A Still Life

The Boy just dragged me, practically against my will, into a happy moment. The Girl has had a monster cold for a few days, so I’m really day-dreaming about a little nap. But the one who rarely rests reminded me that we have all the ingredients for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread and DON’T WE NEED TO MAKE THAT RIGHT NOW?! No naps just yet, but a sweet few moments of measuring and stirring brought us into a waiting place together as we smell the bread working its magic in the oven. Want to join us through your kitchen? Here’s what you’ll need to know:

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

3 C white sugar
15 oz. can pumpkin puree
1 C veg oil
2/3 C water
4 eggs
3.5 C all purpose flour
1 T cinnamon
1 T nutmeg
2 t soda
1.5 t salt
1.5 C mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350; grease and flour two 9×5 bread pans.
2. In a large bowl: mix sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, eggs. Once smooth, add flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda; fold in chips. Fill pans 1/2-3/4 full.
3. Bake 1 hour/till knife is clean.

Unable to attend a party in another state, we’ve been invited to toast a friend at 8 tonight for his birthday. I plan to warm a slice of this bread and toast with a glass of Tempranillo. Another perfect moment for an Autumn evening.

Week two of school is already much calmer than week one, and I’m ready to start creating my own schedule now that The Boy is settling into his. I know I want to spend the time well, and that means:

1) I don’t want to spend these mornings lugging The Girl along for countless errands and trips that bore and ignore her.
2) I want to make time to move daily and plan to spend 3 mornings a week walking outside. Beginning this week, it’s time for soaking up those blue Autumn skies before the long Winter comes.

Today we walked at the track near my house adjacent to the seminary I attended. It was a glorious morning, and The Girl enjoyed a full three laps before she got fidgety. It’s not an asphalt track-and-field kind of place. Instead, it’s a lovely gravel track beneath huge trees. A couple of rather fit folks were jogging, but it was mostly walkers and included an amusing group of older men (two with canes) who laughed and talked loudly the entire time. The best part is the labyrinth at the center of the track. I first walked that labyrinth when I was expecting The Boy, and today I noticed one man drift off of the track and into the labyrinth for a quiet moment. Fortunately, The Girl humored me and played in the gravel while I used the labyrinth for my cool-down walk. What better way to mark a new routine, new habit, new way of moving than to travel to the Center and bless these intentions for wholeness.

After a squandered Thursday afternoon with far too much online time, I needed a day to purge and renew my love for days filled with moments and time spent with intention and care. With much help from The Boy and the Girl, we celebrated our first Facebook Free Friday! It’s really not just about FB, of course, but that’s the worst of the online vacuums for me…and the FFF is nice, too.

My friend Bill reminded me of this quote he’s shared before (via FB!) from “The Sabbath World” by Judith Shulevtiz:

People began to learn, first from the telegraph, then from the radio, then newsreels, then television, and the Internet, that what was happening now, all over the world, mattered more than what was happening here.

I documented our day to mark some of the moments here and now. We didn’t hit every item on the to-do list and added plenty more that were spontaneous and fantastic. It was a good day.

A snack of fresh peaches from the week’s CSA share. Matching bowls are a must.

Three lists: grocery update, house tasks, crafty hopes.

Grocery trip: check.

Finally dropped off the bag and box of clothes from the back of the car.

The Girl is always ready to dig.

A 5 minute coffee break for me!

A new pillowcase dress for The Girl with bow on the back where she can’t reach it!

New shorts for The Boy.

Oh. The Aftermath.

Much better.

A rare goldfish break (after we found half a bag in a cabinet).

The bread: check.

The pie: check.

My favorite berry iced tea sweetened with honey.

Kitchen aftermath.

Ready for tomorrow.

Some might find the ebb and flow of this blog to be, er, maybe a little schizophrenic. One day it’s petroleum addiction, the next day it’s waterfall watching. One day it’s addressing the complex problems of poverty, the next day it’s finding Waldo. Rather than feeling scattered and frantic, this is the swing of balance for me. There’s a movement to my thoughts as well as to my days, and the two inform each other. Sometimes, the days remind me to slow down the thoughts. Sometimes, the thoughts remind to choose to make the days more substantive and intentional.

