Spring and Missing My Mom

First, my mom is very much alive. I don’t want anyone to be confused by the title. But I miss her. A lot.

Her birthday is coming up and she’s away. My parents retired a number of years ago and since then, a lot has changed. It’s been amazing, really. They worked a lot… like, a lot a lot. We four kids learned how to figure things out for ourselves because there wasn’t exactly a whole lot of parental supervision. I’m not making any judgements here. It was what it was, for better or worse. Now that the are retired, sometimes I feel like they are even busier! We live next door to each other (as you know if you read my “about” page) but their life is full of adventure these days, so we don’t have the day to day that we used to. I’m thankful for them now having the freedom to enjoy their days, but I miss them… a lot.

Maybe it’s the farmer in me, but I like regualrity. I like knowing that each thing follows the next and I tie those patterns to the seasons. It’s her birthday and with that comes the start of Spring. As a child, one thing I could count on every March was my mom spending late nights in the basement, starting her seeds. She grew all the “hard to find” things before they were popular, before the nurseries had them. Lady’s mantle? She saw it in Europe years before it became wildly popular here. Asters? Now the rage, she hunted down seeds every year. Carnations? Yup, she did those when I was like five. She has always been a curious, methodical person. Her planting space was tidy at all times, everything perfectly labeled, watered precisely. She recycled all her pots - washing even the plastic 4-packs from the nursery. She is who I aspire to be as gardener. When I give talks for garden clubs, I feel like I am basically just talking about my mom for like half the talk.

But now with her new freedom, she doesn’t start seeds in her basement anymore. I’ve taken over most of her annual garden beds. Selfishly, I’m sad about it. I wish she were her with me, telling me I over watered this, or was careless with the tiny seeds, or that my potting bench is a mess. All the things that got under my skin, I really miss them today.

I think I’ll go give her a call.

xo

When You're Actually Waiting for Sh$T

I’m waiting for a poop.  I know that’s probably not what you’d expect me to write, but it’s the truth.

My dog ate the nose of my son’s super-sweet, stuffed animal fox and it has/had this hard, plastic “nose” that I’ve been awaiting to materialize itself out the other end.  Adding to this predicament is that fact that we’ll be away from our local vet over the holidays.

Isn’t it always at the craziest, most hectic time of year that these things happen? 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this phenomena – where the shit all hits the fan at once (sorry, we’re going to have to go with the pun because you need to laugh at a time like this).  Every year, I promise THIS will be the year that I slow down, live more intentionally and all of that…  And the truth is, it’s all still crazy and messy.  I haven’t slowed down – but I do feel more intentional.  I’ve been trying to build more margin into my life while also growing an acceptance (if that’s the right way to say it) that this phase of my life is going to be hectic. 

Acceptance has allowed me to feel more joyful in the mess, knowing that perfection isn’t what’s required of me.  I’ve also been more conscientious of the time that I take to be with my family and acknowledge that space as “good”, regardless of length or quality of the time spent. I used feel that whatever I gave them, it wasn’t enough or wasn’t good enough.  I’m been trying to pat myself on what back for what I am able to do and that’s made a world of difference for me.  It is enough and it is good, because it’s what I am capable of now, in this moment.

For example, I took the morning off today and spent it with my younger kiddo at his school.  After we got home, I handed him over to dad and went to work.  No guilt.  Writing those words – that I might feel guilty for passing him off to his dad after I spent the whole morning at his school - sounds crazy, but honestly, in the recent past I kept feeling like whatever I did, it was never enough.

Example Number Two: I haven’t made a photo album in TWELVE years.  We have no family photos on the walls.  None. Which of course equates to being a bad, bad parent…  Lately, I’ve been trying to flip that thinking on its head.  Maybe, for us, we’re so busy in the doing that we haven’t had a chance to make those albums.  And maybe that’s okay. 

