red line

- Summer Nicklasson 4/10/17

I usually bypass articles that contain images that I know will be upsetting. But lately these articles come so frequently. Last week I bypassed the articles about the recent chemical attack in Syria. I know what I can take and what I can't. (It took me almost a full year to read about the Sandy Hook victims). But today I told myself that I should see these images, that putting my head in the sand doesn't make them go away. So I looked. And the world broke my heart again.I struggle every day with how much information is necessary to obtain in this world, especially when information, whether real or false, can come at you instantaneously. I do not want to be uninformed. Yet I am not convinced that me knowing this helps in any way. Yet if I feel the pain from these images do I not help contribute to the greater consciousness healing that is so desperate in this world? I have so many questions. Like so many, I'm moving forward with hope I'm doing this right, knowing that each moment can contain an emotion so opposite from the previous.

that punch

when you see images that make the world stop and you become

the mother of that gasping child, 

the 13 year old boy who lost 19 family members. 

you experience, for one, safe moment, a world you can barely dip your toes into,

a world where your own empathy grabs you by the neck and says

you must look at this. 

this happened

this is happening

and you don't know what to do

because these are images, and this place is far away

but these are children and you

you have children

and they are here, and they are good

and you realize that every moment you can say that is 

nothing short of everything.

under this roof, 

are beating hearts and skinned knees 

and hurt feelings and couch cuddles

but somewhere

someone has lost everything.

and I sit down to dinner knowing this

even when I forget it

and see what do i do? 

do i focus everything on these creatures that I get to call mine

(for now)

does the war torn horror go away when I divert my attention?

where is my own red line? 

what can I do? 

i'm so fucking angry.

i'm so fucking sad. 

i'm so fucking grateful. 

my heart and brain are playing pinball. 

no one
wins.

Starts and finishes

- Summer Nicklasson 9/21/2016


How could that have been me? A younger girl, a sky full of stars,
head thrown back and searching. The night the sky exploded
with meteors. With starts and finishes.
The night my feet understood what it meant to be fully planted on a star.
I hardly remember the girl. But these feet, are they not the same?

How do I remember the way the water felt on my fingers as I skimmed the lake
so many years ago
a girl in a boat with her father, absently aware of this?
These things we take for granted.

and that smell, the sweetness of eucalyptus,
the way it entered me like wind, the towering trees of California,
my strong legs carrying me to the tops of trails.
Snapshot of when it all felt good, and the smell
it smells good. Still.

and finally, ultimately, the ocean.
Salty skin, toes in the sand,
the grays extending as far as the eye can see.
I know she holds secrets things. good things. scary things.
How can I stand at the edge of something and know this thing that I know?
This thing that I can not say.
This thing that has no words.
This thing that washes over me like waves, reminding me of where it all began.

Day

DAY
- By Summer Nicklasson, Aug 2016


The sun is the parent.

Good morning it's time!
It's time to do the thing that you need to do.
Allow me to open these blinds.

A loon calls to the lake.
A deer forages for food.
The fox considers a rest, a nocturnal falling.
Be still.

The city hums to life.
Exhaust and grime choke the highway.
People flick on the kitchen light
stumble towards the coffee pot.
The thunk of the paper.
Clothes laid out the night before.
Tired whines from children.
Aching backs.
Light reaching further and further inside.

You can not escape this.

They don't tell you

Here's what they don't tell you.

They don't tell you that, since you only had one child before, you will now have to hear fighting. Constant fighting. Constant mitigation. Constant whining.

They don't tell you that you'll struggle every day to get their needs met, and that when one of your foster kids has special needs it will be infinitely harder.

They don't tell you there are days where it all WORKS. And your two kids will get along and the sound of them playing is the sweetest thing you'll ever hear.

They don't tell you how much you will miss your biological daughter. Even when she's sitting right next to you, you will ache for her. You will miss your closeness and long for it with real pain.

They don't tell you how hard it will be for her, your biological. How her once sweet and occasionally whiny personality will turn to defiance and anger. How she will miss you, her mama, even though you're right there in front of her, attending to her new foster sibling.

