::blessed::
I’ve been stumbling around my blog the past few days trying put my thoughts into cohesive sentences. I’ve been failing as my draft folder can testify. You see, life has been so very full that writing here fell to the bottom of my priorities. Establishing a writing routine is important to me, though, and I’ve been so very full of reflection on this year that I’ve been attempting to find my groove. Not getting far until I discovered exactly what I need: reverb10. Each December day I’ll receive a prompt to ”reflect on this year and manifest what’s next.” Perfect! Setting my best intentions to do this every day and giving myself permission to take breaks means I hope to re-connect with everyone.
December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
Choose only one word? There are so many! On one hand it’s hard to believe that it’s been an entire year since we were celebrating my husband’s birthday atop the Space Needle. In the other I hold the incredulity at all we’ve been able to wring out these past twelve months. This has been my last year in my thirties and I was determined to not let that decade slip quietly away. Day in and day out my year has been blessed.
Blessed by calm in the face of fear. I kissed my dad’s forehead as he faced his biggest fear: surgery to remove a cancer that crept up among his daily bike rides, loving marriage, church sermons and unwavering dedication to family and friends. We were blessed in his recovery and current good health.
Blessed by new family members. My only living sibling announced her engagement and Marc’s only sibling adopted a newborn, his first child. At long last a dog found its way into our home and has been leaving her paw prints all over the sofa, er, I mean our hearts. We were happy to spend time with all of the new family units and open our hearts some more.
Blessed by good health. All of us. This is an incredible gift.
Blessed by employment. At a time when so many are struggling, we have enough because Marc has a dependable job that he goes to every day whether he feels like or not. He provides for us and thankfully, his company has provided for him even though they are running lean themselves.
Blessed by travel. This year we were able to satisfy a bit, a wee bit, of my wanderlust much to our enjoyment. We spent two weeks in upstate NY, celebrating Easter with my family for the first time since 2003. The Portland, OR area held the LIFE is Good Unschooling Conference and we were so happy to connect with our friends there. Our road trip to Santa Cruz to meet the new baby was exhilarating as we wound back down the coast and toured Hearst Castle. That’s what knocked me off the blogging map, actually. I had so many photos to process and share that I just gave up!
Blessed by activity. Oh, my. The year’s calendar paints a flurry of motion between every facet of structured exploration. Dance classes/performances and soccer practices/games, ice skating, gymnastics and kickball games. Art and science museums, whale watching, aquariums and tide pools, zoos and botanical gardens, Broadway and regional theater, symphonies, Taiko drumming, Disney on Ice and Cirque du Soleil, festivals, fairs and amusement parks, hands-on tours and projects, pool parties and beach cleanups and on and on and on.
Those are the big things that come to mind when someone asks, what’s new? What’s left unspoken are the meat and potatoes of the year. The way the bulk of our days are spent, piling one upon the other until we have a stack of days full of good life. I’m blessed by the languid welcome to every morning, soft smiles and groans as arms reach out and grab me and thus the day. There’s a deep knowing my daughters and I share conceived through the tight connection of our (nearly) every moment. It is a significant gift to be given all of our days together from morning to noon to night; the interlock of shared experience, emotion and enterprise creates an inimitable bond of trust and concrete understanding. At night when we rest our heads together and mingle our dreams I appreciate the gifts of time.
Loving my children openly and mindfully has brought grace to another year. I am absolutely blessed by children who aren’t afraid to be honest, especially when I’m at fault or when they are overwhelmed. I am absolutely blessed to witness the tenderness, generosity and compassion that I’ve poured into them flow back out in their words and deeds. I am absolutely blessed to hold them safely when their steps are unsure, catch them when they are confused and watch them sail rightly away from my reach into the warm gulf of their ever-widening existence. My mistakes have blessed me with the power of retrospect, regret and restraint and led me to the calmest, coolest months since I’ve become the mother of two. My year has been absolutely blessed by the uninterrupted peace of providing a stable, happy, joy-filled, unconcerned, trusting and loving home for my children. My blessings are marked by laughter, love, learning, new friendships, strengthening ties, understanding, confidence, warm hugs, labyrinth walks, deep insights, beach days, local agriculture, a warm and spacious home, creativity, music, dance, curiosity, conversation, lineage and plenty. This year has provided so much that it brings me to tears in gratitude for the largess of life my children know. Blessed beyond a shadow of a doubt.
My hope is that in one year we will experience expansion. It is my belief that there is no end to what our minds and hearts can hold. The responsibility of parenting includes hurtling ourselves down the path of more: more knowledge, more desires, more action, more love. As big as life is, I know it can be bigger and even more blessed.
