There is No Lack of Fear in This World

When Li'l Bit was two years old I realized, quite all of a sudden, that there was no earthly way I could send her away (AWAY!!) to kindergarten.  I envisioned the back of her tiny, two year old shoulders as she timidly entered a huge, windowless building which was (obviously) armed with prison guards, metal detectors, and razor wire.  Being the calm, nonreactive person I am, I woke her from her nap and went straight to the library to check out gads of heavy books on the various forms of early education.  Long story short: the more I read, the more I fell in love with homeschooling.  I didn't mean to.  It just happened.
So I started "officially" homeschooling her at the ripe old age of two.  It has served her very well.  She is deep, talented, naive, and brilliant; homeschooling has given her space to read and imagine millions of beautiful, poetic words each and every year.  I hope it has served the other two well, but they hit some critical years while I was simultaneously hitting the brick walls of pregnancy, miscarriage, grief, bed-ridden pregnancy, newborn care, post-partum depression, and as if that weren't all enough: healing from childhood sexual abuse.
Wow.  That got dark really fast.
Basically, 2014-2015 was meant to be our Finally Catch Up! year.  However, two weeks before the school year began we realized I was still very much in the thick of it.  So we enrolled our perfect, precious, blameless babies in public school.  We were so terrified!
There is no lack of fear in this world.
Do you know what I realize now, eight months later?  We were so brave.  This year has been all about bravery.
We were at one of the loneliest, weakest points we'd ever been both as individuals and as a couple, and we took this courageous, vulnerable step into the unknown.
We let go.

Homeschooling has more than enough attributes in and of itself without harping on the short-comings of public school education.   Nobody needs to be scared into homeschooling.  (Or anything for that matter.)  Also some truly beautiful people work in public schools and/or depend on them to educate their own perfect, precious, blameless babies.  Sadly much of the message fed to homeschoolers is that public school is not good enough, the worst of it being dangerous and pure evil; therefore we must, without choice and with conviction homeschool our kids until they go to college and maybe then there will be a way to home-college them!
I saw this negativity from the beginning and tried to block it out.  I tried to stick to my own resolve: classical, academic excellence in a warm, home environment.  Pure.  Simple.  But the message of fear is Loud and Clear whether it pertains to homeschooling, starting a business, sky-diving, or dancing in public.  This fearful message made it hard for me to even think straight.
Fear says no.
There is the type of fear that keeps us alive.  It says, "No!" to the bad people, bad intentions, and bad situations.  Then there is the type that keeps us from living.  This type says, "No...better not," to the unknown, unguarunteed, and less traveled way.  The latter confuses itself with the former, and in the end we're just counting the hours in the day until we can simply go to sleep and not be afraid for a few unconscious hours.
I know what it's like to be stuck in that fearful place, not just for a while but for a lifetime.  One feels powerless and defenseless as well as hopeless and hapless.  To this day I declare it a miracle I could find such a fearless man willing to marry me, sequentially procreating these fat, amazing babies we both adore and love fearlessly.  How did that happen?  I was so screwed up.
I guess that's the message.
Perfect love casts out all fear.  I know I love my man, and I KNOW I love my babies.  If my gut is telling me where my babies should be in order for me to become the mother they need?
Done.  This year has been about healing and bravery, and in order for that to happen my kids needed to be with Mrs. B., Mrs. M., and Mrs. D. for six hours each school day.

This is the first of a few "Going Public" posts.

First day of school. I was so afraid they'd mess their clothes, the younger two had to eat their protein-packed breakfast shirtless!!  Yes.  I actually made them do that.

Terrified to send our big, brave, naive girl off to "the wolves."

blurry. ;)

more blurry. ;)

well, i guess that's it.  our goof-balls are ready for the world.

but is the world ready for them?

Breathe It Out, Breathe It In

It is my pleasure and blessing to have this friend who is a beautiful, quiet artist.  She is enchanting and mysterious as so many great artists are.  She wrote this little bit about seeing something truly beautiful, and it got me to thinking.
How often do I see something so captivating it could take my breath away--except before that Great Inhale I frantically try to document it?  What if I forget this happened?  What if no one else knows this happened?  Does if even matter if I'm the only one to see it?
The beauty and wonder of this diametrical world threatens to implode my being at least twenty-five times a day.  At least.  But more often than not I press the pause button on my soul, so I can make sure I and everyone else knows this just happened.  I've always been very ashamed of this hardwiring.  I assumed either, 1) I'm so forgetful and thankless, I won't remember this moment unless I have a picture of it. 2) This moment won't mean anything if other people don't see it and marvel at it as well thus gratifying my own enjoyment. Or 3) I'm just like all the other goofs showing only the pristine moments via social media thus proving my dominance in domesticity.
Those are very damning thoughts.  Forget shame.  I'm going straight for damning because that is exactly what shame feels like.  Shame this thing about myself that I wish were different, but it is obviously all my fault, it will never change or go away, and I will deal with this failure for the rest of my live-long days.  Damned.  Damn, damn, damn shame!

