farm flowers

what a sweet way to end the day

feeding the fuel of fear

I was sitting in the passenger seat watching the sand dunes rise and fall then rise again.  Out of the corner of one eye I was watching Colby making sure he was at least watching some of the road as he stared up towards the red cliffs.  Out of the other I was watching something that wasn't there.  Tiny bubbles of memories floating above the van barely formed before vanishing into dry desert air: my sister in the backseat of the station wagon holding a soda & laughing, my sister asleep against the window angry and pouting that I had touched her pillow...there are sounds and smells, a whole childhood spent driving this stretch of highway heading for the cool paradise of Lake Powell. 

At some point it slowly settled in, this may not be normal to linger with the dead like this. 

The van clips a stone in the road it crashes like thunder flashing orange through my mind and I flinch.  In a blink of an eye I can see a hundred other moments falling.  I open my eyes.  And it is all gone, sort of.  We all have these memories and moments that haunt us, perhaps they are failures we forgot to grow from, or Loves lost, or the dark side of man looming over head.  Mine suddenly remind me of a door in a giant flat brick wall flying open in the wind.  Banging against the fame, papers fly out scattering and the door bangs shut as if nothing has happened.

Fact: It takes more energy to ignore than it does to focus. 

More thoughts settle.  I didn’t realize the battle I fight within my mind to keep this door shut was actually this constant.  I thought it was here or there. 

But it’s not. 

It is here and there, and it is all the time.

 

Everyday I stand with my back to the door trying to hold it shut and pretend I'm not.  What if I decide today is the day I stop.  What if today I slide down the wall out of the way and I let her go?  What will happen? 

It is curious, I don't even have the slightest idea if walking from my post will be losing or winning this fight? What I do know is I want yesterday standing in the kitchen of the Boy trying to tell him something important (something really important!) and not being able to get the words out to be the last time that happens to me- EVER.  If I start down that road the one marked 'I don't really talk about this a lot but...' I want to be able to follow it until I have said what needs to be said.

It is strange, when I think about it I see myself step aside and open the door peeking inside.  What I see is my garden, then the waving yellow grasses of the back field, and beyond that the endless desert.  I walk through to the other side. The whole world is silent over there, even the wind.  And the pages of paper are blank. 

Be careful what you wish for the door may swing both ways.  

Perhaps I should have decided which side of the wall I wanted to defend before I walked through it.   

Every day you either see a scar or courage. 

Where you dwell will define your struggle.  ~Dodinsky~

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.  ~Ambrose Redmoon~

hey, check out the other blog

Visit my home school blog to see our 4-day road

& camping trip through extreme Southern Utah.

It is 4 post long!!! Starting with day 1 Click HERE.

Enjoy!

little steam pot

I had something a little alarming happen the other day with Beach.  We were driving.  That's when kids talk.  Beach told me she thought she was mean because when she was playing with 'her friends' (referring to a handful of neighborhood kids) she sometimes wanted to scream "I hate you!".

And you might think 'oh, that is a mean kid', but even the idea of her being a  Hater is not the real issue here.  What is underneath it is the issue.  I explained to her thinking and doing are 2 totally different things.  It is normal to get sick of someone, even of someones you like.  Normal to be grumpy from time to time.  I told her she wasn't mean.  I suggested we spend more time with people who didn't make her feel that way and we changed subjects.

What troubles me are feelings below the mean thoughts.  The feeling she needs to conform to make others happy and how it boils down deep in her heart.  She's a little pressure cooker.  My best friend Tara and I have discussed it.  My best friend BJ and I have discussed it.  Both of those friends have kids (each has a boy & a girl) who Beach is her real-self around.  I had the chance to talk to one of her gym coaches about it too and got back a pretty funny story about Beach sharing a being nice story: "I had a friend over and then 2 other friends came over so I sent the one friend home to make 2 people happy instead of just 1. I didn't want to play with that one friend anyway."   Her coach feels Beach, who is wildly popular in the gym, sort of rock star status there, has developed socially over the last year and a half.  She used to glare when kids talked to her in line (oddly enough even w/ serious glare she has always been well liked) and now, every so often the coach has to cover a smile when she says, "Beach, stop talking."

I will admit sometimes she is a mean-ish, kind of blunt and hardheaded but without evil intent.  More I am a crazy scientist socially limping rude or in a smaller mouthfull: descended from New Hampshire stock.

And the longer way around this is we had a bump in the road over here that nearly threw a few of us under the bus.  There was adult thinking about life and love.  There was a moment where I nearly forgot whose behavior I can control: mine, just mine.  So just me with my behavior decided to not give shit for a few and guess what? It was magnificent.  I felt as if the giant hand of obligation & expectations (I don't know why but I picture it wearing a gardening glove, strange) had been lifted from my back.  I wasn't afraid to make decisions, to move things, to fix things, to be me.....and she is my child.  She molds the best she can to make others happy.  It's not a complete masquerade more like auto-correct adjusting the hues of your already existing personality to fit the light around you.  It is actually a skill used by those who seek to serve and care-take.  It is also very exhausting and lonely (does anyone really like me?).  I've talked to her about it but I know that won't change it.  The complex question I am asking is: do I attempt to remove or limit her exposure to situations where she feels most compelled to morph or is that just life and the real issue is not her conformity (in the neg sense not the +) but the pressure underneath it? 

I know for myself, the pressure builds until it breaks something.  I take a few days mumbling and cleaning and working in the wood pile and then (bruised & bleeding) I return to life promising not to let it build again but it always does.  You know suddenly this is all sounding very normal to me...and it is reminding me why I run and maybe now I understand why she does gymnastics.       

blue

We contributed to Saturday's Artist :)

a bit of spring on the farm

She did this and that.

And she did this...

Bad (cute) dog, no digging.

Then she did more of this.

I spent 5.5 hours working with this crew yesterday!

I prepared all the garden beds, moved 2 wood piles without breaking anything, moved a few piles of stone, picked up & raked the front AND the whole back yard, hung the laundry, cleaned the back sidewalk, made pizza, and got the kid to gym on time. 

Looking pretty today Herk. 

 She was flirting with a colorful bath towel on the drying rack.

What a fantastic day!!!

The very end.

invading greens

On the farm a crop of lettuce is up and happy.  

Unfortunately so is a crop of thistles quickly invading the land.

Colby followed by little Beach headed out to start the long war.

There will be many battles.

Lots of blood shed.

A few great egos will fall.



nice jump!



Many graves will be dug.

It's war.

Colby defending the northern boarder.

...there was cake!

A night out at friends' with friends :) for St. Patrick's day.

 

 There were adults here, somewhere, drinking, chatting, eating, & laughing.

 See there's an adult behind that child (below).

 That's not an adult that is a green monster :)

 That's a train who derailed into chocolate topping...it happens.

 And of course

...there was cuddling & cake :)

family game night gone to the dogs

No amount of logic or sweet talk can convince Beach rolling the dice is all about luck. 

She is baffled by the idea there are some things out there that skill plays no part in.

Beach is a very good sport most of the time, and there was no crying but she wasn't her usually happy (&winning) self.  Oh, this is why we don't play Yahtzee very often.

Playing Yahtzee with Beach involves more voodoo & hi-jinx than actual dice rolling. 

~yes Scout, my thoughts exactly: hide all games involving simple luck~