They don't tell you that sometimes, just sometimes, you feel angry. You feel angry because you didn't know it was going to be so hard.

They don't tell you that sometimes he, your foster, will curl into your arms for protection and you will shield him from the pain of the world, if just for that brief moment, and you remember why you are doing this.

They don't tell you how hard it is to work and make income when you have a medically fragile child.

They don't tell you how far behind children can be. You see how much of an offering an educated parent is to a small child.

They don't tell you how much money you have to spend. Between camps and sitters and jobs and food and clothes you realize how much more you are putting out, and how cramped you can sometimes feel.

They don't tell you that there are days, many days, where you question whether or not you can do this. But you know if you don't, you are putting him back into the system, and that's just not something you can do.

They don't tell you when you'll feel like an actual "family".
They don't tell you that the word "mommy" is probably the most confusing word for a foster child.
They don't tell you how hard it will now be to travel or to take a "vacation"

They don't tell you how quickly you will fall in love with your sweet foster child's innocent spirit.
They don't tell you about the fear you keep, knowing one day soon that innocence will be lost. Where will he be? With us?

They don't tell you there will be dozens of unanswerable questions.

****
They don't tell you, or maybe they do. Maybe they did but you were too clouded in naivete, optimism, hope for a better world. Maybe they told you but you didn't have the capacity to understand. Not yet.

I get it now.

(And I'm still in.)

We are here to help him.

I had a facebook friend email me something about a honeymoon phase right at the beginning of our journey with Little J. I took it in stride, sure sure there's a honeymoon phase. We'll deal with what's beyond that too.

Turns out, she was oh so very right.

This is not an easy endeavor that we have taken on, and YET, please let me be clear, we are happy to take it on and do so with full hearts.

But easy is not a word that we use around here.

Little J is sweet as pie. His smile lights up the room and we love his sweet voice and interesting observations. But Little J is multifaceted and has his own sets of issues. Lately we've been privy to the stubborn side of Little J that will absolutely, under no circumstances, do the thing you want him to do. This is hard. This is when he challenges Mike and I like there's no tomorrow. This is where Mike and I turn to each other and whisper "can we do this?".

We can. But it's hard.

We have stand offs at dinner. Two nights ago we made Little J sit at the table for over an hour because he would not even TRY the cooked carrots Mike had made. A similar encounter took place at breakfast the next day. We have a "try two bites before you say you don't like something" rule and Little J was not having it. So he sat. And I did my best to not get out of the world angry. It's not about the food per se. But see it IS about the food. I give him insulin before meals based on the foods we provide. AND you don't say you don't like something without trying it. Not in our house. So we waited. And waited. And turns out Little J can be incredibly patient whilst sitting at the table. Eventually he eats though and then he smiles and when asked says he actually likes it and we all return to business as usual.

On Tuesday Mike came home from work and I met him at the door and said if I don't go for a run right NOW I'm going to lose it. I had just returned from a trip to the grocery store with Little J and Ellie who did nothing but fight. A trip where Little J hated every single food item I placed in the cart. A trip where little J hated every question that was asked and every observation that was made. I did my best to keep it together but inside he was tormenting me. I was tired from my (nearly) full time job. I was tired of breaking up arguments between these two small humans. I was tired of my completely messy home and my inability to return texts and emails because I was just so damn busy all the time. I met Mike at the door with tears and he knew I needed to run and supported that, even though it was time for dinner and even though this was his first time checking Little J's blood sugar and giving him insulin. And I was so grateful for my husband. I was so grateful for my feet hitting the pavement. For the solitude of running. For the moment to just gather my thoughts and not have to be the one in charge. I cried during my run, because it was so much harder than I thought it would be. Because I question my own strength and endurance. But then I came home and Little J met me at the door with "Mommy!!!!!!!" and suddenly things were good again. So you shrug and carry on.