But when I read my friend's words tonight and connected with her experience, I noticed something entirely different happening in my soul...

An entrancing, gorgeous moment takes place before me...Sweet Pea's chubby arms squishing out of her onsie; Gizmo's half-smile attempting to mask his unencumbered joy; the cleanest, coldest air piercing my nose, bringing tears to my eyes; the rare sight of six feet of scum-free snow...
...Surely this moment isn't meant just for me?  Something amazing and wonderful like this isn't meant for just right now in this moment when I'm the only one to enjoy it, right?  This moment is so much more than I am; it is so much more than just one person.  I must record it and remember it and broadcast it, because surely...surely, I'm not worthy enough to simply sit here and take it in.  Surely this moment is not just about me and my Father loving one another beginning with Him.

How can I just sit here?  Breathe?  Relax?  Take in all this glory?  No.  No way.  This kind of goodness is not for me.  I either need to record it so I can repeat my thankfulness ad nauseam; maybe one day it will be enough.  Or I need to show this to everyone I know because...surely...all this love isn't meant for me.

But guess what.  It is.  It is for me, and for you, and for all of us.

I have been made worthy at great cost.  AT GREAT COST I now have the fullest freedom to sit here and inhale this purest of air.  My eyes take in the splendor of Van Gogh's warm, wild France battling my pristine New England; my mind quivers with Frost and Rosetti in a frozen, dry landscape; my ears reverberate Copeland's jaunt and Chopin's lament; my body absorbs the weight of the purest love ever known to woman, wife, and mother.

I and my team have been healing from some pretty horrible stuff this year, which means a lot of exhaling.  Think, hurt, talk, vomit, exhale.  Repeat.  I have been so fortunate to have excellent exhalers in my corner.  All of the crap comes and comes and comes and then....we breathe out.  We've talked it out; I've cried it out, thrown it all up into the toilet.  And then we breathe it out again and again.
My gut has known all along the breathing out was leading to something else, but my mind couldn't imagine what.  What could possibly come next?

I think maybe it's time to start inhaling...really, truly, freely for the first time simply because I am loved and I love being loved.

His love is intoxicating.

It's time to breathe it all in.

love via chubby legs, braided rugs, and white daylight

Hidden Joy

I just finished vacuuming my entire house for the second day in a row.  There is something so very wrong with that.  Actually, B.daddy did it yesterday, because he is amazing.  Also, it may have had something to do with the smoke coming out of my ears every time I stated another chore I HAD TO DO ALL BY MYSELF BECAUSE NO ONE AROUND HERE DOES ANYTHING AT ALL AND I ALWAYS HAVE TO DO IT ALL!
ALL.    BY.     MYSELF!!!
*breathe...1...2...3...breathe...1...2...3....*
Of course I didn't say any of that out loud--there's no way I would get away with that.  Nor did I think those things literally in my mind.  But B.daddy could see the frigid glare that precedes the hours-long "discussion" we sometimes have about "helping out around the house."  On these glorious occasions, I sit stone cold, not saying a thing, while that little rant is on auto-repeat in my brain.  So I say nothing--which he loves--until the Devil Woman finally gets tired and lets me think for myself.  Then I'm perfectly agreeable and apologetic and compassionate.  Right, babe?

So he vacuumed yesterday.

My husband rarely thinks it is funny or called for when I cuss.  I almost always think it is both.   (Thankfully I have a friend who loves it when I cuss, so if I need to I just text her.)  However, when we were laying in bed last night and I acknowledged that I'd been super cranky and bitchy all day he couldn't agree fast enough.  He even repeated it out loud in his own voice, which I think helped him in his emotional processing of the day.  I was glad I could help him in that way.
But I digress.  This little morsel of literary gold is, amazingly enough, not about how bitchy I can be.  (On very, very, very rare occasions.)
The reason for the vacuuming was blue spruce needles.  Several years ago, after we had recently bought an artificial Christmas tree "to save money and time", I convinced my Money Maker that we should again start spending $50+ and an entire day, every year to get a natural--otherwise known as A REAL--Christmas tree.  Naturally, (see what I did there) this means we have slippery, two inch needles all over and in random parts of our house from late November to early September.  October is a glorious month.  During that month we have wet, dead leaves from the entire neighborhood tracked in my already suffering entryway and kitchen.  But I digress.  Again.
Since Sweet Pea loves to put everything in her mouth these days I try to keep the floors reasonably clean.  That's a lot for me to handle.  But I try.  So Day Two of Vacuuming was a must.