Balance is elusive when you think of it in the short run.  I’m taking the long view.  Each year I make a vision board to map out what I’m opening up to in the year ahead.  Last year, there was this rough looking cowboy guy, wrangling a snake on the end of this (snake catching device?) metal stick – he was front and center in the board.  I think he came to tell me to grab the things that I’m most scared of and say, fuck it – you got this. 

So – what am I most scared of?  It’s the idea of time – running out of time. Not having enough time.  That mentality has put me on this hamster wheel of looking out toward the future, trying to make time, create time, buy time, whatever – instead of enjoying what’s right here, right now. This year I worked hard at grabbing that snake and staring it down.  The result?  I’m hanging out, waiting for my dog to take a shit and not really freaking out about the “what if” – like “what if she needs emergency surgery on Christmas eve?”  

I’m feeling a wee bit more relaxed, a wee bit less of a control freak.  It’s kind of nice.

 And yet, I still hope she takes a crap soon. 

Going to get some style...

Although we’ve had an insane amount of snow (like 2+ ft.), the preparations for spring are well underway around the farm.  I’ve gotten all my supplies in; the front room of our house looks like a college mail room and the basement looks like a scene out of Silence of the Lambs with the eerie flickering glow from the light fixtures under which my plant babies are growing.

Honestly, I don’t know what hell I was thinking when I planned March.  I’m away 19 of 31 days. 

John clearly is wondering what I was thinking too, since he’s now been delegated with farm chores.  Did I mention one of my personal goals was not to over-schedule myself.  To give myself breathing room.  My “breathing room” is now the inside of a rental car - and man, that smells like sh!t.

So where am I this month?

Currently, I’m in North Carolina attending the School of Styling.  Honestly, I remember exactly when I signed up.  It was late at night and I was scrolling through Instagram feeling like everything that everyone else was doing was presented so much more professionally/ beautifully/ intentionally than my hap-hazard (although honest) reflection of my (haphazard) life. It was one of those late-night, “you should just put down the phone moments”.

I saw a post for the School of Styling and thought, that’s what I need! I need some style.  I got out the credit card and well…here I am months later.

So  day one of this workshop I walk in and I have to say, I felt super out of place at first.  The ladies who were flowing in the door know how to work a curling iron and know the difference between all the little brushes in that come in a make-up kit.  Basically, they looked like they already had style!  I did my best to look like I was meant to be there but honestly, if I’m not wearing a tee-shirt with holes and my hands grubby, I’m just not in my groove.  Dirty!  That’s my jam. Is that bad? I bathe though, I swear I do.  Sometimes.  It depends on how tired I am. 

Anyway, dressing up has always been a struggle for me.  I feel like I’m a fraud or fake or trying to be someone I’m not.  I’m working on the idea that I can integrate multiple parts of my life into one being.  That just because I’m not a dress-up kind of gal doesn’t mean that when I do it, I’m not “the real me” or that I’m pretending to be something I’m not.  Like I said, I’m working on that.

This whole thing kind of brought me back to when I was little and we were living in this giant house in New York State (not kidding – it was like 12,000 sq. feet) and I brought home this form for the free and reduced lunch program at my school.  My dad told me that we actually qualified for the program because our family business had made no money that year and we were deeply in debt… but that he wasn’t going sign me up because it “wouldn’t be the right thing to do.”  

This was super confusing to me.  I was about six years old and I couldn’t understand what this all meant.  We lived in a huge house, so other people told me that we were “rich” (I didn’t know what that meant either.  "Rich" was like Richie Rich but we didn’t have a helicopter, or a chauffeur and I went to the local public school and wore hand-me-down clothes). And here was my dad telling me that despite what everyone else said, apparently our family was broke (and I knew that was bad) and that we shouldn’t tell anyone about our lack of money (so now I’m thinking, gee things must be really bad because when and adult tells you to keep a secret that’s like the worst kind of bad). 

