into November

 I can't believe it is November. I haven't posted regularly here in what seems like years, but is perhaps just months.

I love this space and hold it so near in my heart.
Lets try to get together more often, shall we?

In the mean time, I will be leaving wee notes on the foot of your blogs more often (I hope). xoxo

we live loudly, and dream ever on

 We live loudly,
dancing with parachutes,
eyes pressed against the plumes of wind
from the billowing sails.

xoxo

places

Out on the freeway as the dust of night stretches her lonely palms across the Los Angeles horizon.

 The windows in my VW wagon are wide open and my left hand, placed slightly ajar out the window, moves up and down in the racing wind along the highway as my right hand steers.  As much as this urban expanse is at times a disruptive blight on a once pristine desert, my heart swells with love for this place I call home.  It is a jumbled chaotic mix of heat and humanity: of palm trees, racing cars and soaring aspirations.  I breath in the cooling night air, tasting the plumes of passing diesel engines and the song of sweaty broken hearts. 

 It makes no sense to love this place, no logic at all, but somehow, I do. 

hope you are well my friends. xo

International Day of the Midwife

International Day of the Midwife

Women everywhere around the world: remember how amazing you are. Labor is a woman's work.
xxoo

P.S. to make a long story short, this is how I have been getting out of the house and out of my head. Photographing births and working as a doula. It has been a long time coming.
 Love how life works and invites things in.
xxoo

finding things

as november came and went, i found that while the boys were at school i was spending too much time in bed. missing my mother. wondering what to do. ignoring laundry. watching dust bunnies come to life in the corners of the room. counting the minutes until i went to pick them up.

as much as i was blue, i knew i wasn't deeply depressed as i craved life too much. but i found myself lonely.  and that this loneliness was interfering with my ebb and flow of life; the how of what i wrote, and how i perceived things;  i found that my desire for a colorful life was slowly fading into forgotten and flimsy cardboard boxes. and i could see it all unfolding:

i was alice through the looking glass -an aging alice, and my wrinkles were the dancing lines of the jabberwocky; and it was there i saw that no matter what i did, one day my bones would be dust and the imprints i made on this earth would blow away with the wind.

so i knew that i needed more human interaction. the face to face kind, the laugh until your belly hurt kind, the talk too much and then sit next to each other in silence kind. but los angeles, with all of its millions of people, can be just as lonely as an empty desert plain, so it became clear to me, i would have to go out, push myself up off the couch, ease myself up out of bed and go find humanity.

(to be continued on monday, i have boys to wake up and get out of the house for school)

xxoo

may 1st, blogging flowers, blogging new life

things have been oh-so-busy, here.
here, as meaning my life outside of this blog.
but the flip side is that i miss being here, in this space, where i have built a small web of friends.
we have all shared so many stories together. we have shared dreams and broken hearts.

but here in this first day of may, i wanted to share a few photos from the trip i just got back from.

i was in nyc, helping my sister-in-law, as she and her husband brought their first baby into the world. (more on that later)

i leave this post, not as a goodbye, but as new "hello's"& the new breath of life.

so: hello may! hello stories! hello life and hello love. hello friends, i have missed you.

xxoo

late night, january 31st, 2014 | a letter to my oldest

who knew, stumbling upon this life of motherhood, i would love it so fiercely. nothing else has defined me as much and nothing ever will define me more. i am sure of this.

as i watch you gallop away into the arms of adolescence, i hold back little sobs of joy.
 you love. you are fiercely loyal.
 you love to argue your points.
you are slowly becoming a man.

 as much as i love this, i would, in an instance, turn back time to walk down the doors of your childhood once more. drink cup after cup after cup of cup of tea made in your pretend kitchen. bake with you, play dinosaur with you. hide out in forts with you and camp again under the stars knowing that all is right with the world.

in my dreams, i sit on the edge of a long pier. my feet are dangling off the end and as i stare off into the expanse of the mist and layers of fog lifting off the lake, i see that i have worlds of unknown lives to still live, but i don't ever want to take the plunge, i don't want to heave off the end of the pier into the water, i don't want to stop being a mother to your littleness, i don't want you to be big and me to be older. and as much as i don't want it, i know it will still happen, even if i had ten more children, it would never stop you from leaping into the unknown of adulthood, and me watching your ripples slowly slip away as you swim out of sight.

xxoo

4 | clickety-clack call of the week's end | 52 weekly stills

an odd assortment of weekly stills:
-a wall
-a young lad in a foul mood
-books & things next to my bed
-a window
-the youngest
-the middle
-leftover remains of strawberries
-a visit to La Brea Tar Pits

4 | 52

this one. wraps his eyes around my heart, even when he doesn't mean too.

as a matter of fact, all three of them do. xo

3 | 52

clickety-clack call of the week's end | weekly stills

weekly stills.
1. lego obsession
2. much needed coffee
3. craft supplies
4. long neglected christmas cactus
5. neglected homework
6. the oldest, mr. crabby-pants, staring off onto the lacrosse field
7. a fence
8. rainbow loom madness
9. the middle.
10. portraiture of the oldest.

 joining in with beetle shack & angels love red hair
p.s.... i cheated a wee bit. most of theses are from my 365/ 10 on 10 project here.  xxoo

2 | 52 portraits

the feisty baby, the youngest.

couldn't resist putting one in this week. this is from my 10 on 10 series over here. xo

writing january's name | life's work

what will be left behind when we go? some of us are very sure of what are imprint will be; others, we cling to small strands, tiny threaded marks, the beat of our child's heart. we are unsure what the legacy of our path will be, unsure that we will have something worthwhile to look back on.

in the busy rush of the day, i am a hurried soul, running from shower, to dressing, to shoes on, to kisses on boys' heads, to out the door.

other times, i slow down. and instead of running from my self, from my body, my dreams, i am present. there in that space of slowness, i find space. breathing space.

i am in the shower. the air fills with the spidery veins of heat and hope, clouding my eyes from seeing clearly, filling up my lungs with steam, so as i turn off the spray, and step out of the shower, i am surrounded by the heavy warm air, thick man-made fog.

i pause. my skin. bright red from the heat of a too hot shower, my bare body unabashed and briefly free. i lean in close to the mirror, and try to wipe away the clouded mirror pane; and there, ever so briefly, i see all the marks of a life lived so far, the wrinkles and worry lines that now frame my face. i wonder what have i become. but before i despair, i lean in closer,  holding up the mirror with my hands, my breath fogging the mirror once again, and in that fraction of a second before the damp closes back in again, i see a glimmer of the deep in my eyes.

there, i see into the beating of my heart resetting my soul anew. there i see that my life's work is not all unaccounted for and disregarded. there is the brief connection between who i am and what i do.

there i see that the mark i am making as i tread across the days is not all ugly and scarred, but hope-filled and beautiful.

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excuse the rambling. joining in with write alm for january prompts. 

one | 52 | clickety-clack call of the week's end

cleaning house. wondering why we have a giraffe on our dining room table. saying goodbye to the christmas decorations. watching, from afar, my youngest building legos (the b+w p.o.v. from the couch). spending time with my middle. capturing our sweet old Bella (dog) up on the couch (where she is not supposed to be, but loves to be). we have been utterly lazy. no news of fabulous journeys over winter break from this house. but as i have said/quoted before, "enough is as good as a feast."

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joining in with BeetleShack for weekly stills + Habit of Being for weekending  xxoo