Day Four and Five of Beauty: Shaking, Silly, Sentimental and Smiles

Fun finds at the antique mall Saturday...

♥ The absolute ridiculousness of shaking salt & pepper from some of these...

strangely sperm shaped shakers...

and on that note...read her belly!


♥ An entire shelf of pirates...

and a glass globe full of...legs?


♥ A reminder of a little girl who lives on in my heart but is grown up and on her own now...


Sunday:

♥Waffles. With peanut butter. Mmmmm...

♥Girl time...talks and giggles and loving support...giving and receiving.

♥Turning in late...wayyyy late for me and finding a gift tucked into my bed...falling asleep with a smile.

Day Three: Fluffy Friday Flutters

♥A Friday that felt as carefree and permissible as a Saturday...all day long.

♥Dandelion fluff wishes...you never know where they might land.

♥The lovely flutter of anticipation when out of town company is on their way.

Day Two: Connection, Nature and Nurture

♥The lovely way the mysterious zappy internet and satellites have shrunken the globe to the point where just today I felt akin to a hug from four states, four countries and three continents.

♥The smell of fresh cut grass...it's just clean and fresh and earthy and summery.

♥My amazing boy with his adventurous spirit and brave soul.

My Most Beauty~FULL thing

75 days ago my world crashed. The entire thing. Where I live. Where I work. How I parent. Where I parent from. What I drive. Who I trust. Where I sleep. Where my money comes from. Who I am, basically.

I believed all that...for most of the past 75 days.

I've spent countless hours curled up, in tears, trembling, jumping at noises both real and imaginary, driving, driving, driving and driving some more, biting my fingernails then my cuticles when there were no more nails to bite, packing, pacing...jumbled, confused, scared and lost.

I've slept on floors, in cars, in hotels, on this couch and that one...apologizing for the terrible energy I knew I was bringing into their space...and I spent entire afternoons talking in circles trying futilely to make sense of my world, oblivious to the troubles of anyone I was talking to.

I've put off this post, the one I've known about for many many days. It hurt to have to try so hard, to put in so much effort to come up with my most beautiful thing.

75 days ago I was broken. Broken in so many ways that I couldn't breathe enough to get my bearings. All I could do was keep breathing.

My most beauty~FULL thing is that today I know that there is no such thing as broken.

75 days ago, I was broken open. Wide open....and great things happen from that place.

(I'm participating in Writing Our Way Home Fiona Robyn's celebration of her book The Most Beautiful Thing, Please feel free to join us! http://www.writingourwayhome.com/2012/04/my-most-beautiful-thing-blogsplash.html )

Stop! In the name of love...

There's been a tickle...a nudge...sometimes a flighty dance-y freeing feeling and sometimes a hard heaviness dead center spreading to the edges of my heart's consciousness. It's a knowledge, an awareness, a certainty.

I am not responsible for anyone else's happiness.

There, I said it.

Not only is that lovely...unconditionally accepting of everyone everywhere in any state of mind they may be in but it's also scarily unimportant and nowhere near the center of anyone else's universe.

Isn't it amazing, the things we tell ourselves.

So, I will stop.

I will stop trying to think so far ahead...worrying, pushing, molding, scolding, advising, spending energy on trying to create just the right place, situation and experience.

I will stop. I have stopped. Right now.

I will instead simply be. I will dream and create and do what I love...and invite.

I will twirl and be happy. Just me...with plenty of room for anyone with a tutu and a twirl in their heart as well.

Ch ch ch changes...

If you took a shirt, cut off the sleeves, turned it inside out, tie-dyed it a rainbow of hues, shrunk it and then tried to wear it...you might...just MIGHT have an idea of what my life is like right about now.

My life bears little resemblance to itself a mere two months ago. I'm in completely different state of mind, state of the union and currently in a completely different state period. My things are here...within these walls that are no longer the ones I own. Who resides within these walls is very different. Who I am is even up for grabs. The future is an elusive concept....and whereas the shirt metaphor rings true...there is nothing remotely frantic, disruptive or scary about putting on a tie-dyed shirt. Conversely...yep. Frantic. Disruptive. Scary.

I missed a few of The Burning Questions in the series due to lack of internet, brainpower, ability to process emotions outside of survival and no desire to write. I have kept track and one of the first questions I missed asked what boat in life needs burning. The question came from a parable about a tribe that goes from one island to another, burning their boat when they arrive so that they don't have the option or ability to go backwards. I'm still not quite ready to answer that question...the lingering thought in my mind is that I wonder how long they waited, upon arriving at their new destination, to ensure that they could survive there before they set that craft afire? They had to scout, surely? They had to, right? Were there ANY members of their tribe who might, at some point in the future, have to or choose to return? Were loyalty and dedication to the new location universally accepted even if not embraced? I have too many questions to have answers just yet.

But I'm working on it. Slowly. And for now, I'm setting my fear in that boat at the shore...where a spark just might find it.