Today, I want to move with intention. How can I make the most of this Friday with my sweet Boy and my wild Girl? I like lists, as I’ve said before, and find good list making to unify thoughts and movements. Today I hope to:

Make this bread and this hummos. I was on a foccacia kick in the past couple of weeks but am ready to get back to the simple bread.

Make a version of this dress with part of a once-favorite, now-torn bed sheet.

Make this pie just because it makes me happy. I suspect I may be the only one in the house who wants to eat it.

There’s mopping and cleaning and tidying to be done because the house needs a little balance and order, too. There is a looming deadline and small writing project for the weekend ahead. There’s my Netflix date night with My Love. There’s a weekend to enjoy as a family of four. So much to do!

After a couple of weirdly cool and wet days, I walked out into the yard before dinner and began to notice changes. I could note the work to be done, the weeding that will save the garden, or the canine activity that needs, ahem, removal. But what I fully noticed is the moment before a moment.

The pink hydrangea, a gift in celebration of our daughter’s birth now 16 months ago, is flourishing. A mystery no longer, it is returning in pink. So, so lovely.

Our largest lavender bush threatens to take over the back steps and is barely, just barely, beginning to turn color. Already fragrant, I am delighted to watch the blooms and have great plans for bringing fresh cuts indoors.

It was my husband’s idea to plant broccoli. We certainly eat it all the time, but I haven’t been particularly excited about growing it in our tiny garden because it won’t produce the same volume as, say, a couple of crookneck squash plants. Oh, but noticing the first heads peeking out from deep within the leaves had me giggling in the yard. I see broccoli!

It is good for my soul to walk the yard and notice. It is good practice in all parts of my life to stop and see what is unfolding in this moment before me. Each moment will birth a new one, and I am thankful for the days when I remember the fragility of that truth. What are you noticing on these fine, Spring days?

A new writing gig is introducing a weekly practice of reflecting on a given passage of scripture and then noticing the essence of that passage somewhere in current news. I’ll be at this noticing work for the next three months and am pleased to stumble into a new habit. This week I have been reading and re-reading this article on slow living. I’ve written here and here and, most recently, here about my desire to live slowly. This site’s name itself is testament to my desire to move intentionally in my life: A Still Life.

When I speak of wanting to be still, I do not always mean physically unmoving, though there are times of centering prayer that do inspire such stillness both physically and spiritually. For me, still is much like the language of mindfulness. Many people in the Christian tradition are rediscovering mindfulness as a spiritual practice that focuses on awareness of God’s movement in ordinary places. One might describe it as a way of prayer in which one notes the myriad ways God’s Spirit is present in all moments. In her new book, Faith Postures: Cultivating Christian Mindfulness, Holly Sprink describes the daily practice as “the art of noticing”.  Sprink writes: “As we begin to learn the art of noticing, to observe our own lives and the ways God interacts with us, we are better able to recognize and respond to [God].”

Sometimes the obstacle between our desire to know more of God and actually knowing more of God is simply our distracted busyness; the same should be said of knowing ourselves or our family or our friends. We are too hurried to notice what is in our midst. This knowing and noticing of self and God and others is what I am after in my slower life. We each must find our own pace and our own ways of noticing, but it is the noticing that is essential.

Yesterday I spent three hours with my children at a lovely park in town to see farm animals, wild birds, bears, fish, and otters. My plate has been full as of late with freelance work and professional commitments. We three needed an unstructured day away from home, away from to-do lists, to enjoy each other. My daughter is now 15-months-old, and I realize I’ve already forgotten how s-l-o-w that pace is. Oh, she’s a runner and a climber and a super fast girl, but when she notices something, it all stops. The 4-year-old and I would stand and wait as she dropped to her knees before a waterfall. Mesmerized. Still. If she had words, I’m sure she would have shouted, “LOOK AT THAT WATERFALL! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? THAT IS AMAZING! IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL! AND JUST LISTEN TO THE SOUND!” Through her, we noticed the waterfall. She repeated this over and over as she noticed fish after fish after fish and stream after creek after stream. She noticed, then we noticed.

That’s what it means to be still. That’s what it means to be slow. Whether at work or at play, in an office or in a home, we can move into ways that still us. We can drop to our knees when the art of noticing overcomes us and say, “LOOK AT THAT! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? JUST LISTEN TO THE SOUND!”