And then there was the time that we were hit with the reality that Little J is not just ours, but he is the son of very real people who love him and who do exist out there in the world. Last weekend we drove to Sequoia National Park (amazing!) and on the drive there Little J's social worker wanted to put a call through so that Little J's biological mom and dad could talk to Little J. This was our first encounter with them. So there they were, on speaker phone in our car, chatting with Little J. (We never spoke with them). They clearly loved him. They asked him if we were treating him well. They asked him if he was praying at night. Little J (who can be very hard to understand as he has very delayed language) told them snippets from his life that I can't be sure they got. But when he said he was going on a trip and that "daddy was driving" they got that. Oh they got that. And I know it broke their hearts. And when the phone call ended Little J became very upset and suddenly he hated everything about everything again. And Mike and I knew saw quite clearly that there is a whole world of confusion inside of that little boy.

I'm so glad I have Mike to balance this equation. He reminds me, when it's tough, when I see that I was far too naive to think that a 5 year old foster boy could simply enter our homes and sink into the space in my heart that's dying to have a fourth family member-- he reminds me that "we're here to help him". So that's what we do. We keep him safe and healthy. We manage his diabetes and his celiac disease. We introduce him to new places and things and FOODS. And we love him, knowing he may return to another world that we are not a part of. Knowing that for now, he is with us, and he is a part of our family.

Family of four

I am a mother. And while you may say, yes we know, you have a daughter, what you don't know is that I am a mother in my bones. My soul. There's so much love pouring out that I don't even know how to channel it. I've been blessed with a beautiful, lovely soul named Eleanor. For this I am grateful beyond measure. And as I've been trying and failing to conceive another child for 6 years, I've been mothering my daughter for seven. Seven years of her and I. (And Mike, yes of course, but I'm talking about me here).

As I've written about frequently on this blog, I've tried for a long time to get pregnant. Biologically it's just not in my cards. I've tried to tell myself it's okay, we have Ellie. Life would be hard with more. With Ellie getting so much older the age difference would be too large. There are lots of things you can say to yourself. But none of those things really disguised the fact that I was heartbroken all the time. I've always wanted a big family. I've become used to the slices my heart would endure when people would ask me about my plans for my family, or when Ellie would talk about the brothers and sisters of her friends, their families. The unspoken and often buried grief I would endure at each new period.

So we steered our course into a new direction. We became licensed foster parents.

Last Wednesday I received a call about a little boy I'll call Little J. Little J is a sweet little 5 year old who has not been exposed to any trauma. But Little J has Type 1 Diabetes and has experienced medical neglect. Little J has been in the foster care system for two years. He's been very hard to place because of the diabetes. His foster care team heard I was a nurse and a newly licensed foster parent and after just a few minutes hearing his sweet story I knew Little J was coming to stay with me. He got to us the next day (these things can move VERY swiftly!) from his home 3 hours out of county.

We became a family of four on a Thursday afternoon. Years of struggle and yet here it was.

The moment I met that boy I fell in love with him. There are truly no words to describe this beautiful child. His smile is so bright he makes the whole room grin. He ran right up to me. "I live with you now?". "Yes Little J, I'd like that". I showed him his room. He stepped in, looked around, gave me that smile and I knew he'd be okay here.

Things have moved quickly with Little J. It feels strange but Little J started calling me mama right away. I was introduced as Summer and he called me Summer a few times. But then he started playing with the words mama, saying them tentatively at first. Looking at me and saying "mamamamama". Eventually widdling it down to mama. I respond to it, though nervously at first; I didn't want to confuse him! But he hears Ellie call me mama. He calls Mike "Dad". Mike lets him. At one point, his first night home he looked at me after a very sweet moment between us. (God he is so sweet.) He was leaving the room and he turns around and he says to me "You love me?"

"Yes Little J, I sure do."

I talked about this with a good friend who reminded me that right now I am his mom and Mike is his dad and he needs that right now. He needs to feel like he's part of a family. She's right. And who am I kidding, I absolutely love it!

(Now when I come home he runs through the house yelling on the top of his lungs "MAMMMAAAA!!!!!!!!" So yeah, it feels pretty good.)

