beautiful women

I received an email from my friend Danielle this morning letting me know it's beautiful women month. And I thought, thank you Universe. I needed a little reminder.

Because there are days, far too many than I would like, where I look in the mirror and feel a longing. It's the same longing as I feel when I look at old photographs of a younger me...the minimal stresses, the small responsibilities.

My body is changing. Wrinkles are creeping in from so many years of laughing.
My hips are bigger from giving birth to my child.
My hair is graying from the stresses of every day life.


But today, today I'm choosing to see wisdom.
I choose to see a beautiful woman who has been carving her own sculpture of this life.
Who has endured deep love and deep pain.
Who has fulfilled dreams, and watched other dreams die.
Who still creates her destiny.
Today I choose to see the deep, rich love in my eyes as a mother.
For now, after going through the elegant and brutal process of birth
I know
there is nothing but beauty seeping out of these eyes as I look at my daughter.
For anything that exudes so much love could be less than beautiful.

To my perfect sweet daughter Eleanor.
One day you will question how you look,
how you feel,
who you are.
This is part of life.
But you must know, and I will remind you as long as I live,
that you are nothing short of perfect.
That are you are simply, and utterly
beautiful.

and the journey leads here

So the other night I'm going through a box and I started doing the terrible, sinkable thing that I swear I actually hate doing. I started reading old diaries. Usually I feel a little embarrassed for myself when I do this, you know, once I'm out of the Big. Gigantic. Thing that I simply had to diary about. Anyway, I was reading my (ahem) diary from right before I left my home state (Maine) to move to California. I had just spent a week alone in the woods and was knee deep in all sorts of grandiose visions of changing the world and being this great activist and learning about permaculture and going to nude beaches; I simply had to move to San Francisco. And I did, despite a temporary glitch of homelessness and oh so little cash. And I met all sorts of creative, earth loving hippy friends. I was gloriously single and right in the full blown midst of total self-recreation, and in reading those diaries....I was pretty cool. I was the quintessential starry eyed 25 year old following the yellow brick road to California.

But in pouring over the pages of my past, I felt like I was reading from the life of some other girl. Not this girl. This meat eating, people magazine reading girl who yes owns cloth diapers for her youngin but can't let go of her poop scoopin Huggies. Who left her massage therapy license in the esoteric world of northern california and traded it in for a nursing degree in the city of Denver. Who could scrape the dust off her backpack with the visa card that paid for the last condo she rented. Who somehow ended up in Denver. Somehow, all of that landed me here.

So anyway, I'm just reflecting a bit. Having a baby sent me for a tizzy because my world suddenly is no longer focused on me. I don't have the freedom of those starry eyed days. I'm married. With a baby. And I'm far, far from home.

But I guess this is what happens. You follow your heart down life's paths and it just takes you where you need to be. Apparently I needed to be here. In Denver. With my new family, who I love more than anything else possible. Life has changed drastically from the crazy 25 year old me. I have some amazing life stories to bring to the table as I begin to raise this small, perfect being. But I assure you, somewhere, somewhere deep inside, that starry eyed girl remains. She's covered with lots of routine and habit, but every now and then she sticks her head out into this slow-paced world. And then you get blogs like these. Oh and lots of Ani Difranco.

starting my day

Big deal that I'm running on a small handful of fragmented hours of sleep.

Today is going to be a Great Day! The weather has turned, it's time for sweaters, my babe just turned 4 months, and we're having homemade pizza for dinner tonight.

all of those "huh" moments

Life is funny. I think a lot of life we are reaching for things we do not have, or places we would like to be, or circumstances we would like to have happen. And I think that in that longing you lose a little from where you currently are.

Work has been historically really stressful and busy for me. But now I'm down to very few patients and I could go all day with just a few emails. Sometimes I look down at my phone, which I have cursed so many times, and think, huh. No one needs me right now. Wierd.
And this whole childbirth biz. It's no secret I've been completely impatient about meeting my little girl. And so here I sit in my house, alone, nothing really important to do, the whole day to myself really. And so I think, huh. Maybe I should be enjoying this.
And then there's the pregnancy, which is a beautiful thing but I certainly have done my complaining throughout all of it. But one day very soon there will be no baby in my belly, and I have a hunch that I'll put my hand down there like I so often do and there will be no little kick to great me. And I'll probably think, huh. I'm alone in my body again. Wierd.

And so my lesson for right now is to be present in the situations that I am currently in. Everything is temporary and perhaps it won't be long until I long for this again.

fresh outlook

So me and my crappy attitude went for a great walk today and man don't we feel better! Nothing can soothe the soul better than a little sunshine and exercise. Yes please Mama Nature!

Anyway, so I've done a few things these past few weeks that I'm particularly proud of:

1. After our bumps and bowling balls shower I was sent home with a half of a sheet cake. Now anyone who knows me knows I love sheet cake...total sucker. But uh uh, this good girl kindly asked her husband to throw that shit down the garbage because a)I wasn't sure I could actually do it myself and b)that cake was up to NO GOOD.

2. Baby clothes and baby gifts are organized! Now this is something I would have never fathomed writing about for the sheer boringness of that statement. But now that I'm here, 37 weeks pregnant, swimming in seas of onesies, sleepers, boppies, snuggies, swaddlers, layettes (yes I actually know what all of those things are now) I was finally able to work my way through the pink madness and assign a little organization. (note to any future moms: if you're going to have a baby girl, and you DON"T like pink, then keep the sex to yourself. Fortunately, I do)

3. Mama got a nice little checky-poo from the accident a few weeks ago and instead of going out and buying the CAMERA I want so bad, I did two of the most boring things in the world.. paid off a credit card and saved it.

4. I absolutely positively suck at thank you cards, yet I managed to sit myself down one (entire) afternoon and bust through all of the wonderful people I needed to thank. This brings me great pride because it (shamedly) may actually be the first time I have accomplished completion in Hallmark gratitude world. Note to anyone that I might buy something for: do not send me a thank you card. I really mean that. My neighbor Betsy said her thank you for her baby gift perfectly....she baked me a cake! Good Lord I love cake! (your baked good is coming sister!)

5. I'm just about 37 weeks pregnant and my belly is getting bigger. and bigger. and bigger. Honestly I had no idea it was going to do this (to this extent). It's mystifying. My maternity shirts are turning into midriff shirts! So sexy. Anyway I'm proud of myself for doing this. Pregnancy was really easy...until then all of the sudden it wasn't. But the show goes on, and the baby grows, and the end there will really be something I'm proud of...

....my baby!

because we should all have what we truly want!

I was reading a friend's blog and she was talking about the task of creating what you want in life. And I've read "Creative Visualization" and I have "The Secret" and I know that when you really focus your intent on something you can create it. I really do believe this, and I was happy to be reminded of this during my morning blog surf. It's a nice reminder that we are out there creating our own lives, and if we believe in things and focus our intent, we can get what we want. Well there are lots of things I want, to have a healthy child, a healthy family, to pay off my student loans, etc.

But today, in this blog, I am focusing on this:

Call me caddy, but I really want the Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp.
And so, my affirmations. I will have the Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp. One day soon I will be the owner of a Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp. I will soon be snapping pictures of my baby with my Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp. Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp. Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp. Canon Digital Rebel xsi 12.2mp.
I can't wait to have you at my fingers.