STAY, in the Breath

Helloo Old Friends,

If you can see the pics above you will notice just about every single one of my children are now taller than me, some by an entire head! As you read and scroll down you’ll get a small glimpse of where we’ve come from… what an indescribably precious gift!

It’s been ten years since I began my blog and my babies and I were exploring every green space we could find in the different cities our family’s pilgrimage took us to. Ten years feels like a worthy moment to pause and reflect on where I’ve been as a writer and to share where I’m going.

It feels likely that I am ending this blog the way I began, slowly. Or, it may be that with this being only my 3rd post in all of 2024, I already did end it with my silence and am now re-beginning—I haven’t been able to figure that out yet!

My hunch is that I’m finally coming to terms with an ending that had its beginning some time ago. As with many things in life I thought perhaps if I wrote about this question I might stumble upon the clarity I am seeking. Thanks for bearing with me! And that brings me to what I want to say most of all as I move through this process, wherever it may take me…

Thank you. My heart is overflowing with the gratitude that I hope I’ve conveyed well enough over the years to all of you wonderful readers. I still can hardly believe there ever came to be one of you. I’d never have lasted without you all, I’d never have published FOUR books! You guys, that happened?! And, it all started here, with you, from the surreal land of Other-Side-of-the-Screen.

You, faithfully reading and responding to me, to my photography of the kids learning how to hike the hills of Kentucky (by getting lost!), to playing on their grandparent’s farm in Ohio, to my words and images of what it was like to homeschool at parks and in the woods of Missouri, traveling, and my explorations of meeting my own self and especially my limitations, as a grace, while my family and I crossed to the other side of the continent and put down roots in the Pacific Northwest. #diaryofawomanhealinginoursliceofwilds

If I’d known then the way that story would twist and turn I’d never have signed up to any of it being public! Ha! And good thing I didn’t know because that very thing, writing to you all here (even with few personal details in many ways) was absolutely integral to helping me find my way through. I know many, if not most of you, grasped that, you saw me and my fight through depression and grief in between the lines sometimes better than I could. Thank you.

Getting to externalize the beauty and the tragedy, learning how to name it, as I was trying to process, raise and homeschool six sweet souls and as I fought for and lost my marriage—I’m certain the very act of writing tethered me to life. Does that seem too big of a claim to you? It’s incredibly real to me.

Receiving thoughtful responses, to know there was witness and with-ness… it all came alongside the utterly vital shattering of my illusion of aloneness in my journeys. My entire premise as I began this blog was this tiny hope: surely, I’m not the only one?

Now here, if I boiled the journey and the results of it, so far, down to one sentence? I found out I’m not alone at all!

I never was alone. None of us are.

In time, with your companionship, my tiny hope became a belief. My written words and captured moments of life through photography transformed from something I thought might only be helpful to me and became instead a connecting thread between worlds that weren’t so far apart as they at first seemed. I’m so deeply grateful.

It was you all and it was the thought of you—the thought that if I went out into the woods again and gave space to pondering about things long and slowly, if I looked at the trees and leaves and little flowers and listened to the rushing river beside me and eagles above me—then I could tell you about it and you’d be here to read, again. I could tell you about the way all those things helped me hear my own heart, feel my own pulse and the way finally seeing that helped me heal and see the whole world anew, and better than I could before, most especially my children.

It reliably felt like something ethereal occurred when I slowed and noticed and waited with hunger for the words to describe what I found in those places… things I couldn’t see before came into focus. Things I couldn’t understand finally untangled and began to make sense, oh man… it saved my life.

That’s where I’ve been. I needed that glorious miraculousness so soo badly. Thank you. That taste of connection lead me to a new hope and a new belief that I could experience that kind of wonder-filled connection not just from the far away land of Other-Side-of-the-Screen but rather in my everyday life, in the land of Not-So-Ordinary-As-It-Can-Seem. 

What about you? Where have you been these last ten years? Where are you now? Where are you headed?

As for where I and this blog are going, I suppose I don’t have a firm answer yet, but some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s words come to mind…

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun…

 

 

I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair

I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see

For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green

I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know

But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door

― J.R.R. Tolkien

Such a tiny handful of precious moments captured I picked to place here alongside these words. There are times I still wake in the night with such an ache over having watched my children, all six, nearly fully grown these days but it’s met with the sweetest of joy—I got to see it! I got to be there.

Tonight I give thanks not only for that but that I got to write about it. I got to take photographs and share them with you all. And those words and pictures helped me see. Not everything, of course. I missed a lot. It’s still incredibly true, “hindsight is 20/20″. But, it helped. You, my readers, friends, and family, you allll helped me with that! Did you know that? Thank you.

“Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate…”

Worry and impatience and and and will come, AND wonder will still remain. Awe and more love than can be written about, remain. It doesn’t depend on our own perfection, past, present or future. We GET to be here.

 

Thank you so so much.

Love,

from all of me, who has grown up with my children in front of all of you

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You gave me courage.

If you have the desire to write or document your life through any medium, photography, art, journaling, publicly or privately—do it.

Last but not least, I want to give my biggest thanks reserved to this lady right here, pictured below, celebrating a birthday today, Larissa Elizabeth, who has not only read but also commented encouragement on nearly every post I’ve written, anywhere, the last ten years, and not only that she has written me countless texts, emails and made phone calls to improve them, discuss them, and life further as often as possible—not just for the purpose of knowledge or talk but for action and growth. She is a rare and beautiful pearl and I’m so profoundly grateful for her.

They say a writer often finds along the way a very specific person they are always writing to. I found her. I wouldn’t be the writer I am without her. We met just as we began the strange steps away from our threshold of childhood into our young womanhood and under the least expected circumstances. In many ways that’s how we keep meeting. Happy birthday, my dear friend—thank YOU!

I wish that everyone could be so blessed to grow up with a friend in life, someone who lets you make mistakes and grow and change, who stays and becomes new with you. It’s never too late and can happen at the least expected times and places, trust us.

 

Time to celebrate!! GIVE-AWAY time! Celebrate ten years with me by leaving a comment below or shoot me an email and you will automatically be in a drawing for me to send you a package of books for yourself or that you can gift to others!

I LOVE to hear from you. This will bring me a lot of joy!

Give-away drawing will be open for one week, November 27-December 4, 2024  🙂