There have been challenges and I really need to write about these later. And though the diabetes is so so so much harder to manage than I had "thought", the other struggle is in little girl who was NOT ready for a little brother. My daughter, who God love this sweet girl for trying, is really struggling. I look at her face when I pick up Little J and snuggle him and it's pure anguish. This hurts her. She loves her mama and she is used to getting all of the attention. And though we all know life is not about getting all the attention, this is definitely going to be (and is!) a struggle for her.

I'm so thankful that I still have this crazy little blog. Working in the foster care system is full of so much, I need a way to process and document. You don't have to read it, but I really need to write it.

So, more tomorrow.  :)

Where Grief Goes

Where Grief Goes

By Summer Nicklasson 1/18/2016

I once befriended an older lady,

my age now. Old then, to me.

She told me her parents were good parents, and she missed them.

And she didn’t say it with sadness, but with gratitude

But my heart couldn’t contain her loss.

I wept for her, her orphan self.

Poor friend.

When my father died I arrived to his home from the airport

And I crawled into his bed, where he had lied the night before.

I wrapped my body in his blankets. His pillow still grooved in the middle from his head.

I wept with every part of my body, filling the groove with salty tears.

His home. The coffee cup with cold coffee a quarter filled.

The glasses on his bedside table.

The book I had left last summer.

The red shirt he loved. The warm, goofy hat.

I bundled them up and placed them in a bag.

Contain the smell. Never forget the smell.

My daughter’s version of my father is an empty sort of answer.

“It’s your dad. It’s my grandpa”. Then on to the next picture.

Yes. And he is a million other things. He’s my hairline. My love of family.

He’s the orange you get at the end of your Christmas stocking.

The dream you remember so well upon waking, that slowly fades away into the day.
He's you, little girl. You just don't know it.

But still, the red shirt and the goofy hat are gone.

They lost their magic when I opened the bag

And realized that the smell was gone.

Extra Ordinary

Extra Ordinary
- summer Nicklasson, 11/2015

What is to become of the ordinary?
The conversation we had at dinner,
the cloud that looked like a woman praying,
the squeals of laughter as you tried to hide my grocery cart.

You will do great things.
You may fly to the moon. You may write a beautiful song.
You may make the best spaghetti sauce.
You may love your family with all that you are.
Or you may stare at the night sky, in fascination,
in being the audience that creates all performance.
You may take the beautiful song and bring it into your body
and the notes and your heart will become one
and you'll know
that true greatness is in the space where time does not exist.

****

Now, In the mornings I find you, I bury my face
into the nook between shoulder and neck.
You smell like childhood. Your body is warm.
In these moments the pain of the world is forgotten
and I'm lost in soft skin and soul love.
Never forget this.

When we age, we let go.
Adoring eyes will look elsewhere.
Tell me what is extraordinary about working, parenting, preparing food, connecting with nature?
It's not so rhetorical.
One day you will know the answer like you know how to breathe.
Real life is not a facebook post.

***
My song is not my own. It is composed of a billion interactions.
It is made of grit and sorrow and pain and love.
I breathe in the same air as those around me.
Everyone is humming a tune.

And one day,
this tune,
this life,
this love,
this that I call my own but is really nothing of the sort,
will ring into the ether
like the last, long cello note
deep, resonating
so beautiful you could cry
fading away
to the place all notes gather,
readying themselves to create again.

She'll be okay.

Being a mother made everything different.
Small child. Only child.
She falls and I feel it. Soft butterfly dancing in my hand.
My heart is on my sleeve. See, you can touch it.

I live with the horror that it could so easily be shattered.

The vulnerability has changed me,
the unfamiliar face in the mirror.
Grooves deepening.
Years lost to the joys of her, sweet joy
of her. Of her. Of her.

We moved. For her. For tribe.
Now, I work full time, and she is cared for by her family.
I dropped the reigns, hard as it was.
I hardly recognized my trembly, leathered hands.

I see her with my husband. He makes her lunches.
Brings her to school. Signs her papers.
Tells her he loves her.
He gets to hold the parts I've held tightly for so long.
It's heartbreakingly beautiful.
I watch them. Their inner circle.
This is their time.

