katiemae_days

reflection...the looking out, looking in

 

Yesterday, I had an impromptu day to myself way down in the big city, the Emerald City. And the rain-soaked I5, I suppose was my yellow brick road to find a little bit of myself that I'd been missing the last few weeks. My girl was to come with me and visit with a dear pal of hers but a case of pink-eye kept her home. Now of course I would have loved the company but getting to hit the open road myself, well I loved the opportunity to keep company with myself for just a little while. Time to reflect peacefully, quietly, calmly alone on the week past, the year past, more than that even.

The time to look inside and look out to let my mind meander quietly as I drive on down the road listening to my favorite CD of late-this was needed I realize. The premise for the drive, well I was meeting my book club gang for our annual holiday celebration. We meet each year to celebrate the holidays and New Year. We eat and toast at some fun Seattle eatery. Yesterday, we met for brunch, caught up on our daily lives, toasted, broke bread and exchanged a few lovely gifts with one another. I don't make many of the bookclub meetings anymore living 90 miles North nor are there many of the monthly ones of days past but we are still a bookclub. We've been together for nearly 14 years as I figure it. Babies and businesses have been born among us, marriages made, homes restored, relationships blossomed, new artistic journeys begun.

 

I was planning to head back home in the later afternoon but remember that part about meandering. Well, I let myself do it, I lifted any restrictions I may have placed on myself to leave by this time or that and took my dear Mac guru pal up on her offer to visit the Apple Store, a place I'd never yet been. While I have subsided for now the urge to buy a new camera, I am for very practical purposes studying the possibility of buying a new computer and crossing the bridge from PCland to the Apple Orchards of Macdom. I'll say one thing, you'd never know there was an economic downturn entering this store. It was packed, buzzing, humming. And these machines well they are downright sexy. I know this may sound so odd, describing a computer as sexy but I love good design and dang man these are gorgeous. And fast.  And there's just so much I love about Macs--always have just never bought one before. So here I am dreaming, scheming, budgeting. I didn't bring home anything new yesterday as I do need a little time to really feel the commitment I may be about to make.

And then it got dark and rainy and well I headed for the highway, called the Papa to let him know and he said "Stay, you need this, be with your girl-friends. Have fun and come home in the morning" And so I did, and said a big thank-you. I'm not a huge fan of driving in the dark and torrential rains. Plus, my girl frankly needed some special time with her Papa so it worked out just fine for me to stay away just a little longer. So, I said Yes. Yes,  I turned around headed back to my friend's house and stayed the night. The time to talk and uncover some of those meandering thoughts and to hear of hers. Quiet time for the Mama. Unplanned, impromptu and much needed. This day a gift and a reminder to keep stepping out, outside of myself and in.

sweet moments....

Here is my dear sister-friend Puck spinning a little spin on her way out of town. I love the hoop. For me, this circle of energy is a reminder to feel my rhythm, be myself, go with the flow, let go and in all of that be light and ride.

And here's my little one finding her own sweet rhythm before school. She was pure joy practicing a little Yoga in the kitchen while I was making breakfast. Watching her, learning from her in her own natural, free flowing presence is my daily teaching for which I am very grateful.

Puck, my sister-friend turned us on to these great Yoga Cards for kids awhile back. While we didn't find the same ones she shared with us, we found this great deck called "Yoga Pretzels". We already have and love the book called "My Daddy is a Pretzel" so my girl was especially excited to get her hands on the beautiful cards from this deck illustrated by the same artist.

So there is a little glimpse into some of the sweet moments around here in the past day or two. Here's to your sweet moments too.

learning as I go...

I had some time to myself this morning just before work. I treated myself to a coffee and from my car window I took this picture. I look at it and think about quiet. Of quieting down, listening, noticing.

All day, I've thought about this. I have a five year old, she's my girl and I know she is my girl for a reason. This girl marches to her own drum thank goodness and I her Mama am learning more than I can imagine from her daily. About myself, about her about what it must be like to be five, all the while growing hopefully right along with her. I her Mama learning to not be the control freak I never knew I was until yeah I became her Mama. I always thought of myself as sooooo laaaaaaaaaid baccccccck. At least that's what old friends use to tell me.

So anyway back to me and my girl. Of late we are working on the fine art of self-control. Oh this can mean not interrupting, or being mindful of other's personal space...those are just a couple examples.... I think how great to be learning this at five. I mean did you see the debates???? Ok had to put that in...

