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Jibber Jabber

9/25/2017 0 Comments

When We Get What We Want

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We all have dreams of what life will become. We set out to accomplish those dreams which are forever changing as we go along. Some dreams are simple, straightforward, while others are complex, complicated.  Sometimes it seems life just gets in the way of what we want, and that we'll never see our dreams come to fruition, but once in awhile we do. We found our dream house, minus the shop, and it had been a goal to build it since we bought the house, then a goal to put in a floor. 
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These things take time, and money, and we have been patient and saved. Once accomplished, it seems like we're always ready to move on to the next dream and the next, as if the one completed didn't really matter, but it was this that made me realize, they're all really one and the same. Whether it be our next remodel project, or Z getting the kitten she couldn't have until the shop was done, it's just our collective dream. 
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When it's all said and done, there will be remnants of what we created for awhile, but those too will fade, what won't though was the support we found in each other: the eager hope of it and the utter joy of it. That will be ours while we're here, what makes our dream house, home, imbued with our energy even when, a hundred years from now, left empty. It makes me so grateful for the family we've created and those we came from who gave us the gifts of who we are, so we can pass that on to our little ones because this life, this dream, is worth it.
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9/19/2017 0 Comments

When It Rains

Some call this Divine Providence, The Law of Attraction, or even The Secret.  Last night I was looking at a rather nebulous thought on writing what it means to be creative and a mother--wisps of ideas like:  it is not binary or dual, they go hand-in-hand, and others floated by.  The most cumulous one involved something about how they are both influenced by the need you had to create before babies and what that looked like. Regardless, I let the ideas float away until this morning, right now, on a chilly gray September morning where an article from The Atlantic offers an explanation of "How Motherhood Affects Creativity." 

Like the water cycle the drops of evaporation rise and the cloud returns, dripping on my head like persistent raindrops until I write it down or get out an umbrella and let it slip away.  This is what my creativity has always looked like--an inkling, an inspiration that drives me to do, to make, to write, unless I don't.  My art isn't driven by what I should do but by how powerful the urge is to do it.  
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After Z & X were born, I wrote two of my favorite pieces, but they are so precious to me, I don't know when or if I will ever share them.  Z's I wrote while rocking and nursing her. X's I wrote in the wee hours of some sleepless night.  But, as I read this article it seems artists get shamed by the art world while mother's get shamed by the mother world.  All I can imagine is Frida Kahlo's Henry Ford Hospital and Pablo Picasso's Maternity and where their inspirations for these works came from.  Anna Abraham a professor who studies the neuroscience of creativity, "Knows that fostering creativity often involves changing how you look at the world." Becoming a parent, or not, does that.  Either way, your life is different than it was before whether you had the choice or not.  
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Absolutely being a mother influences my creativity, and admittedly, I criticize myself that perhaps my themes seem simple in comparison with those I read, but for now these are my droplets and the pools they become. So, Z & X, I want you to know as I watch your own inspiration come in fort improvisations or artistic representations, creativity, in whatever form, is nothing more than one's perspective frozen for others to observe, and they will always look into that icy globe from their own place.  Don't let the world define you--fill your hands and pour them out again when they overflow, but don't forget to just keep some for yourself to hydrate the moments that mysterious universe has sent your way.  ​
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9/11/2017 0 Comments

20 Unforgettable Poems

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Billy Collins-The Chairs that No One Sits In

Collins takes a commonplace image and brings it to life by adding nothing and no one. Beautifully simple in its complexity.

Margaret Atwood-The Page
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For every reader or writer who ever was or will be, this poem explores the mystery of our favorite pastime and holds a light up to it that sets it on fire.

William Carlos Williams-This is Just to Say

Hilarious. The plum is so delicious only because it wasn't yours to eat. We are lacking an English word for the schaudenfreud that is the joy of this poem.

Robert Browning-Porphyria's Lover

Oh so dark and twisty. This narrative poem tells a story with a surprise twist that thrills every time while revealing the complexities of what was on the minds of Romanticists with its final line.

Mary Oliver- The Summer Day

Not at all what you expect from the title, and contains one of my favorite quotes: "what will you do with your one and only wild and precious life?" Indeed, what will you do?