If I wasn't here, she would be okay.
She'd be okay.
She'll be okay.

*****
My energies and most of my working day are with them,
strangers to whom I have committed so much valuable time and energy.
I miss her, and yet
look at me learning this new job.
Look at me remembering my own power.
Look. I'm not broken by love.

I'll be okay.

*****
Each evening I return to them,
they play games. They watch tv.
"Mommy!"

We're okay.

Goodbye, Colorado

I will miss the mountains.

Today I sit at my kitchen table, bathed in the yellow light of morning. This garden. This view. This will be behind me soon. Tomorrow I will get in my car with my daughter and head west.

This is my last quiet morning in the sun bathed kitchen. Soon a simple step out the door will not bring those majestic, 14,000ft peaks into my view. It's time to leave. And this is okay.

I didn't give Salida the chance I probably should have. This was, instead, a rather dark time. It was a long winter. It was a community that I just couldn't fit into. It was my own apathy, my own lack of trying, my own you-have-to-keep-it-together sense of survival. It was my own journey to a more dark place in life, and a pervasive fear that I wouldn't be able to crawl out of the darkness. It was a sense of isolation, real and imagined.

One could say I gave up, that I never really gave this place a chance. They wouldn't be wrong. But sometimes no matter how many times you reposition the clothes the bottom line is they just don't fit. Salida was the buffer that we needed to get out of Denver, a city that did us well, that we grew in as people and as a family. Friends we will cherish forever. Salida became the gray out of the black, the ease of the shock that living in California will be. I think I actually called this out before we ever even moved here.

Oh Colorado. I will miss you. You are a part of me now. My marriage, my daughter, my family, all borne out of this state. Those mountains. The long, arduous treks to the tops of 14000ft peaks. The utter exhaustion. The grand sense of accomplishment. The retreat into the woods, onto the rocks, into the sun. The wrinkles from the incredible dryness. The photographs, the thousands and thousands of photographs. It was all too beautiful to fully capture. The lesson of standing still and letting the beauty wash over you, knowing that you simply can not contain it.

My future will hold a deep melancholy for Colorado. But I was bourne and raised along an ocean. It's time to go home. I did what I came here to do.

Weed Trees

The weeds that pop up in our yard, persistent little seedlings.
We call them “weed trees” because that’s what they become.
Trees.
And I sat under one today, my back pressed against it’s flesh,
relishing in its protection from the heat.
It impressed me, this weed tree,
how tall it had become,
the strength of its sturdy trunk.
We spend hours digging weed roots out of our yards,
wrestling with strong root systems.
But some manage to avoid plucking fingers,
and make their way into air,
forming arches, towers, protection
and homes to small creatures.
So much energy is spent to clear the path for the lavender,
the pansies, the rosemary, the lilacs.
But looking up at the sky, there are the weed trees
that look down upon us,
like elders,
telling the story of trying to make their way
through the adversity of
being unwanted.

-Summer Nicklasson

Tribe.

Last night my daughter graduated from kindergarten. It was kind of a big deal. They had worked on several songs to sing and each student individually accepted their diploma. My daughter was beyond proud. She kept saying "I'm graduating today!" And she was great. They all were. My heart was a puddle, as it usually is with these types of things.

But this is the part that was the most sad: out in the audience the only person that was there for my daughter was me. (Remember my husband has to work in Denver during the week). I watched all the other students with their tribes, did my best to represent my daughter, but in the end, we didn't have a tribe. It was my lone "whoop" when she got her diploma.

The thing is, we DO have a tribe. I have a lot of family and they are all pretty darn great. And they live in pretty darn great places.

So this seems like a good time to make the announcement I've been mentally preparing for.

We are moving to California. We will have my mom, my brother, my sister in law and and my nephew.

Tribe.

Anyone who knows me or has even followed my blog knows that this recent excursion into the mountains has not sat well with me. True, I love the mountains like part of my dna. But this has been a long, cold winter. And I have experienced a deep, soul crushing sort of sadness. No matter what friends I made or comfort I felt here, it's always felt like pushing a square peg in a round hole.

