delight and the looking glass

I've been quite the shepherd lately, a herder (possibly a hoarder) of unharnessed delight.

To name a few, little things, as they always are:

This book I'm reading.
This festival last weekend, full of pickers, fiddlers, foot stompers, dancers and musicians--memories that will serve as my musical muse for months to come...
This new to me music that had the entire field of festivarians up on their feet dancing.





And lastly, the hummingbirds visiting our new feeder at the kitchen window. Most birds bring me joy, but these flutterers bring utter awe to everyone in my family.

Good things happen all the time, but delight happens when the child inside stirs and takes over thought and limb--like an ignition switch to heaven on earth. I am addicted to this kind of delight. When this child breathes fresh air, it is the closest I ever get to the sweetness that is an unfettered soul.

Soul talk, you know I love to. Recently I discovered that there is a name for my idealistic musings. A romantic. I do believe the darkest things about this human life, this human world, can be tempered, remedied and reconciled by the goodness of humanity, despite our flawed natures and self-destructive ways. I do believe that all of us have a way out of the complex maze that is our mind. Darkness is hinged to light no matter how often despair takes hold. Two sisters of the same seed. Delight, joy, beauty, creativity, imagination, the appreciation and pursuit of these things provide the nectar of life, the things that we cannot live without. No matter what we do with our lives, is it not the nectar we always hunt for, tangible or imagined? I relish in experiencing feelings and emotions, seek to understand them, look to nature for some explanation, and hunger for intuitive musings, maybe even as signs from a distant beyond. Idealistic--yes, blinded--maybe, naive---sometimes, with a child's heart and an open mind, certainly, I try. I try to enjoy what I have, with all that I am, now, here, and today. My greatest fear is to be that grumpy old woman full of spite, wondering how time has whittled me down to bare nubs cloaked in worn, leathery skin. I have no desire to live a long life without the joy to fill it's marrow. And may that joy be revealed to me in all ways, no matter when the night falls.

I must have spent half my day yesterday watching the hummingbirds, waiting for them, listening for that trill.  At one point there were five of them swooping--dancing and floating, as I watched them delightfully from behind the glass. I was frozen for minutes at a time as they hovered, perched, then hovered again, even watching me, too, through the same looking glass.



Delightful weekend to you all, dancers, hoverers, idealists, and romantics or not!!
xoxo

Tick, tick, tick...

Time passes and I watch it go. Funny how I don't ever see it coming, only leaving. It moves fast and slow without prejudice, and I ponder the winding, paradoxical nature of it all. Time's inescapable vine propels us forward effortlessly, while I dawdle with little wishes to pause, and sometimes, rewind.

Lately, I have been list-making to organize my time and prioritize what's in my mind. Busy hasn't stopped since we moved, but Time has trained me well to be more efficient , effective, and accountable by making lists. And let's just face it, if I don't write it down I don't remember it.

But oh the irony!!! The lists never, ever end. It's a dangerous place to reside inside lists as they have been known to steal my time quicker than the belief that I have saved any by making them. It's a simple fact, the faster I move, or the more I fill my lists, or the more I cram into a day, the quicker the day flashes, leaving me to wonder where my time has gone. Sometimes I feel the satisfaction of my efficiency, and other times I wonder if I am afflicted with an addiction to busy-ness. And at the end of the day, with a fresh list of horizontal slashes dressed in perceived success, I see a skeletal recording of the hours of my day, like a bony rib cage worn by the passage of time. Yikes. *Sigh*

Unless.

I blast Mumford out loud and dance in the kitchen, I hike amidst my long-limbed brothers (sharing their first fists of green lately ;), I take snapshots of my boy, now with braces, and my girl with her bangs finally growing long. I paint my workshop, and now make its curtains. I drive my husband to the bus station for a meeting in Denver, and I sit to write down on my list that I need to get the snow tires off the van. Time has never been something to fear, not as long as I remember to fill it with heart. The ticking that goes by does not discriminate between snow tires and a smoothie, between laughter and stress, or accomplishment and procrastination. We are our own judge and jury to how we spend our time. Lists or not, I decide where joy plays a part. I decide when to dance or when to drive. So it's only with the trick of the mind and the flick of my wrist how I perceive whether my day is long or short. That is just how foolish we humans can be. Just ask the trees, they know what I mean :).

Mucho love...

xoxo

Subdued revelations

You don't need to give up
to stop struggling.
Give in to quiet,
slow down
and hush the wheel
of thought.

If the answers are
meant to come,
they will,
but not before
remembering that
what you are now
is exactly what
you need to be,
now.

I feel different, much different from the fragile and dissatisfied girl that has recently taken up residence in my skin. How easily consumed I become. Yet I cannot blame myself for getting lost in the dreaming, hoping, and wanting. Passion has a way of coercing and possessing our thoughts that way. We are gifted with the ability to drift into the current of creativity and completely immerse ourselves in the clouds of thought, for they are lofty and inspiring. Yet to be gone too long, we deny ourselves the pleasure of enjoying the scents of our surroundings, and we forget how hard we have worked to become exactly who we are now. The insatiable abyss of "what if" and tomorrow can wait.

Joy. Today. Now.



xoxo

Keeping it real

It's true, joy pockets has been laid to rest. Mon has a new link-up at ink + chai that has a more balanced approach with recognizing the lows and well as the highs of our past week.