I her Mama am trying to exercise a little bit of self-control myself and practice these skills right along with her. And by the way this is not about squelching her zest or who she is.   I've tried to think about me at five and there are not many details I can remember. I wish I could, perhaps I do unconsciously/subconsciously--not sure which.  I mean I used to say about myself--"oh I am acting like a five year old" in one of those less than proud moments....I think I used to say this is before I had a five year old! And now, I think how could I have said that. What does that even mean? I'm figuring out five every day that's for sure. Maybe when I feel my buttons being pushed its my five year old self or the emotions from that time that are being triggered?   I really really really want to try and consistently remember to take a breath, reach down to  my five year old self and maybe understand more clearly what it might be like for my girl.  Maybe that will help me to reach her and connect with her compassionately, with more empathy. Mamahood with empathy. Yep, not always there yet in the harder moments--in the morning rush and the power struggles, not always there. We are human, we get cranky, irritated. It happens to all of us.   

But the challenge of getting more "there" is exciting, of improving, doing better, continuing I hope to evolve as a Mama, fully learning to allow my girl to go along and dance to her own drum and with that helping her develop self-disipline. The balancing act of Mamahood is taking on a whole new meaning in these last few days, yes there's my work/mama balance and then there's this, the parenting balance of not directing, not micro-managing too much yet guiding and teaching enough. Step back I keep trying to tell myself. Quiet down.

Well clearly parenting has been on my mind. Perhaps, I'm struggling with this phase of five more than my girl even, a new school, new culture there, maybe holding all of this transition too much under a microscope. I know I over-think. So I guess this journal, my streaming consciousness is just trying to work something out. Thanks for allowing me to share and work this knot out a bit. I know they'll be more of it.

wall with noise....

This is a photo of our staircase wall. That's tape covering a new crack in our 106 year old wall. The picture, its not a great one but I'm keeping it anyway to remind me of this day. I shot the photo tonight in low light and because it was already blurry, I carried my little photo into Photoshop and searched through almost every "Filter" to find one that would capture just what this day felt like for me....and while there's no filter that I found called tension or irritation, the closest I could find was "noise". So here we have it: "Wall with Noise."

Yes, my lovely curry colored wall is now adorned with tape. Tape too cover a hole, crack...fissure...the result of the insulation people blowing perhaps a little to much power into our wall and in one instant, they blew through right into our living room....luckily, they realized quickly before too much mess and dust hit the air. And yes its fixable. And believe me I practiced the mantra "it is what it is" all day and in the scheme of life I know this is not a big deal. But at 8:45 am when I was racing around in my usual frenetic morning pace of late, this is not what I expected nor wanted for breakfast. But that's life isn't it.

And as the morning went on, I'd thought I lost a couple of important personal items and well I just felt crabby and irritated..noisy inside. But alas, I found my wallet and everything else. And as the day went on, I thought about this crack in the wall and I thought uh huh this makes sense today. A day and let's face it a week where I have felt pretty darn wound up...and just all over the place. And when I feel all over the place, I tend to want to reign it all in and take control. Yuck. I get snippy, snappy, noisy inside and well just not my favorite me.  No biking this week, no exercise, so where to let it all go that pent up tension go?....Hmmmm maybe out my living room wall...

Ahhh, time to chill out and breathe....

breathing in......

On this Fall Equinox

Gratitude: For the turning, changing colors bursting. For the sun and the rain. For the food we eat and the earth and farmers that grow it. For family and friends far and wide. For the three of us and the learning in the moment each and every day. For new paths. For changing light.

For the time today to breathe in and greet Autumn.

Hello.

scenes from the weekend...

ah, such a wonderful weekend spent with dear friends and one another. My kind of weekend. Unplanned, unstructured. Organic and free where the days unfold, where we breathe in and discover the magic around....

Flowers bursting with sunlight...

sweet friends wild and free

hands warmed by the sun

.

fabrics revealing nature

varied green and succulent

harvests so delicious

and sweet...

Few words but plenty of gratitude for these few days grounding down.

quiet moments....

Oh this has felt good to ground down in the quiet moments of what has been a big week with my girl starting a new school and all of us finding the groove of our new schedules. Me trying to find some semblance of a routine and trusting all will fall into place. Staying open and quieting down.

