A Still Life

My morning walk looked like this, and I tried my darndest to soak up every drop of blue. Only ten days left of these October skies. Maybe November will be kind and squeeze out just a few more for us!

Whether the topic is baking bread at home or giving a season of life to reflect on its meaning, I have heard multiple folks say, “Who has time for that?” I know I stand in a position of luxury as one who has chosen to work less. But I have yet to meet a single person who does not have time for learning new things about the world or about self. Sometimes we have to notice a moment to welcome its lesson, and I found such a moment this morning on my way to the pediatrician’s office. An up-all-night toddler cold meant changed Saturday plans and a quiet 20-minute drive. Without the older child, I was actually able to listen to Morning Edition and was delighted by the lovefest between Scott Simon and The Judds. Truly, it was both peculiar and hilarious.

But perhaps the best part came from Naomi Judd talking about life in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky and the creativity that is born from solitude.

“Solitude is creativity’s best friend, and solitude is refreshment for our souls,” Naomi Judd says. “I don’t think we spend enough time in reflection and introspection. We don’t know who we are as individuals in this culture anymore.”

What do we spend our time doing? Why are we so busy? We work for what end? We shop for what end? We speed and weave and swear through traffic for what end? I think our busyness is intimately connected with detachment from self and is a reflection of discontent. Our busyness is also often a manifestation of anxiety, and that truth always reminds me of the brilliant word from Richard to Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love:

“Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well–that would be the end of the universe.  But try dropping it….Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation.  Watch what happens.  The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight, after all.  The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood.  Life continues to go on.”

I’m thankful for the solitude I have discovered in the past 4.5 years of motherhood. I am thankful for the Sabbath ways it has taught me and continues to teach me. I am thankful for a season of ceased participation, though often it feels against my will. As I daily embrace balance in my life, I pray I’ll always acknowledge the role of solitude and reflection in that balance.

Where do you find refreshment for your soul?

Treats found when uploading photos. What The Boy sees when he wanders around.

We receive our CSA share each Wednesday afternoon (if I remember, that is) from our new farmer friends at Power of Love. The variety of colors in the most recent share was stunning. I sat and shucked, peeled, and prepared the veggies for upcoming meals. I was reminded of childhood afternoons on the back porch with my mother, grandmother, and aunt who spoke of “putting up” peas and beans. It’s amazing how those motions and smells take me to the paper bag sitting between us to collect the discarded hulls.

Even with backyard gardens, the bulk of what we shelled came from the farmer’s market. Many of us today are enjoying an extra day of weekend for Labor Day today. I’m all for rest and firmly believe we fill our lives to overflowing with busyness. But I’m thinking of my brother this morning who, with a crew of friends, rose early this morning to a long day of hard work that heals the earth and feeds Virginia families. Rest and labor should inform each other. I am thankful for the labor of caring farmers who feed me and feed my family, who consider the value of soil, who know their work is sacred. May my work matter just as much.

I’m reflecting today in addition to enjoying this day with My Love and our Two. In seeking inspiration, I thought “Who gets the interconnectedness of labor, rest, and things that matter better than Wendell Berry?” Read here his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

We lost a day last week and forgot about Facebook Free Friday, so Saturday became our offline day. As a friend pointed out, does it really count as being “Facebook Free” if you then write about what you did on FB? In my mind, it counts. FFF is about the essence of the thing and not the thing itself. That is to say, I want to observe a day a week that emphasizes the key moments of a day and what it looks like to move with intention. I am inspired by folks like this mom who planned a stunning theme night for her family of seven and this friend who takes time each week to note gratitude and yet another friend who has dedicated her whole year to noticing creative moments. FFF is but one effort toward noticing the life unfolding right in front of my eyes.

So our FFF on a Saturday was going to be spent on a surprise trip to D.C. to visit the National Zoo. However, we learned that people for whom we have no respect and little patience were holding their “Restoring Megalomania” rally (thanks, Rainn Wilson) and mucking up traffic all over the place. We changed our surprise to the strange, little zoo just South of town, and the kids could not have cared less about big or little, road trip or local. The Boy was amazingly pleased and put on his rhino tshirt. The Girl, 19-months-old, had no idea where we were going but figured it out once she saw her first flamingo. What a day! I didn’t document it all in photos, and that’s okay. We were lucky to end our perfect day at Sonic, complete with roller skates, for a cherry limeade and some tater tots. Family days are the best days!

The Boy scouted out this tiger and raced to claim it for his ride.

The Girl could have spent half an hour watching birds in the aviary.

The Giraffe feeding deck is the {best} part of this little zoo.

The Boy has stunning eyelashes. Women, thanks to Claire Danes, will squirt all kinds of weird medicine on their skin in hopes of growing eyelashes like these. Today we made a trip to our local library and came home with Waldo. This was The Boy’s introduction to the traveling man, and he took to the search instantly. I watched his eyes to guess how close he was to finding Waldo. When I said, “You have the most gorgeous eyes,” The Boy replied, “I know. They help me look DEEPLY to find Waldo.” From then on he would squeal, “I found him with my eyelashes!”

I’m not a smart phone person and don’t have batteries for my digital camera. If I had either, I’d snap this moment of The Girl wearing her pink bathrobe, hood on, over her clothes. She is so still as she feels the fabric around her face and doesn’t want it to move. She has climbed onto the couch, still shrouded in pink terricloth, to catch the cat’s tail. Little, whispy curls sneak out from the edge of her hood. It’s almost time to claim The Boy from his first day of camp, so I’m soaking in the last of this quiet morning with The Girl. Still mostly wordless, our time is intuitive…and dangerous. She’s pulled a floor lamp over on herself. Again. Oh, this life of mine.

Recently, as I walked through my home, I was struck by abundance everywhere. Just one week from summer’s official beginning, we are already delighting in all things fresh and bright and lovely. A few stills from my noticing:

Summer’s first cobbler.

Squash to be fried, green beans to be devoured, onions, potatoes, and more.

In progress: fresh hummos and a thai noodle salad.

My favorite window view.

After creating a Like List recently, I decided to track down Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book through my local library. Success! I picked it up from the hold shelf today. It is terribly exciting to thumb through the pages that a woman kept a thousand years ago. Already, though Japanese, living in the Heian culture and a lady of the court, she is like me. I am like her. Emily Saliers wrote of first reading Virginia Woolf’s diary:

they published your diary
and that’s how i got to know you
the key to the room of your own and a mind without end
and here’s a young girl
on a kind of a telephone line through time
and the voice at the other end comes like a long lost friend

Here I am, Max and Ruby playing for the Boy in the background while the Girl sleeps, and sensing some connection to this long lost friend. I simply must share the book with you, and I’ll start with this lovely list from the beginning:

29. Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster
Sparrows feeding their young. To pass a place where babies are playing. To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt. To notice that one’s elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy. To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one’s gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival. To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes; even if not a soul sees one, these preparations still produce an inner pleasure.

It is night and one is expecting a visitor. Suddenly one is startled by the sound of rain-drops, which the wind blows against the shutters.

I love her. I love her lists. I keep these lists, too, and am determined to move them from my brain to paper. I will surely share more as I make my way through this ancient work.