TO BE THREE AGAIN

I'm a day behind but still committed as hell, so watch out.  Got this little gem sent to me by our amazing kid whisperer, and it made me stop and reflect on what it means to connect to your inner child.

I think of this a lot when I watch my kids and am constantly entertained.  So this is my wish for you this weekend.  Connect with your inner toddler.  This guy is still about 10 months from being three, but doesn't he look mature?  I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and it involves a lot of padding around the house pants-less while sipping fresh pressed vegetable juice (YES! THAT IS ACTUALLY WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE! REFERENCE SAID KID WHISPERER), preferably with mismatched socks that you pick out purposefully because they both just give you pleasure.  Honestly, life is too short to live otherwise.  Just think about what you want to do, what gives you joy, and for every road block your conscious throws, tell yourself over and over again that you don't give a damn while you drain that juice, baby.  Drain it!

TWO

I've spent a lot of time this last year thinking about the concept of partnership, namely, how and what I'm hoping mine will be.  I'm guessing I'm not alone in this-  in fact, I feel like as women we often spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about relationships.  I don't find it particularly bad or good, but I'm definitely fascinated as to why.  After thinking a lot about how to build a happy partnership, I've realized so often it comes down to finding and committing to my own happiness regardless of my partnership, so that if I can access that happiness, I can use it to shine light and love to all the people closest to me.  Husband included!  A commitment to my own happiness doesn't quite simplify everything, but I've realized it's a good place to start.  At least it's the part of my marriage that I have some control over, and that is a relief to remember when lines get blurred after years together with lots of highs and lows.

It's been almost ten years exactly since I laid eyes on my husband, and my what a ride it has been.  Together we've weathered incarceration, deportation, exile, cancer, the birth of two children, one with special needs, and perhaps most importantly, the cost of child care in America.  Seriously!  That sh** is so stressful right now.  Like Obama-mentioned-it-in-the-State-of-the-
Union sort of stressful.  Anyway, a digression, but one I like to name just to keep it in the public dialogue (public meaning me and my friends who will read this). At any rate, here are a few things that are on my mind about it right now.

• The urge to remodel.  Not your house, necessarily, but your marriage.  I read this article at one point this year about the process of differentiation that couples go through as their relationship spans a longer period of time.  After reading it, I felt a real sense of context for what it can mean for a partnership to progress.  Changing how you relate to each other and your selves will obviously evolve with time, and with that, so will your relationship.  It's natural, it's okay, and honestly, it's probably pretty good!

• Building a community of love. Along the same lines, I recently read this piece which is a record of an interview between bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh.  In their conversation, bell hooks references a concept that Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan describe in a book they co-wrote called The Raft Is Not the Shore.  She infers that when working with ideas and concepts, often "the bridge of illusion must be shattered in order for a real bridge to be constructed."  This is similar to the idea of differentiation. I love in this article how they name the fact that sometimes bridges we've had or thought existed must be shattered before we can really work on building something new.  And in this article, they extend this to any community of love we desire to build or participate in or with, pushing the idea beyond intimate partnership to any circle of people with whom we hope to build healthy relationships and community.

• Celebrating what's right and identifying concerns. This book, which I swear is the only book about marriage and relationships that has, in my opinion, ever been worth a damn.  And I've read a lot of them! It's also come recommended to me from multiple professional sources that I respect, and whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by the endless adventure that is marriage, I find myself turning back to it again and again.  The basic ideas are insightful, and it always sheds the light of clarity on things that are going well in my marriage that may not be at the forefront of my perceptions, and also the things that merit real concern. 

So if you have a two who is part of you,, or that's something you imagine in your future near or far,  I hope you'll find much peace in harmony in relationships both this year and in many years to come. 

This is actually from our wedding!  It was fun to look back and pull both of these because they are all so freaking good.  Again, never underestimate the important blessing of wonderful and talented friends.  Maybe that's my Advent theme?               Thank you Hatnim Lee!

BEHOLD, THE FIRST

Hello friends, Romans, Adventians!  I suppose that Advent started officially for most religious folks on Sunday, but in our German-American household, we rang it in today.  My husband developed this nifty system for our refrigerator when we realized our old traditional Advent calendar is missing: 

 It was pretty sweet to see him get so engaged with something, so I'll go ahead and assume Advent must have been a big deal in his house.  In my house we were like, could you throw more colored lights and tencil on our fake tree?  And while you're at it, bend that pipe cleaner branch a little to the left.  I can't see Grandma's crocheted angel with the shiny beads sewn in from the this angle.  Now pass the funnel cake.