On many levels this does makes sense to me. Not that focusing on the positive isn't a good thing, but recognizing the lows keeps us human, and is often the springboard for appreciating the highs :). My only problem with this is my perfectionism defect. Perfectionists can take the lows pretty hard, or at least will try to fix them until exhaustion settles in. I know I have a high magnification when it comes to seeing flaws, problems, lows, which is why I think joy pockets were such a great exercise for me. I don't want to confuse negativity with perfectionism, they are two very different things. In fact, most perfectionists I know are extremely optimistic and can see the good in everything. But I think this is where the disconnect happens for the perfectionist in me. I believe so passionately that I can fix things, I can change them, make them better, turn everything into a good thing, that I confuse positivity with the desire to control everything.

I have no problem recognizing and acknowledging the lows, but can I embrace them? Can I let them live and breathe without needing to fix them or offer a silver lining?  I know I've done by best to be honest in these pages. I think I have shared with you many of my down times, stressed times, confused times, my lows...But if I shared all of it, I fear you may think me neurotic and obsessed. I am, neurotic and obsessed :). I am an optimistic, neurotic, and obsessed forever-recovering perfectionist, so here goes :).

Lows
stressed out about little details surrounding the move
feeling cramped
too much chocolate resulting in erupting pimples
feeling like a failure *more on this later*
feeling lonesome
feeling vulnerable
feeling "extra" in all the wrong places
missing my out-of-town hubs

Highs
hikes with my kids
my favorite pooch Parker being adopted :)
finding a new favorite at the shelter, a Boxer named Jamie
being tackled, hugged and kissed by my babes
care package from my mama
learning that the kids love thrifting too!
lego spinning top wars with the boy
getting the keys to our house today!!!
reading the beautiful maybe by Mel

Wishing you a weekend full of "let it be"-ness :)

xoxo

Oh deer!! And the "why"

Okay okay, this Florida girl is enamored. Other than when we stayed in Virginia for a time, having deer in the backyard is certainly a new event for us. But I must ask the seasoned deer watchers, is it normal for deer to lounge in the backyard, among houses and neighboring children on their swingsets, all... day... long?  I found it so strange!!

We were actually able to go outside and just stand within 30 feet of them. They seemed perfectly comfortable--not necessarily tame, just comfortable. This can't be a good thing can it? They did finally leave around dusk, and now I find myself looking out every morning for our wandering neighbors to visit again :).

The Why
Lately, no--actually since we put the house on the market over a year ago, and now since we've arrived in Boulder, the "why" of moving has become a regular question, from friends, family, and new people we have met here. Why did we leave Florida, why did we choose Colorado (originally Virginia), why this big transition and risk, especially when our entire family and all that my children have known is still in FL? I did find two posts about this dated in November 2010 and January 2011, shortly after I started the blog, when my readership was 2.

"The grass is greener where you water it..."

"If we don't change we don't grow, if we don't grow, we are not really living~ Gail Sheehy"

Something happens when two people with the same dreams get together. I will never forget that date in the tiny sushi restaurant.  F. and I sat face to face interrogating each other on our hopes and ideas for the future. We both were moved by nature---specifically mountains, forests, hiking, and an outdoor lifestyle. We both had experiences growing up that anchored our spirituality in these places. Our feelings were indescribable, yet completely identifiable...we were on common ground. Coming from different parts of the world, and having moved frequently as children, we both knew that Florida was not the end place for us.

After that the rest seemed to flow naturally--love, marriage, children, then a nice big house with a pool. We had everything we wanted, except that one big dream that we shared together in that sushi restaurant. We almost let it go. We reasoned that we had a wonderful life, why change anything? Yes, maybe we felt that something was missing, that somewhere we weren't completely satisfied. But wasn't what we had enough to pacify us, to say, it's okay, life IS good just the way it is?

When the economy tanked, that was when the idea that we would really stay in Florida hit me. It was a tough blow. I realized that I had hung onto that dream, even if only by a thread, knowing that I really felt that I--that WE--belonged elsewhere. That was four years ago. I wish I could say that there was some spectacular event that made us kick caution and comfort to the curb, when we purposefully stepped off the beaten path and onto the one less traveled. Reflecting on it now, I will say this:

Unschooling, peaceful parenting, and transforming our thinking from one of robotic existence to one of following our joy changed our lives completely.

We had a major shift within our understanding, that the only thing that stands in the way of positive change is our own belief, that for whatever reason, we just can't do it. The economy, a mortgage, a job, family, money, there will always be really good reasons not to follow our dreams. We finally came to understand that our reasons to actually follow our hearts, were better. Even if we fail, even if/when we make mistakes, lose, cry, falter, at least we know we tried. We gave it a shot. We had to try, following our joy left us with no other option. Isn't this what it's all about?

I fear I have rambled on a bit, but now you know. We are in a place that we have always dreamed about, a place that we can walk out the front door and mountains (though they call them hills here :) are there to greet us every morning. Here is a place that we can commune with nature, and be fulfilled spiritually. We are in a place where our children can understand the importance of their environment, their planet, their beginnings, and perhaps begin to grasp what spirituality really is.

I am so happy to be able to share this with you, maybe even inspire you in some way, to remember some lost dream that perhaps still hangs by a thread. Anything is possible. Anything.

xoxo

ps. I meant to join in Cory's Thrifty Thursday today, but obviously got sidetracked. Please go and visit her link up for thrifting prowess-ness!