I don't think families are designed to be mom, dad and kid(s) out there doing it all alone. There's supposed to be a village. Families are there to be families! We were so wrong when we moved here, SO FAR away from any family (we are a 2.5 drive from the airport now). The thing is this being wrong? I've known it on some level all along. It never felt right. There was always a very deep sadness, always a sense that we had made the wrong decision. This decision to move to California?

Nothing has ever felt more right.

So now you know. We need to tie up some loose ends, but we will be there soon.

In the words of Joni Mitchell: California, I'm coming home.

The thing I can't give you

You don’t get a brother or sister.

Sorry, but I have cursed and begged enough to tell you

It’s only going to be you.

But you can make lively conversation with the geese at the lake.

They could go on and on for days and you could come running to me

to tell me they will simply not leave you alone.

You can tell secrets to the deer who rattle around this town
like the kids who have cars that drive slow and cool.

But they might not keep them, your secrets.

I’ve seen them gossiping with the squirrels when they

think no one is watching.

You can cry to the trees, who, though they cannot hug you

make the most fantastic listeners.

And the cats, those crazy cats, don’t let them boss you around

or cut your hair or give you lollipops behind my back.

Oh my beautiful child I want to give you the world.

But the world is not mine to give.
It's yours to take.

                

Good morning

My daughter, this morning, asleep by my side.

It was cold outside. There was no work or school.

We snuggled and laughed.

Watched the cats play.

Ate the chocolate cake that we made last night.

I did the dishes while she colored at the table.

The cats lounged in the sun.

I stripped the sheets and did piles of laundry.

Truly, there was no better day.

..

Being seen

I went to this workshop when I was in my 20s. It was a workshop meant to open your heart, to feel life in a bigger way. In a room of a dozen or so strangers we were supposed to walk around the room, meet someone, stop and simply look at each other. Hold the gaze.

I hated it. 

I wasn't ready to be seen. Under the intentional gaze of a stranger I felt vulnerable, small. 

I'd like to repeat that now. Now that I'm older, more wrinkled and more experienced.

I want to see. 

But REALLY see. 

Not pictures on social media, small talk in the office, quick flashes of faces as we march on our lives.

A blog written by someone you think you know.

Where is the connection?

How often do we say "How are you?" and not listen to the answer?

I want to know.

How ARE you?

What brings you to your knees in joy?

When was the last time you wept?

What does freedom look like to you?

What cripples you with fear?

Do you want to be seen?

(are you as scared as me?)

****

Being seen is being vulnerable.

Being vulnerable is being brave. 

Being good.

When I was growing up in Maine my world consisted of a tiny town on the top of the United States. My worldview was pretty small. We didn't travel much. We didn't hike much. I never skied. (ok once, and it sucked). We had woods and those, for me, were magical.

I had a postcard of Colorado. I was fascinated by it. It looked un-real; it was like a mythical place of beauty. But not in a million years did I imagine I would live there. Places like that were exotic. So far away.

And then I got brave. I left home. I questioned religion. I discovered hiking. I discovered that I could run..far. I discovered that I had a strength inside of me that I had never tested. It was exciting. It was a new, rather intoxicating feeling.

When I was 25 I went on a week long trek through the woods, alone. I walked in one person, I walked out another. On that walk I realized that I wanted the challenge of exploring new places. I wanted to leave my comfort zone. So I did. I moved to California. That was the juncture where I left my family and said I was going to do this life thing on my own. And so I went. Nearly penniless but full of hope.

Sometimes it really sucked. Sometimes it was unimaginably great. All of the time it allowed me to challenge myself to exist in new situations.

And then somehow I ended up in Colorado. Festivals, nursing school, new relationships were the draw. Life somehow blew me in that direction.

Then things got real. Good friends. A boyfriend turned husband. A child. Home ownership. Suddenly I was no longer a bird, but a tree with roots sinking deeper and deeper. Sometimes I am still mystified that the awkward girl from northern Maine ended up in that enchanted place that seemed so far away.