Seriously, though,  I'm trying to embrace this tradition for so many reasons.  One being that it's my last shot to cram all my resolutions into a short period of time before year's end.  So all I have to do this month is reconstruct my marriage, write a play, try to teach my speech delayed daughter how to communicate miraculously through a handheld device, potty train both my kids, and work out daily.  Oh!  And write, like, 20 blog posts.

Does anyone else feel like this at year's end?  And on top of all that, it's the middle of winter and that tiny window of time between our two American holidays when I want to do exactly zero. So right when I should be driving it all home (or cramming it all in or however you want to say it), all I really want to do is hang out with people, drink wine, watch telly, and go to bed early every other night.

TGIF

Does anyone else feel like this rolling into the weekend?

This little guy turned two the past week and the pace of these two years still leaves me totally flattened by Friday.  We are having two (one for each year) small friends over tomorrow to celebrate so other than praying for good weather, I'm hoping to get a bit of down time in somewhere.  Maybe I'll check out new episodes of Call the Midwife on Netflix, or try and take some time to hear the entirety of Ryan Adam's new remake of T. Swift's 1989.

Or, on second thought, maybe I'll just sleep.

WATCH THIS

There are many reasons I love my neighborhood: My neighbors (most of them), the old school ice cream trucks, and the fact that it's one of the only areas in central Austin that still feels like something real, not just something new and, like, MODERN.  And experiences like tonight when I had to run to Walgreen's at 9 pm and the check out clerk decided to whip out her cell phone and show me this You Tube video as I was trying to scoot through the check out as quickly as possible.  I was laughing out loud in, it's true, my active wear.

Enjoy!!

Then, as a post script, I popped in the grocery store right next door to Walgreen's and scored these bad boys on sale for $1.

I knew I'd made it to the big league with a tag that drove home the fact that that these "were not designer glasses."

Now get out there and enjoy that super Moon.  It's clearly exerting something in the universe! 

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love. 
                                                                                   - John Lennon

 I definitely feel like 2015 is the Year of the Relationship and just wish I had some jazzy astrological data to back that up.  At least that's how it feels at our house and the universe seems to be colluding.  In light of the Supreme Court's decision last month, it seems like as good a time as any to 1) reflect on the nature of love 2) post strange yet also strangely cute photos of my children and 3) remember one of the strongest (albeit hetero) couplings of the 20th Century with a throwback to the love and activism of John and Yoko.  Cheers to all of you, men and women, gay and straight, British, Japanese and citizens of this wild and mighty land we call America.  May we all continue to celebrate and hope the love we take is equal to the love we make!

Here are our Terrific Two celebrating the Fab Four a few weeks ago at the LBJ Library, Abbey Road style:

I REALLY NEED TO KEEP A DIARY

My daughter woke up the other morning with the most epic case of bedhead.  Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

This morning I woke up and my soul felt kind of like her hair.  Crazy, frenetic, messy and on edge.  We're trying to adjust to a public school schedule that means we have early mornings with little to no time to feel as calm and present as I'd like with my kids.  As a working mom, I had no idea how precious that extra hour and a half was until I lost it. Now I feel like we barrel into most days, and I spend a lot more time missing the kids. Geez how excited I am for summer.

So after losing my temper with my children while they got dressed, crying in the car, and then eventually making it to work (please tell me this doesn't make me as crazy as I sound), I opened up my email and found this message from a total stranger from whom I'd requested information the day before:

Hi!

I am following up to make sure you received my fax. Please let me know.

Thank you and I hope you have a day that makes you say, “I really need to keep a diary! That was amazing!” 

M****

For some reason this totally made me laugh and also dig in to remember that every day really does have the potential to be amazing.  Even the ones that start out as cattywampus as my 5 year olds hairdo.  It was such a good way to get my frown turned upside down, and I'm hoping for even more coincidental mantras in the days ahead. 

How do you right a day that starts out all wrong?   I'd love to learn more about people's personal ways to re-set a day, a thought pattern, or an attitude.