I think it was difficult for my parents to know what messages to send us kids about money because they both grew up with very little, financially speaking (as in my mom’s clothes were made from feed sacks and my dad lived in a one room apartment with his parents and brother that had a bathtub in the room/bathroom/ kitchen – remember it’s just one room -  and they had to burn wooden crates in the stove to heat it or cook, which is like totally friggen out there since he lived in Brooklyn and my mom was the one living like Little House on the Prairie).

Anyway, the point is that I’m still trying to figure out how to feel comfortable being “fancy” when I need to be and maybe allow myself to enjoy getting dressed up when I want to be.  Same goes on social media.  I’m realizing that for me, honesty is more important to me that perfectly curated (also takes less effort...).  But I'm also a little freaked-out about the potential judgment when you put up what’s real vs made-up life.  Know what I mean?

If you’re on social media, what draws you to follow someone?  I’m curious! 

Ps.  I’m posting this a couple days after I wrote it and I’m having a great time with some fab ladies.  I do really love the South.  People are just so dang nice.  Seriously. 

When dreams come true.

I’m alone, in the quiet of our Vermont cabin. 

Having a place to hang our hat, here in the mountains, has been a dream since I first started coming up here to study with Rosemary Gladstar.  I think I was 19. 

We always thought we'd live in Vermont or Western Mass, and while we love our home and community in New Jersey (and the tomatoes - no where else has those), the solitude of the forest hills has been a yearning that never quieted. 

And now we're here.  

It's everything we dreamed of and more.  Do I sound cheesy as hell?  You bet!

On my table (it's like this friggen perfect, rough sawn farm house table tucked into a corner where I can look out into the forest that is the perfect golden color since the leaves are just Vermont-y perfect - seriously I'm not making this shit up) and there is a wonderful bouquet of flowers on the table, from Tanglebloom farm.  A place I’ve never been, but a farm I’ve followed on Instagram for a while.  I picked them up at a cute little country market here in the Green Mountains.  They’re tucked in a water bottle one of the boys brought along for the car ride up.  Of course, it’s from Grow It Green Morristown. It’s funny how perfect these flowers are to me.  Yes, I have pretty much the exact thing growing at home and I could have gathered a bucket full and stuffed them in the car and brought them up here, but there was something so much more rewarding about getting (the very last) bouquet at a market up here, with flowers from up here. 

I wonder if this little heart bursting feeling is how people feel when they get flowers from me in NJ?  I sure hope so! 

But this being a cabin in the woods, the photo I took on my phone isn’t available (everything here is perfect except the internet, which kind of sucks but really, who cares? Ok - maybe I care a little about the slow speed...) , so I’ll have to just post a photo of a bouquet from home. 

Here’s to locally grown, where ever your local may be this quiet, damp fall afternoon.

Little & Big

I've been meaning to write here for quiet some time but there always seems to be something else that tops the to-do list.  And then something seems to knock whatever was in first place on that list, to something lower... do you know what I mean? I've been thinking a lot lately about that "time buffer" - or what some call "free time" that no one seems to have anymore.  I think that space is really essential.  It keeps the creative energy flowing.  The body stores all our tensions, all the imagery we see over the course of the day, all the "to do's" that occupy our brain constantly and prevent us from being present in one. single. moment.  I've been trying to be present more and I have to admit - it is really, really hard.

A few weeks ago, we shared in a momentous occasion - my parent's 50th Anniversary.  It was the first time in awhile that I have felt really present at something.  Yes, there were a million conversations flowing and people to say hello to that I haven't said hi to in so long but there was also this space where people were eating and I just looked around the room and *saw* each person and mentally thanked them for being there, at that moment.  In Judaism there is this special blessing called the "Shehekianu" - you say it when you are thankful for a new and/or unusual experience - something out of the ordinary.  That was definitely a "shehekianu" moment. 

But life is really full of those moments, isn't it?  We just are so busy we miss them.  Lately I've been taking a lot of photos on Instagram of my flowers and I have to say - it's like the first time "tech" has helped me be present... because I am noticing the flowers very carefully, in the best light, trying to capture that image and share it.  I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks for reading along!