And so I've been realizing this, slowly along the journey, that we really do create those realities. We hold the vision, we do the work, and suddenly, the world opens up to us, like a pearl for the taking. Who we are, how we choose to be, our reactions are all a part of us either being brave, or not. I've learned that both are okay. It doesn't take a person to be brave to make them be good. But it is a choice to be good. It is a choice to recognize that who you are in the world matters. It takes a heart full of love and likely sadness to realize that you, yourself, are extremely special and important. It takes hardships and trials to give you the opportunities to let you prove yourself, to yourself. And you do. Or you don't. Either way you still get a choice. You still get to be good.

Not only did I move to Colorado, mostly Denver for many years, but now suddenly I live in the place of that postcard. It is outside my door. The mountains that loom over this valley are why we decided to uproot. We knew they were special and we knew we could experience amazing things near them.

But life got hard here. There were adjustments. I had to uproot my tree that was so nicely settled. My experience was colored by a work environment that didn't allow me to feel valued, and this, coupled with so many other life events, was my struggle. It still is but yet again, I get that choice. I get to be good. I get to believe in myself and I get to be brave.

I went to a women's retreat last week, no women I knew except for the one friend that brought me. Imagine 20 or so amazing women, playing music around a campfire, eating good organic food, telling each other where we are in life, what our intentions are. This. This was what I was searching for. This was what I needed to find. And there I was. Under a full moon surrounded by women who were also brave and good. And I was filled with such gratitude. And I remembered that I get a part in this, in this creating. I remembered that life is full of choices. I remembered that I am good and that I matter.

I believe it is important to surround yourself with people that support you. You support them. Life is not a competition but a dance that we must do with each other. I remember, in this time of adversity, this time of transition, that I get a choice. Though I'm far from perfect, ultimately, I go with goodness. It fits best.

Home.

Moon.

I live in this world with a sensitive heart. This is not some bad thing or some good thing; it's just the way I do life. I can be stolen away with the wise musings of a poem, and I can be stolen away with the sorrows of the world.

My sensible brain and my sensitive heart like to battle it out. They don't always understand that they can co-exist, gently respecting each other's differences. Sometimes I ignore them both.

There are days when you go about life with your head down, and then suddenly you look up and the moon is full and bright and bursting with purpose.

The moon, in it's last fullness, said to me, "You get to do this your way. You only have to be who you are."

And I answered, "Thank you, moon."

I went home with the quiet clarity that I needed. I looked inside and said that it was time to have faith again.

Everything I need is here.

Isn't that amazing?

To the Mom with an Only Child

My daughter has a saying at school, a rather wise saying, that I have made my personal mantra: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit". We have a beautiful, healthy daughter, one whom I never imagined I could love like this.

But our table has always felt, to me, to be missing one more person. We wanted the second child so badly. Unfortunately it's been four years and running and still we remain a family of three. They've used terms like "secondary infertility", "unexplained infertility", "uterine scarring". All of it equals an insanely difficult, if not impossible, attempt to get pregnant.

I know I'm not alone. While many (dare I say most?) moms are able to conceive more than once, our train appears to have stopped. I'm not here to compare the difficulties with being a mom of one to a mom of many. I think both are hard jobs and though mothering in and of itself is the same, mothering to one (or many) is just different.

To the moms of more than one, I don't think you understand how important that play date is. My child lives in the world of her own. She wants to share her 5 year old brain with us and she does. We play legoes, go on bike rides, play imaginary games (of which there are MANY: ie "you go over there and you're the queen and then you come in and tell me that I'm the princess but I was only just born and when you pick me up I'll say mama and that will be my first word". Stuff like that." The point is her 5 year old brain needs to be matched with a child. They have their own banter. It's something that a 37 year old woman and 39 year old man simply can not understand.

