I cleaned the house and it was clean, no toys on the floor or the table. I vacuumed all the crumbs and miscellaneous pieces of paper and cut toys that Winslow has trailed along the floor as the week has passed. Just the other night, I sat here at this same table feeling grateful for our mess that piled onto the table but the feeling has since passed and now I want everything to be neat and clutter-free. Why? Maybe because I have too many thoughts and if I am not surrounded by too many things then perhaps my mind can not be cluttered with too many thoughts. I can feel my blood vessels tighten as I see Winslow strewing her toys everywhere again and create little homes and beds out of stacks of playing cards and scraps of cloth for blankets. I think for a moment, would I trade a clean home made of silence and an average mess for what I have now which is a constant ever-evolving mess with ups and downs of emotions, one moment anger, the other immense pain from hitting herself on the cupboard door. I think yes, I would like to live in that place of silence. With the ability to be immersed in my mind and embark on whatever I wanted to do at the moment but I don't have that anymore. So, after that thought, I erased the longing out of my heart. Instead I longed for acceptance and peace with my circumstance. I heard once that peace isn't the feeling of anything absent but more so the presence of something. I want to know that something and rest in that place. I want my eyes to be open to the life that has been given to me. Appreciate and cherish the moments of now with my daughter. She isn't perfect in any way but she is perfect in her blemishes, mishaps, and growing pains. She isn't what I wanted in any way nor am I the Mother that I want to be on most days. I often idolize ideas of perfection and what could or would bring about the best circumstance. I get lost in these idols that keep me chasing after them, relentlessly pulling forward and covering up the mistakes I've made. Full of shame and guilt for feeling the wrong thing or making the wrong move. Where is the love in that ? Where is G-d in that ? Nowhere, really. I am abandoned in those moments. Blind in the wilderness. But with that, I return time and time again to His place. His home that He has made for me. I must look beyond my idols of idealized personas and ways of being. I must see past my carnally imperfect mishaps and humble myself in the awe of G-d and his wondrous Creation. Carry me, I ask of You. Bring me forth in the palm of Your hand so that I may continually receive the abundance that is constantly flowing all around me. This is only possible with You. Carry me and keep my eyes open and heart softened to the degrees of living momentously graceful. 

My baby girl fell asleep on her own tonight. I went to take a shower while she finished eating cereal for dinner and came out to her asleep in her own bed. No need for a rub on the back, a kiss goodnight, a hug, a book, piano lullabies or even blankets tucked in to sleep tight. She even got her own glass from the cupboard and poured herself some water. A rare moment I will cherish yet question. The question must cease to be all that keeps consuming me. I realized tonight while in the shower how many moments I have spent thinking about pimples on my face, or my physical appearance in general. How many moments I have spent staring at myself in the mirror, picking at these pimples until they bleed. Worrying incessantly. How many of those moments I'd like to trade to instead be present with someone or something beyond vanity. I better shape up, really. Get a good grip on what's good rather than be down in the dark, searching for the way out. I better be real good and hip to what's around me because I'll lose it all if I keep up this worrying. I have to let it go. This burden of shadows following me. I have to set them free with something that reaches beyond me. Far beyond my pimple picking and twisted thinking. Perhaps the possibilities could be something other than dreadful and loathing but when that has been all you've come to know, the climb out is steep and I slip. I can't slip anymore though. I decided. This life is too wondrous to slip and cry out in fear each time I reach a new height. I have to keep climbing, to the peak, the top of the mountain. There is more to be seen than false truths and abandoned feelings. There is life brimming with good, I just have to believe. 

Those that I love

Libraries

the homeless

the displaced 

the abandoned and forgotten

cold water in a glass with lemon that hits the back of my mouth

children's tiny voices asking questions and also, exclamations 

the high pitch sound of a cry that comes from deep within the chest because someone took your ball

the clutter of toys, books, and paper that builds effortlessly onto the table that is made for dining

everything that I have pushed away yet continues to remain despite all the changes that were made

the smell of brown paper lunch bags and how closely they relate to trees and golden grass growing in the Summer heat

And if G-d were in my mind, He'd tell me do it right or not at all

or He'd tell me to swing it this way or that or some other way flat- either way would be fine, He wouldn't mind at all

As long as I trusted in the goodness of it- all

how can I transcend this barrier that sometimes keeps me from feeling the breeze when it flows past my lover's smile to me

the same barrier that makes me question his love for me

forever, effortlessly

I ask daily

I sometimes become trapped in fear, holding onto past nightmares that were once a reality but now just a toiled memory 

my body holds these things, tightly- mostly in my hips and jaw 

I loosen from them each day a little more; a choice to surrender to the love He shows before me. 

A wondrous creation that I could never re-enact but one that I could only participate in and perhaps lend a hand in- a joint communion 

I loosen with each laugh, 

each act of service- outside of me 

I cannot forget these things that have shaped me, like how a river shapes it's stones that rest beside and beneath 

regardless, the water keeps -rushing- pulling through the forest rapidly with momentous efficacy

while the Earth's stones take on their shape, usually in the form of a perfect seat to cool off in 

All these things, they are all still with me and they will always be; the toiled memories

just as the water will keep rushing while the rocks are smoothed to sand 

despite these materials that lay before me and in me, I must remember that there is something more hiding beneath 

There is more to the stone, just as there is more to me than my flesh and bone 

A force that keeps my heart beating and my eyes blinking, effortlessly 

involuntarily keeping me living beyond what I have seen and more importantly beyond what I have been thinking. 
I am grateful for Him

the King of Creation 

or however you'd like to address that which is unknown yet already known beyond understanding