Eavan Boland-It's a Woman's World

The subtle trip through history to our front step brings to light the steady power of the quiet soul waiting her turn.
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Sylvia Plath-Mushrooms

Share this poem with someone who has never read it but remove the title to see if they can guess what it's about. The conversation will be memorable, especially when you share the title.

Linda Pastan-To a Daughter Leaving Home

If you've done this, you know the feeling, and just how fast it goes is only revealed to us through the title.

Li-Young Lee-A Story

And this. Equally heart-wrenching in the parent's desire to hold on to the moment in front of them, and the child's utter, blissful ignorance.

Robert Pack-Echo Sonnet

For its unique play of this form alone this one is noteworthy, but the question and answer reveal the deepest, darkest of questions.

Adrienne Rich-Storm Warnings

Deeply moving with its double-meaning of those storms that well both without and within, the imagery holds the reader steady while reminding of the troubles we ourselves have seen coming.

Elizabeth Bishop-One Art

The art we all eventually master despite our insistence to the contrary. Letting go is hard to do.

Stephen Dobbyns-Missed Chances

Makes you want to grab life and make of it whatever you will because the images here are so startling you can't imagine joining the masses.

Seamus Heaney-Blackberry Picking

Yearly we make the same choice, and yearly we hope for different results. Nature works her magic quickly before it fades- time is of the essence to enjoy her bounty.

e.e. cummings-silently if out of not knowable

Many a love poem has been written but none so easily applied to that universal experience that is so inexplicably singular for everyone who finds themselves in it.

Emily Dickinson-Home

Can't leave out the poet of my youth and like this poem reminds it's difficult to go back again once you've traveled or grown so far. I always wonder what would be inside if the door was opened instead.

Robert Frost-Fire and Ice

The only poem I ever memorized, the juxtaposition is a reminder that both what we love and what we hate have the power to consume.

Wislawa Szymborzka-Under One Small Star

In its apologies, we recognize the fruitless guilt we carry for just being one small star in a multitude of possibilities.

Margaret Atwood-Bored

As is her way, a none too subtle reminder that we don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Hold on to the minutiae, it might be what made you.

Billy Collins-Lines Lost Among Trees

An ode to the poem that was supposed to be written and dissolved before it was done. Here an ode to all the other poems and poets that too are unforgettable, but I have forgotten for the moment.
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9/4/2017 0 Comments

Accepting Autumn

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I'm struggling to let go of summer, of the days with nothing to do, the days with too much to do, and just the days full of possibilities. It's never long enough, and this year it seems a bit more poignantly concluded with both kids off to school. This was their last summer to be 6&4 or 5&3 or 4&2, and somehow next summer as 7&5 already seems different. To alter my thinking, I've decided to accept and embrace autumn and all it entails by creating our fall bucket list together. They are already excited to fill their jar with kindness to get to have these adventures!

Go to the fair (and eat something ridiculous)
Make Baked Potato Soup
Make Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
Make Lentil Chili and Cinnamon Rolls
Have an Apple Cider (+Fireball for mama and daddy) picnic
Have a costume photo shoot when the leaves turn

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Jump in the leaves at Get's
Go to a football game
Go to a volleyball game
Pick the last of the garden goodies
Have a bonfire and roast marshmallows
Make cars from boxes and have a drive-in movie
Watch Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone
Make popcorn balls
Take Great Grandpa's boat out fishing
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Go to a pumpkin patch
Carve pumpkins at Cissy's
Start the fire at home on a rainy day, snuggle, and read together
Make stew and cornbread
Go Trick or Treating at Great Grandma and Grandpa's
Go to the lake and take a RZR ride
Go with Grandpa to take the boat out for the winter.
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Go fishing with Papa and stay in the "living van"
Try to enjoy each moment as it comes before it goes

No doubt there will be this and more, but now we're all excited for the next season.
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    S.M.(M).L.

    A farm girl, a lake girl, a nature girl raising sweet babies to be kind humans takes a lot of patience.  Writing about the day-to-day brings the clarity it takes.  This is that.  Share your story if you can relate.

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