a.rose

Hanna's birthday was a few weeks ago and in the days since then I have been thinking a lot about her, and about life, and have generally been overcome with all kinds of emotions.  There is exactly a week between Hallie's birthday and Hanna's and in that gap I went down to Texas to be with my family there and help out any way I could.  The juxtaposition of going from a birthday for an eight year old, to spending a week with my dad, aunt, and uncle who are all now grandparents, and my grandmother who is 95, and then rushing back home for the birthday of a six year old made quite an impression on me.  This is what I do,  and so I do it.  not sure if I am good at it, I know surely I'm not bad.  and this is what I do and so I do it.  Those in my care can be noisy, unpredictable, and at times might even appear to be broken.  But what I have is mine  and I will always claim them. When all of it comes crashing down and there is more than I can hold I...

I remember, and as I wander through the memories it feels as though I am not just remembering but living it again.  The years suddenly mean nothing and I remember how it felt.  All of me so raw and fresh and new -there was this sudden part that I was to play in life, a new role that had been anticipated for nine months but not fully understood even as it was thrust literally into my arms.  Mother. And there, that tiny body, those fingers and toes, those long thin arms and legs.  Those eyes that opened and took in the world and then, overwhelmed and confused, closed again.  This process repeated over and over until the lights weren't so shocking and the voices weren't so loud and the world began to come clearer to her eyes. Her eyes that were so startlingly blue as a baby and then deepened and greened to the color of late autumn grass on a misty day.  Not quite brown, not quite green, you aren't quite sure what color you are seeing and so you look, a...

I generally shy away from publicly stating my political beliefs.  I am pretty open about my religious beliefs, but for some reason I don't like to participate in conversations about politics on open internet forums.  But I can't stop thinking about some recent events, and I don't know, maybe you have too?  I don't claim to have the right answer, or to know exactly what we should do, but I need to process my thoughts and there's nothing quite like writing for sorting out what you are thinking. First of all, perhaps you've heard what happened in Beirut, and what Adel Termos did?  Another article reporting the story, here . I read about Adel and his sacrifice and I feel good inside, about the decency, the absolute heroism left in some of humanity.  But then, I turn around and I see news reports of states here in the U.S. making the decisions about opening their borders or not, governors taking one position or another about harboring refugees. I read through...

There is something in this moment that grabs at my throat and pulls at the tears gathering in my eyes. Something that makes me aware of every breath I take, and every beat of my heart.  Something elusive and fleeting, and I worry that if I don't sit down and try to capture it in words on paper it will float out the window on the warm gentle breeze blowing through my windows, carried away with the sunshine and sound of birds. I hear it in the sounds of laughter and voices calling from outside, as Heather plays on the swings and Hazel dumps sand on herself in the sandbox.  I am in their bedroom, the window just above where they play.  I watch their tiny bodies as I fold laundry and pick up the flotsam and jetsam of childhood that is strewn about their room. I hear it coming from the next room, as Hallie giggles softly to herself.  She is surrounded by piles of books that have been pulled off the bookshelf, in careful search for the one that was just right for t...

Five years ago, give or take a couple weeks, a younger Devin and I spent the day with our younger Hallie and Hanna at a car dealership. We were trying to decide which Mazda 5 to buy.  It was a big gulp for us to drop that 20 some thousand dollars, but our little family was growing and it was time to upgrade to a second car and a bigger vehicle.  The next day we drove past a different car dealership on our way somewhere else, and saw a beautiful sight - a slightly used Mazda 5 for half the price we had been planning to pay.  We squealed a u-turn, marched in, and dropped a fat check on a shocked salesperson's desk. It was a happy five years, 100, 000 miles, and a million memories.  That little car drove us to Utah, Texas, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  It knew our little section of Lincoln like the...backseat of... itself.  And then, in the way that you know things that you know, it was time to let it go. Our family had grown again, and that little m...

My friend Holly recently organized a busy bag exchange, and so I decided to make a little playmat.  The idea was for them to be small enough to be carried around in a purse or diaper bag, to pull out whenever you need something quick and entertaining, like at the doctor's office, or post office? driver's bureau? waiting to pick up big sister from school? So for my playmat, it was easy to find printable ones online that were for cars, you know, roads and whatnot.  I found a bunch like that, and then I found some that were like for jungle animals and dinosaurs, and that was cool too.  I printed off those, and then I thought of all the little toys we have that would work so well with a playmat like this (see below), all the little farm animals and people and I searched and searched for something that would work for that kind of creative play, and couldn't find anything. So I just made my own, even though I don't have photoshop and wouldn't know how to use it even if...

It's one of those things that I can't make up my mind about.  Part of me wants to talk about it, and part of me doesn't.  And part of me shrugs and admits that I wouldn't know what to say even if I did start talking about it. I don't even know exactly what it was, exactly, that hit me after Hazel was born, and the fog that I lived in that year.  I have wondered if it was postpartum depression, and I have wondered if that is why it is hard for me to talk about it. I still have trouble finding words to describe my experience, because I don't know any words heavy enough to convey how it felt in my head.  This, written a few weeks ago, is as close as I have been able to come. we dance and we are drowning in the flames, burning in the waves yet the sweet, sweet agony summons it is seductive, shrieking, screaming, the sounds of a pain so caught up in pleasure a mask of cocoa mist obscured by moss and blood and still we dance our eyes closed to the...