gathering...

It has been nearly a month since I made my way to the Taproot Gathering at Squam.

I have tried to find the words- many, many times- since I've been back to describe my days on that lake but they just seem to swirl in front of me and dissipate so quickly I can't grasp them.

For years, as I read about the experiences of those who attended Squam, the one word that appeared almost every single time was magic. Well, it felt very much like magic pulling me to that lake and the lovely people gathering there and it was definitely magic I went in search of.

I think that is why I haven't been able to find words, because the magic I found was so needed, so vital to me, that I didn't want to look too closely, or analyze it, or drop it. I felt almost like this new found magic would dissolve or disappear just like the words I tried to find to describe it.

I do want to form words around that enchanted retreat in the woods. And I'm sure I will, but right now I think I'll hold it close a little longer while I learn to trust and nurture the magic that I found there.

In the meantime, a few clear thoughts do stand out to me:

How much I miss the loons. I went to sleep each night to their haunting, other worldly call. That beautiful call that sounds like a reminder that we're not alone in this world.

The sage words of women who are no longer strangers, a few of whom I didn't believe had the years behind them to be as wise as they are. I am humbled and thrilled to be proven wrong about that.

Realizing that I was able to live in precisely the moment I was inhabiting. Not the past, not what is yet to be but the precise moment, lying right there on the dock, with my feet in the water and and the sun on my face and not a care in the world. It sounds simple, it is simple, but up until that very moment I had found it unbelievably impossible.

The connections, friendships, conversations, and classes with lovely, charming, talented people. I left feeling inspired and awed by their creativity. Not to mention, more than one sincere, heart warming moment spent with gentle souls who probably have no idea what their kindness meant to me.

How "at home" I felt within minutes of arriving in those woods in New Hampshire (something in me just needs to live in New England, I think). That was validation to me that, yes, home is a place you intuitively recognize. Strangely, that made the counterintuitive return to a place that just doesn't feel like home, at all, that much easier. That, and the magnetic pull of this little family of mine. How I missed these babies. The pure joy of seeing a sweet little man, all of six years old, run and dart through the airport so he could be the first to hug me or the indescribable love of his little sister, waking up next to me, saying "Mama, you're here". Somehow being away...and coming back to them...helped shift my perspective just enough to find myself a little more at peace here.

That is magic, indeed.

window...

Every morning these little birds come to this window, my favorite window. Sometimes it's just one or two, sometimes it's more than I can count. They fill the rose bushes, hop on the window sill and then take off collectively as I tip-toe closer. I've come to expect them now. 

This is such a simple thing, these little morning visits. They make me smile. They make me remember the roses still need pruning. They make me realize that no matter what else is going on, there are always- always- moments like this to savor. 

It also doesn't hurt that I just have to sing Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" after these morning visits. 

That song can fix just about anything. 

light...

here & now...

My big girl sits in a tree, a little gray dog waits for her at the bottom. She is searching, from her perch, for a tortoise that wandered into our yard yesterday. He seems to have moved on but that won't stop her from spending most of the day there, hoping he'll return. Just like she spent most of the day before, in a storm, "protecting" him. 

She is more at home here than I will ever be. That realization comforts me, eases my worries, lets me exhale when I didn't even know I was holding my breath. She's alright. They all are. 

So I am, too. 

  

dress...

I made this little dress for her second birthday...a year and a half ago...with a pattern cut from a shirt in her closet, scraps of linen and silk and a desire for her to have something mama-made that day. I realized recently that I somehow don't have any pictures of her wearing it. How is that possible?

Just in time, before she outgrows it, a year and a half later- her birthday dress.

impromptu...

storm...

I stood there in the kitchen, slicing strawberries for a sweet boy who insisted they taste better that way. Fighting the urge to insist back that they taste exactly the same either way because I knew that wasn't what he meant. That the image he'll keep of me taking the time to do that was far more important than whatever it was I thought I was in a hurry to do.

Bright, early day sunlight, fresh strawberries, already so hot we don't even consider venturing out, the most handsome little face standing eagerly beside me with a bowl. That is our day before Summer Solstice.

The early light, coming in through windows facing both north and south, was in a startling instant, gone. So startling that it took a moment before I could even process where the light had gone. A storm so sudden and fierce and dark, that sent birds flying from trees, that blocked the light that had just been there, and was over so quickly I went to the window to prove to myself that the ground was, indeed, wet.

Two years here and I am still so surprised and confused by the weather. I find myself counting raindrops like they are coins...hoping I can save them. Wishing I could spend them when the green starts to fade.

The ground seemed to dry almost as fast as the storm appeared. But a few drops lingered on roses that need pruned, on new leaves that are most assuredly as grateful for the rain as I am.

Proof that I didn't dream this.