Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.

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It was a wonderful celebration.

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They make us better people.

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Next to him, my hair color looks like it could almost be natural. Love that kid!

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January always feels stripped down.

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Congratulations to Sonya!! WooHoo!!

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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
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I had time alone with each of them today. A rare treat.
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It was hard to look at him and not think of them.
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Listening to Handel’s Messiah always reminds me of the majesty of God. I need to listen more.
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I’m hoping one of these makes it unread to the beach.
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I have known them for ten years. Love those art ladies!
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
IMG_2605 The gifts say it all: digital meat thermometer, All-Clad saute pan, Playmobil, Red Ryder BB gun, knitting book. I love that kid.
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I asked her to explain me to myself. Glad she was up to the challenge.
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Mine is not a fragile God.
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Untangling yarn seemed appropriate.
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Small, everyday bravery. I have seen it a lot this week.

Habit: Reflective Friday (Afternoon)

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
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Light. It’s my theme of the season. Bring it.
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IMG_2627Though much is taken much abides.
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He reminded me that something similar happens every year at this time. Don’t know if that made me feel better or worse.
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I got a little carried away.
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Found myself wondering where Dante would stick Internet (non)Service Providers.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
 
Old farmers, little boys, new dogs. What else is there to say?
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He still can’t resist a puddle. If it’s icy, all the better.
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The day went better than I expected. Afternoon cocktails definitely helped.
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It’s taken me a year to realize that just bearing witness is enough.
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I was glad when she called back a second time. I have missed her so much.
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Poetry

One of things I wrote in my journal at Taproot Farm this summer was the sentence: “Teach out of your joy.” Poetry is an effortless way for me to bring an unbridled joy to my boys every single day. Before we start our main lessons, we take time for poetic recitation. Hearing poetry spoken aloud brings a musicality that is lost when the same words are read silently. I don’t stress diction, meter or meaning during this exercise. We simply read our poems, relying less and less on our papers as the month progresses. More often than not, we end up memorizing our own poems and each other’s poems as well. Some poems stay with us throughout the year and into the next; others are forgotten quickly. I believe the lines we can recall at the slightest provocation are true sustenance for the soul.

My personal spirituality is closely connected to specific poets and poems. Sometimes it is the entire corpus of a poet that resonates: Wendell Berry, John O’Donohue, Mary Oliver and Robert Frost come to mind. Sometimes it is single poems: “Sekhmet . . . ” by Margaret Atwood, “Winter” by William Shakespeare, “Your Laughter” by Pablo Neruda and “Full Moon” by Kathryn Stripling Byer. And then there are those exquisite individual lines that resound – a few words put together that make my heart melt. That famous line from Tennyson – “Though much is taken much abides”  - is one of those lines. I have recited it countless times since I first underlined those words in a tissue-paper edition of some Norton anthology I had as an undergraduate. I find a quiet yet forceful strength implicit in that line to accept that which remains in the face of loss – acceptance without denying or discounting loss. It is just six words. Six words that I repeated over and over during a memorial service this time last year. Six words that somehow helped me to begin to frame an unbelievable loss. Six words that have carried me through a year of grief. Though much is taken much abides. Yes.

Below you will find the first poem I assigned myself this year. It is by Carl Sandburg and is one that has stayed with me. It perhaps better expresses what I am trying to say, and ultimately what I am trying to do when I set aside time every morning to focus on some words with my boys. Enjoy.

 Little girl, be careful what you say
When you make talk with words, words –
For words are made of syllables
And syllables, child, are made of air –
And air is so thin – air is the breath of God –
Air is finer than fire or mist,
Finer than water or moonlight,
Finer than spider-webs in the moon,
Finer than water-flowers in the morning:
And words are strong, too,
Stronger than rocks or steel
Stronger than potatoes, corn, fish, cattle
And soft, too, soft as little pigeon-eggs,
Soft as the music of hummingbird wings.
So, little girl, when you speak greetings,
When you tell jokes, make wishes or prayers,
Be careful, be careless, be careful,
Be what you wish to be.

Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
Sometimes his patience is astonishing.
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I may be the only one, but I like the time change.
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Love.
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We never found our groove this week.
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He is a delight.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.

It’s about the only thing that can bring me to town on a weekend.

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Between the beeping smoke detectors, the throwing-up child and playing musical beds, I don’t know where that extra hour of sleep went.

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Everything looks exactly the same, but it feels completely different.

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In the dream, I was simultaneously my 13-year-old self, my 20-year-old self and my 42-year-old self. It bordered on a nightmare.

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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
Light candles and cook. It’s how I pray in these situations.
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It seems incongruous: eating tomatoes from the garden inside while watching the snow outside.
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I couldn’t watch the images from Katrina either. And I’ve only been to New Orleans once.
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It’s been a perfectly timed fall break.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
I’ve always loved that expression, “just tore to pieces,” except when it’s been applied to me.
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I didn’t know he had a customer hierarchy, but I was glad to find out I’m at the top.
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He’s never been an early riser, but he’s always been funny.
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In a town this size, not talking about something this big is not an option.
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School this week: knitting, Gilgamesh and digging ditches.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t that.
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He goes out of town twice a year, every year. Each time I hate it.
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I could feel his great grandmother smiling down on him.
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There will be plenty of time for formal lessons come February.
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They told him they wanted the building for a restaurant, and that they’d take the car too.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
It’s the sowing, not the reaping, yes?
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They haven’t asked me to play with them like that for years.
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I frequently find myself wishing I could drink the light.
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The day was a touchstone in so many ways.
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The countdown has begun.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
It was good talking to him, even if I didn’t want to hear much of what he had to say.
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The afternoon seemed to have redeemed the morning.
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No matter how long, our conversations always feel too short.
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School today: a clean kitchen, lunch in town, food shopping, Persian meringues.
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100 acres with a 6-foot bush hog? You do the math.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
I wonder what he’ll remember.
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The word “symbiotic” came to mind only upon reflection.
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How do you know the kid is from the country? He goes to the fancy piano concert downtown with no shoes.
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Can you really tell another person something like that?
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Impulsive? Perhaps. But I know she can help me sort it all out.
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Habit: Reflective Friday

Inspiration for today taken from habit.

A picture, a few words, a little mystery, that somehow form a visual journal of my previous week. 

Have a great weekend, friends.
90 eggs, 4 quarts of honey and 2 gallons of milk. Not bad for shopping at my neighbor’s house.
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Sometimes the lessons you teach aren’t the lessons you plan.
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I hope it rains all day.
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The child absolutely befuddles me.
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