Swimming and Growing Up

 After three days of struggling with cat fighting and bickering and outright rudeness, the kids finally got to go swimming.

I struggle with consequence as a gentle, respect focused parent. The kids were rude to strangers. They were openly rude to me while I was trying to take them somewhere they wanted to go. This was yesterday.

Because of this, we went home instead of swimming and they proclaimed I was the worst mother in the whole history of the entire world.

I felt like that too. I hate swimming. They love it. It was too easy for me to just take that from them because I hate it. Still, their behaviour to strangers at the post office was not ok.

We made it home, chilled out, slept it off, and then tried again today. I believe in second chances.

Lily was with us too. She decided to not have her picture on the blog today. She is always asked and I respect that.

We played at the pool for two hours. Full sun. No sunscreen. No sunburns. Just making note of that for the record.

Then we came home, the kids did chores, ate dinner, one went to bed early and the other two are cuddling. It was proclaimed that this was the best day ever. Perhaps I am not the worst mom in the entire world, at least not today.

Humans are complicated. What is true for us in the present moment is all there is. More so for children. I have a headache that is kicking my butt this week and Lily says that I have had this headache since she turned nine. Holly thinks that it will be summer forever. Isaac only has today and watermelon and swimming and trains. We lose it slowly as we get older, stretching our histories and timelines, blocking out grudges and tragedies like flags planted in the rocks of the moon and orbiting around our core sense of who we are. Oh to be three again and just be in that watermelon sweet, joy of cold water splashing moment.

Being a mother, being their mother, I get the gift of this joy. I get to be loved by them and share in their childhood. Oh how I am so very grateful for these moments, even when they are balanced with the moments of their anger and frustrations.

How I Have Been Writing

Words that split open the landscape that is my heart, crack the bone, and tear at flesh.

What I am doing is dangerous. The final advise that freed me though was this: not all poetry has to be memoir. When you mix it up, even the stuff that is can get lost with what isn't and that mystery is all you need. So with that, I have been playing with mythology, memoir, and outright fiction. It is so freeing. So delicious. So crack it all open and feast on words.

Love it.

So that is how I have been writing.

At home, the children are full on into summer and getting wet and muddy and feisty.

My freezer is running low so I am less creative on the food blogging. Perhaps I need to forage the woods and start making berry things.

Our plan for a stay at home summer has been both a gift and a burden. It seems that more time at home shifts more farm errands to me and we're in the car the same as we would be. I'll try harder to slow that down.

The house is getting more and more organised, that's a good thing. 

We've been walking the woods more too. I have a lot of thoughts on the world right now, a lot of gut reactions to the news. I want to blog about it but then writing these things churns my gut and I feel sick. Like I am plugging into a collective disease and dying with the rest of the world. Unplug, focus on the now, and I feel brighter and better.

So back to the woods I go, small hands in each of mine, a picnic, and the wide blue Iowa sky.

Iowa's Wild Rose

This was in the ditch at the farm, the state flower of Iowa, wild rose. Some days, finding beauty in the ditch is just the thing to lift my spirits and remind me good and lovely things are everywhere.

They are. Even when the flash flood wash out the roads just for the hours of my little girl's party. Just when everything is dark, wet, and gloomy. Holly? She doesn't care. She ate cake, wore a sparkly crown and a new yellow dress, and smiled through the day knowing that cancelling means she'll get one extra cake day. She inspires me not to let moments of disappointment ruin the day, because good things will come our way soon enough. Goodness. She rode her new bike in the rain and ate cake until she was silly.

In The Silent Gap

I have a lot of work out for consideration, so much in fact that I have nothing right now to submit. I have 4 poems in progress, 4 in revision, about 20 I have deemed the rantings of an unreasonable teenager and shall be left behind (retired) unless I get bored and want to transform them.

So while waiting for rejections or lovely notes of revisions suggestions, there is a silence. Many literary journals are Sept- May term considerations too, so the summer is also a down time.

I plan on filling the gap of radio silence with:

• Reading books, all the ones on my bedside table. 
• Taking a kayaking class. Seriously. Fear of boats will be kicked in the rear. Maybe.
• Take a short nature photography class.
• Travel to Wisconsin to see the driftless valley.
• Watch all the new Orange in the New Black, Sherlock, and Luther. Because.
• Camp outside.
• Taking photos.
• Paint something.
• Write letters on paper with pen and send them USPS. 
• Cook some new things and remember to blog about them.
• Oh yeah, I have a blog. Get back to daily posts. 

So, what do you do when patiently waiting?