The water, the mountains quietly pedaling on my bike helps me ground down to find the moment...

and for my girl, grounding down in a moment of her own reflecting on her first big week

pulling out some new paints and the two of us exploring and letting the brush lead the way..

for me, grounding down and letting myself not be held back by the fact i have no idea really how to paint; rather this time on our porch was about allowing myself to just let go.

A week of practice in letting go, of not thinking too much and about staying open and trusting things will fall into place. With school. With work schedules. With just being in the moment.

Have a wonderful weekend...

ah the wonder.........

The wonders of being five.Maybe better said, the wonders of being a parent to a five year old. New at every turn. The joys and yes I am grateful for so many, and the challenges. The emotions ebbing and flowing. Rising. Surging. Waves rolling into calm. For me, her mama learning to find the right balance of parenting in those more challenging moments is my lesson. And learning more and more in my role as mama  keeps me on my feet and for that I am grateful. Learning to let us each be who we are. Learning to let go sometimes when it most matters.

Five so far in our very few months into this time is a wild adventurous ride. I can feel my girl finding her power. Trying herself on. Finding her voice. Pushing buttons. Its her job. I know. This is how she learns about the world around her about us as parents and about herself. What works. What doesn't. I watch it, feel it,  sense it. 

This girl, my girl well she has a flare for the drama. The other night a dear mama friend and her girl, my were over for dinner. Our girls ended up improvising a play in two acts. They tapped into their own magic, they were soaring in their silliness and in their own creative power, stream of consciousness at its best. We mamas were captured watching ourselves in them when we were that young and hearts pounding amazed by these two together. Watching her shine this night reminded me again how important it is to let her be. Yes, I know this to be true and knew it before this moment but it really hit me. I want to remember as best I can in those more challenging parenting moments to keep looking at five as this time she is trying herself on, getting to know herself. Be light mama I must remember. Be gentle to her and to myself, stay grounded and rooted. Stay open to the journey, be free as we meander together over the sometimes rocky points and the waves. Love myself as I love her... unconditionally.

Ah the wonders of rain for cleansing, renewing and refreshing.

We had fun this day in the rain. Finding the magic in little places in our yard. She watching insects carrying their load, me photographing flowers in bloom, leaves soaked by the rain, noticing variations in color and texture. All of it part of our garden. We are growing too right along with it. Sometimes I know I need to step back. Take it all in. Figure out where to tend to, what to let go. My girl, she is my guide in this journey pointing me towards the magic of the moment. She helps me to open to know myself better, to remember myself then and now. The joy and the challenge. For this I am forever grateful.

"See the Sky About to Rain": Adventures in Camping Part 2

For those who know me well, they know that Neil Young is one of my music heroes.  His songs are beautiful the lyrics, the music. I'm one who isn't so adept at remembering words of songs. Usually, its the music of a particular song that gets me....As I sat by the lake on our last morning at Mahood Lake, I could hear Neil singing "See the Sky About to Rain". Though I didn't know all the words that morning, I could hear him sing....

See the sky about to rain,
broken clouds and rain.
Locomotive, pull the train,
whistle blowing
through my brain.
Signals curling on an open plain,
rolling down the track again.
See the sky about to rain.

Some are bound for happiness,
some are bound to glory
Some are bound to live with less,
who can tell your story?

See the sky about to rain,
broken clouds and rain.
Locomotive, pull the train,
whistle blowin'
through my brain.
Signals curlin' on an open plain,
rollin' down the track again.
See the sky about to rain.

I was down in Dixie Land,
played a silver fiddle
Played it loud and then the man
broke it down the middle.
See the sky about to rain.

Leaving is often a little hard for me. Though our vacation was not yet over, I knew it soon would be. Maybe part of my morning melancholy can be attributed to the fact that I'd not yet made coffee or maybe it just was the fact I didn't want vacation to end. I had to get a hold of myself before I rejoined my family posse who were feeling rather chipper, at this point on this cloudy morning. Vacation was not over. One more full day to explore and another night to go. Be in the moment. Be here Be now is what I said as I looked at the sky about to rain. I sank into my seat by the lake for another few moments and listened to the song in my head and in my heart.

We hit the road and though it was time to go to see more of the Park, this was not the first choice of my girl. She was not ready to move on and let it be known loudly I might add. Her Papa and I let her be, let her wind through whatever it was she needed to work out. We listened to one of my all-time favorite Cds, Greg Brown's Further In and kept on going up the road. She ended up falling asleep. Rest and great music soothed our souls and proved to be the best fix for the rough start in the car this particular morning. Our girl woke up refreshed and happy and now ready for the day ahead. We stopped in a little town called Little Fort and found a playground. The kind that reminded her Papa and me of playgrounds from our day. Metal slides, steel monkey bars. See-saws with wooden seats and swings, one for each of us. We played for awhile the three of us and then picked up the litter around this area. We figured it was our thank you to this little Park for being there just when we needed a break from the car.