I tell ya' something about these evergreen needles, though.  I like them.  Yeah, it makes it look like I haven't vacuumed since December, but there's a whole lot more in my house to suggest that!  When I see them I don't think about housekeeping or my failures as such.  I remember our last Christmas.  I remember the tree, the ornaments, (the ones we broke this time), the gifts we got the kids, (the ones they only played with for a day), the pj's we were all wearing, (which I'm still wearing at this moment), the desperate dash to make the coffee before we start opening presents.  I remember the dark, tired evenings B.daddy and I tried with all our might to do our Advent reading, the kids' whoops and laughter when we actually did, because they could make another ornament for the Jesse Tree.  Most of all, because this is Me, I remember the smell of the tree.  I savored walking by the "Big Daddy" tree in the living room, the *Charlie Brown* Jesse tree in the prayer nook and smelling the fresh, clean green so many times throughout those exhausting days.  Smells are quite possibly the most important thing in my entire sensory universe.  The only reason I ever learned to bake was because I wanted the smell of freshly baked bread to warm my home on a regular basis.  The only reason I ever do laundry is because I love the smell of fabric softener on clean cotton.  So smelling an honest to goodness Christmas tree in my house fulfills every indescribable hope I've ever had about creating warm, whole traditions that will hopefully carry our children through this cold, broken world.
These needles remind me from January to September that we are trying.  Our muscles burn and our hearts ache, but we are trying.  We are doing the work.  We are making the sacrifices.  We are already reaping rewards.
I believe every generation's plea and pledge is this: That our children will know more joy and hope and freedom than we ever did.  Yes, we dealt with a lot of crap growing up.  But our parents dealt with it, too.  And their parents did as well.  The thing is, if we are present....if we are trying, each generation improves upon the last.  Despite the mistakes they and we have all made, we have all tried, we are all trying.  And we keep trying.  If we all just keep trying, our children--this precious, pudgy, brand new generation will know more.
They will know more Love.
Yes.  There is no way they will not know hurt, pain, despair, sorrow, betrayal.  But they can also know Love.  Which puts all that pain in it's proper place.
Love does not have an arrival point.  It does not have an ending.  There is no, "Okay, you're done being loved.  See ya' next year."
We never stop trying.
Nor does it have a beginning.  This Love did not begin with me or my husband.  It did not begin with our parents or theirs.  Love comes from something so far beyond our wildest imagination, it can drive us crazy.  Or it can drive us sad.  Or lonely.  Or ravenous.  There is some element of So Much More in every Love experience we have.  The longing goes from behind to before where we cannot even see.  Anything but Love drives us so far in the opposite direction.
Love simply Is.  It Is more than us.
And in our skin and bones, Love does.
If I can open up my terrified heart to allow Love to Be in me....even though I feel shamed or selfish or lazy or bitchy or busy or distracted....if I can just breathe.
Just be still.
Let Love Be here.
Yes, with you.  The whole reason you can let Love be with someone like you is because Love is Love.  It is kind and compassionate and does not discriminate against the messed up.  Because Love is what it is, it wants to engulf you within itself so you can really, truly breathe for the first time.  Feel freedom for the first time over and over again.  Breathe.  Be still.

Now, pour that Love out.

That's what these pesky little needles remind me of each time one emerges from a crack in a floorboard or a crevasse in a threshold.  On a sweltering, July afternoon or a fearful, first day of school, I remember that we are trying.  My husband and I are so often confused and tired and worried.  But let's just be still for a minute.  Let's just breathe.  How about we let the Love that wants to help, come in and help.

Christmas morning, just the six of us.

Sharing Is Caring

Very excited about all the unwrapping.

Day after Christmas Shermee and Nana were here.

This girl enjoys life more completely than anyone I know.

And she makes sure we enjoy it too.

He was so happy to have a 5th grader's binder.  So cute!

Sweet Nana!  Love her!

And this is just Sweet Pea being her cute, messy self.  :)