rooms....where late night whispering on school nights can't occur (of which I'd grown fond of and accustomed to). I found the oldest going through her "special box". A heavy duty, shiny green cardboard box she's had since forever. It's stuffed so full she needs a stout ponytail rubber band to keep the lid on. Letters from Grandpa, notes from me, pictures from sunday school teachers, lost teeth and each and every dollar the tooth fairy ever brought, a thick lock of hair tucked in an envelope, a Happy Birthday note from a big sister, Valentines folded in half - the shape of a half-heart unmistakable - and a little cellophane envelope of all the four and five leaf clovers she's found. Dozens. I swear. We threw some of the broken (i.e. crushed) ones away and have planned to frame the rest. She once found 19 in one day. Honest. She has a knack for finding them and I almost think that maybe at the house she mostly grew up in, that we had a little patch of four leaf clovers growing. A special lucky patch.
It's times like these - times of finding a long lost collection of four (and five!) leaf clovers - that makes me want to toss all my concerns into the closet, prop a chair in front of the door, and hybernate with these memories. These things that make up the luminous layers of my life. I want to spread out each clover and study the writing on each little card there where a stem was taped to it and a 5 or 6 year old hand penned "found April 19th" in black pen. I can still see that hand in my mind. I can feel the skin and the shape of the nails when it was curled up in mine in sleep. It's all right there...even though that hand now has fingers as long as mine. Piano fingers. Gardening fingers. The other hands...the ones that are still smallish tucked under a pillow that is under a head in the next room...they're not far behind. And she's a little less inclined to let me just hold them for hours on end. She has busy work to do, I suppose. There's no time to indulge in momma's futile attempts to slow time.
I have a dear friend here who is barely three weeks older than me whom I've come to know more and more these past couple of years. She married a dear friend of mine and for some reason, I got the idea that the new marriage needed lots of space from the likes of the bachelor-days-friends. I don't remember when I let myself want to get to know her better. A trip pear picking, child care trading, lunches with lots of laughter. It's all a blur. I've learned just a tiny bit of her history and admire the brave and radiant person she is inspite of many reasons not to be. She and I have a lot in common, there in the folds of our history, and I suppose I feel a tiny sense of safety in that. In knowing that she's "been there" on some level. That I don't have to explain. That she understands.
She's doing the incredible work of re-establishing new boundaries with her family, getting clear on her needs. It's hard work. confusing at times, and she's doing amazing. She's due with a little baby girl any day now. My anticipation has been growing for 9 months and I'm about to birth a bundle of energy of my own any second. The decadent energy of new-baby-time (both before and after) is an energy I could easily set up camp in for a good long while. It's as close to real magic as I can imagine on this earth. I pretty sure it's the same magic that makes moss and lichen grow 365 feet in the air in the canopy of a redwood. (thank you, Emmatree, for writing about this story. I'm in love. They talk about my town - these trees are home!) I feel like I'm there sometimes. There in the canopy where time is filtered by these moss and lichen and each minute is composted into rich nutrients for my soul.
We were chatting on the phone the other day about baby things. They're having a home birth - her first (she has two darling sons already) and there in the pepper of our scattered conversation, she asked if I would be willing to come photograph the experience. The labor. Moment. My heart caved in and swelled up all at once. I consider that space of childbirthing to be a sacred and holy space, and to be invited in to share in this small way...well...I'm overcome with gratitude. Really overcome. And I don't show it yet to her. I don't want to overwhelm her with that. I want her to feel at ease in knowing that she can retract the invitation if at any point she feels the need to. Minds change easily when bearing down in pain. I wouldn't want her to worry about dissapointing me. But really, I'm walking around in a stupor of sorts because I have been invited to a magic ball and I don't know what to wear...and I don't care because I just want to be there.
Oh my. I had other things I wanted to tell you and I just scrolled up to see how much I've written so far. I didn't mean to be so long winded. And yet I'm so glad to be talking to you again. I've missed you.
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I took this picture the other day, along with over 50 other pictures of "found water" between my house and down town (2.5 miles). I was thinking of - prayer walking for - the beloved fellow humans of Haiti and how water has become such an essential basic challenge to get enough of and how I have it at every turn in abundance. I fill my hot cereal pot to soak after cooking. There is a fishbowl in the living room. The culverts are running fat and full. The rain collects in low places on the patio. The humming bird feeder hangs in wait - full. The creeks and ponds are all swollen with water. My tap runs clear and plentiful. There is even enough for the beautiful hens to drink at leisure. I'm so grateful for the abundance of this precious resource. I saw all this water and held a vision for a person in Haiti putting a cup to her lips.
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I'll show you the projects I've been working on another day. I'm distracted, at this moment, by the bright and enchanting barking call of two foxes outside. One uphill and one down...our house in between. I wonder what they are saying to each other? Are they talking of our hens? I should go make sure the coop is shut tight.
Please share your impressions with us after your friend gives birth. I was blessed with the opportunity to witness the birth of my grand daughter, and it is one of the best experiences of my life. And I love that little girl with a depth I never expected to feel towards anyone again.
Posted by: Pat Pass | January 21, 2010 at 01:43 PM
oh, your writing is always so beautiful. i get lost in the images...thank you for inspiring such beauty.
Posted by: jen | January 22, 2010 at 09:22 PM
I hope the coop was shut tight, we don't want hungry foxes in there.
Stephanie, I love, love your writing. How you wander from a slow moving day, to your wild ponies, your friend about to give birth, redwoods, water, Haiti, hens and foxes. You fit all the world, all of life's fundamentals in one meandering essay. And you show how all of it is tight and cohesive, like the crazy diversity living in the canopy of the redwood forest. Yes, we are there with you and the moss and lichens, 365 feet up in the air. Thank you.
Posted by: Angela | January 23, 2010 at 12:05 AM
What a lovely post Stephanie. I've sure missed them. I haven't looked at the computer in a couple of weeks it seems, so nice to read this. Left me with a warm, cuddly thoughts. Thanks. And thanks for your well wishes for my little Chester dog. Appreciate the kind words. Take care, Riki xox
Posted by: Riki Schumacher | January 23, 2010 at 06:30 PM