Just a short while more and we hit the Clearwater area of British Columbia to explore another side of the Wells Gray Provincial Park. Magnificent waterfalls abound. The rains came for sure but that didn't stop us from short walks to Dawson and Helmcken Falls.

I snapped photo after photo trying to capture the grandeur of these Falls. Not easy. The sound was incredible. Loud and constant but all the while peaceful. The roar of the water washing down. Cascading into pools and flowing onward. Swift and powerful.

After awhile we meandered on to the end of the road to see Clearwater Lake. We saw a Black Bear crossing the road, our second viewing of the day. Excited and grateful we were to have a chance see this creature make his/her way safely back to the woods.

This rainy day would turn into a rainy night and this Mama decided a wet tent may not be quite so fun after such a long day so we splurged for a motel at the campground in town. Luxury. Dry. Comfy beds, a warm shower, and yes cable to watch the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and a pool for my girl to swim in the morning. Worth every penny on this chilly, wet night. We fell asleep I know with smiles on our faces.

Homeward bound after four fantastic days. I felt grateful that even though this vacation was coming to a close we were returning to a our home, our neighborhood, our town where we feel happy.

I cannot deny though there is wanderlust inside me. And it ignites just about every time we travel from home. I dream of what it would be like to live here or there. I picture it, even feel it. Winding along these gorgeous roadways through such vast landscape makes me want to try at some point a more rural lifestyle. I can see living on more land, creating a big garden, building a studio to do what--I guess explore, and centering more of our life around home. Keeping it simple. Creating what we can from what we have. I know we are working to do this more and more right where we are. But I think outside of this and beyond. Maybe I'll keep wandering in this dream for awhile and all the while working to ground down and be right where I am, we are.

For this sweet time together in such magnificent beauty, I am grateful.

Adventures in Camping Part 1....

We are just back from a wonderful 4 days of our little  summer getaway. For 4 days and nights we camped and played in this magnificent Park in British Columbia. We left home last Thursday and drove for nearly 6 hours (with stops) to Mahood Lake. By the time we arrived, we were ready to get out of the car. The weather had called for thunderstorms but as we approached we were greeted by clear skies and this,,,a sign that we just missed the rain.....Talk about grateful....

We were lucky enough to find a site with a lake view and after setting up camp, my girl and I walked down to the shore to see what we could see....

I love so much waking up and having no plan. No rush for a morning shower. No heading to work. Just quiet. On our first morning, we set up our chairs and wrote in our journal, painted and in my great hope I'd hoped to knit but I ended up untangling a huge knotted mess in a hat I'd planned to work on. Oh well, there is something about untangling that was very relaxing and for nothing else a good exercise in patience.

We spent our days taking short hikes to spectacular waterfalls inside the Park. My girl was proud and feeling strong for hiking just over 2 miles this first day. I loved seeing her hike up the trail. She imagined also sorts of adventures as part of the very one we were on. A magician she was for a time, changing this forest into a zoo and off we were to see the Giraffe or up ahead the lions and tigers. We walked in the lush green forest and saw all sorts of beauty.

We hung out.  Chilled out. On a little outing on our second day, we found an organic vegetable garden and brought back fresh beets, potatoes, onions and greens and made a hearty stew.

We played with our camera and found all sorts of knew settings to change color, replace color, remove color....oh my that was addictive. Thank goodness for digital cameras, no film to waste.

We hit the playground and made all sorts of new friends from all over British Columbia.

Together my girl and I knit a scarf for her friend. I held the needles she wrapped the yarn and took of the stitches.

These days were quiet, slow and relaxing. I love this slow-down, the time together for the three of us. The freedom. The time in nature and away from distractions.

I take some time by myself our last morning in Mahood Lake to think about how to bring a little more of what we feel and create here home.

Now its time to break away as I have to get ready for work. I'll take these images with me and the memories of our sweet time away and know I can keep working on creating this calm and slowdown at home. I will soon post more photos and bits from the rest of our trip as we head our last day or so into the Clearwater region of Wells Gray. Be back soon....