Happy

Happy.

Happy is a difficult thing to describe. My aunt asked me today if I am happy. Oh yes. Yes I am.

Happy is full of things that are hard to explain for me though. I am happy that my kids are healthy right now in this moment.

I am blessed to come home to a beautiful farm in a geographic area of some of the Earth's most fertile farmland.

I can see the sunrise and sunsets over an amazing landscape and understand the beauty of it.

I can hear all the crazy noises of the countryside and know what they are.

My husband loves me and he respects me. Every time he says something to this topic on face book or in conversation, I am startled and humbled. Sometimes I don't see or frame out the enormity of some of the things I have accomplished, it is amazing and wonderful to have someone be proud about things I have done and mean it. My children pick up on that and repeat these sentiments daily and that makes a huge difference in relationship and parenting.

I love my house. I have lived in and worked on and even loved other houses, but this one is different. This one is well built, practical, and beautiful all at the same time. It fits me. I love the light through the windows. I love the colour on the walls. I love the Southern view from my dining room. I love it. That has made it easier to let go of the Hatton House and her legacy.

I am writing again. I'm not sharing it publicly yet. Yes, I am blogging daily again, but I am also writing poetry again. I have not done that in 10 years and it is a big deal to me artistically and personally. Writing fills me up. My mindset is slipping back into artistic thinking, playing with word phrasing and rhythms through the day, paying attention to sounds and thoughts and structure. This has grounded me in many ways and washed over me with calm. I am also craving time at the keyboard or with my notebooks. I am making that time happen twice a day.

I have surrounded myself with women who are mentors, wise women, kind, and funny. I did a hatchet job murdering the drama and crap and toxic blah out of my life and that has left wounds that are still healing, but still, needed to be done. Like irritating zombies, though, it still creeps in the night. Bring it. Hatchet ready. Git Off Me Lawn. Seriously though, I have met and cultivated relationships with some amazing women and I am really cherishing our conversations. This has helped the most in my happiness factor. For many years I have been so lonely and struggled finding open minded, compassionate friends.  These last three, a handful have carried me through Isaac's pregnancy and diagnosis and helped me learn the language of special needs parenting. For that, I am deeply grateful, forever and always.

I am happy. I am ok with dishes in the sink. I have two washing machines and can keep up with laundry washing (not folding yet though) most weeks. I only have one room left that has an unpainted corner. Goodness that bothers me.

I am happy that Isaac is walking. I am flooded with joy and almost moved to tears when he toddles around a corner saying, Mama Mama Mama Mama...... I love that sound. That is happy.

Happy is the way Holly lights up when she runs into ballet class. As soon as her feet hit the floor of the studio, her face lights up, she spins and leaps, and becomes Holly!!!! I love watching her dance.

Happy is Lily elbow deep in clay, throwing bowls in clay class. Isaac playing drums. Holly explaining why she loves yellow and ice cream. Happy is Chad fishing, a fresh new peach pie recipe hot out of the oven, getting a standing ovation at dinner over a new pork ribs recipe, finding a wild plum tree loaded with fruit, harvesting tomatoes, eating frozen starfruit, chasing fireflies in the blue hour, believing in unicorns still and always.

What I am trying to tell is a story of these moments, being in these moments, as they flit away like dandelion seeds in the summer wind, just not knowing where we are going, but loving where we are now. A little fear that this is too perfectly happy and will somehow end taunts me at night when I should be sleeping, but I whisper and sooth that voice in the dark back to sleep and keep on living this dream while it lasts.

Chili & How I Store My Beans & Rices, Wordless

Iowa City Children's Museum, September

We had to pick up 30 bushels of acorns in Iowa City today. Usually, that means that I pick another of the area's attractions (I try for free) and we do that before or after the pick up. This time, the kids begged and badgered and pleaded and negotiated to go to the Children's Museum.

We played in the flight simulator room for an hour at least. Holly pretended to fly to the Arctic Circle to look for penguins and polar bears. Isaac loved the music room best. Lily rocked the farmers' market. The theatre and the art studio were open and they spent time in both while Isaac insisted on driving the ambulance.


Break for lunch and acorn loading. Each kid gobbled a full bowl of broccoli cheddar soup and was ready for more flying fun.

They spent 11am -4pm there and wanted to close the place down at 8pm, but Mama was tired, so so tired. I got up at 5 am to get everything ready for this adventure. They slept in to 6 AND napped on the way to Iowa City.

We took the long way home.....the one with the prettiest of views.....and the kids sang that song, Cups, for 90 minutes straight before passing out and napping.

Holly observed that none of the small towns had ice cream shops and that was a tragedy for AMERICA.

Almost home I realized that I wasn't actually ready to end this wonderful day, so we stopped at the State Park by our farm and they ate PB&J's and rolled down the hill laughing and tumbling and explaining to Isaac all about faerie dwellings within sight.

We ended the day with an all the kids in the bath scrub down and pajama party, watched 4 episodes of H2O Mako Mermaids, and as I type this two of them are crashed asleep on the floor.

This was a good day, a good and beautiful day. These are the days that are so overflowing and spilling over with happy that they fill up the surrounding days with joy too. My kids are so much a blessing to me and to the folks they encountered today, I am so lucky to be their mama and to spend my days with them.

Komorebi

 Tuesday was foggy and magical when we headed out for our long day. Fog is terrible to try and photograph with a camera phone, but I gave it a go. The farm was wrapped up in it and Lily made up a poem about how this was a....

gurgling fog,
a dangerous fog, 
a mist that would gobble you up 
forever lost, 
holding your nightmares in place, 
slipping your dreams away fog. 

Good grief. Even I was terrified to leave the driveway.

Komorebi is a Japanese word for when sunlight dances between the branches and the leaves of trees. That is what my children played in for hours while I cleaned up apples. The three of them laughed and ate apples and told stories in this magical backyard of my friend Jenni B.

And that was our day, the moments of bliss between delivering payments and dropping off Goodwill donations (cleaned out closets, yeah!).