Please never say to a mom of one "when are you going to give her a brother or sister?" Please, never say this. You don't know the story. Maybe we only wanted one. Or maybe the fact that we are unable to give her a brother or sister is the biggest pain of our lives, which, for me, it is. I grew up with a secret language with my siblings, interactions that only we could understand. No one "got us" like we did with each other. And for each new scary place, we had each other. Siblings have each other's backs. And so yes my heart breaks each and every day that we can't give her that. She's going to have to learn to navigate the parent-less world alone or with, we pray, a best friend.

To my friends that keep getting pregnant: this used to be a hard one for me. As childish as it is to admit this, I used to shy away from you once that second baby was on the way. It was ridiculous I know and please don't take it personally. But it felt terribly hard to rejoice in something that I wanted so desperately. I'm not proud of this at ALL. Now, four years later of "trying", we've given up "trying", so it doesn't hurt so much. And for the record I love you AND your kids. I really do. It was just me dealing with my own shit. And well, I'm sorry if I drifted away. That was not a good character trait.

I had a friend reach out to me recently asking me how I felt about being the mom to an only child. She was having her own difficulties conceiving number 2. I was honest: it's hard. Somedays it's REALLY hard. But on the other side, some days it's really EASY. There are things you get to do as a mom to one. Spontaneous trips, cheaper air fare, less chauffeuring, and really, well, a certain closeness that comes as a family of three.

We still pray for a miracle. Having a second is not something I've stopped wanting. But after the invasive tests, the financial burdens of infertility blah blah blah, and ultimately, the very deep and personal heartbreak that is felt at each period, well it was time to throw in the towel. No more tracking periods. No more fertility medications. No more forced sex because "it's that time of the month" (which by the way takes all the fun out of it). Now I just have the singular prayer out into the universe that we will get that miracle, though we have resigned ourselves to the fact that one is okay. We know we are blessed.

I still feel heartache at each period. But then I wash my hands, open the door and thank my lucky stars that I have this beautiful child there to love. I understand that family is not always the thing you imagine from your youth. It's the thing that you get. And in those wise, wise words "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit".

That fact is, you never know what life has in store for you.

Blessed.

It Came Just the Same

This was a year that Ellie believed in Santa Clause. I think it is important to note this event, she's a smart and extremely observant kid. I don't think the belief in Santa will be here long. That being said I have a job as a mother. I have a job to make Christmas as enchanting as possible. I have a job to make her feel the love and magic that is Christmas. This magic comes in my undivided attention, in listening to who this child is becoming, in sharing the enchantment of the season. In truth it gives me no greater joy, but this year was so much harder than I've ever known.

I know it gets one nowhere to write about how stressed they are; we are all stressed. Stress is hard and we all know it. But sometimes stress can be a crippling thing. Some times when you are faced with change upon change upon change the only mantra you find yourself saying is "keep it together". And you try, because you want to feel good again, but that stress is a lingering, permeating sort of thing. You know it's terrible and yucky and yet, there it is. Hovering. Holidays, a new town, new house, new lifestyle, new job, and a palpable, scary loneliness.

To my family and friends, oh my God do I miss you. You have no idea how much I miss you. You have no idea how much I want your familiarity, your loving embrace, your support. You have no idea how scary it often feels to be here in this little town, so far away from everyone I know and love.

In perfect honesty, this move is so much harder than I ever imagined. Ever. It's a whole new beast of change and growth and newness. And yet for as much as I am struggling on a personal level, I have to keep it together. For her, my 5 year old love who trusts me with her world. And for me, the person I sometimes forget needs loving, too.

We live in our choices and today, I live in Salida, Colorado. I look back every single day in complete amazement at how I ended up here. But I did. We did. We can't abandon the adventure before giving it a chance, but sometimes I wonder how it will ever work out.

But it will. It always does, right?

We live in a place that postcards are made from. The beauty is majestic, healing, scary, intense. We arrived, we plotted and we got here.

We are here. And we are okay. Sometimes it just takes a reminding.

"He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!Somehow or other, it came just the same!" 

There's a lot to learn from a child. Her enchantment with this world is the thing that makes it shine so bright. Sweet child, I may be the grown up, but I learn from watching you every single day. 

I am grateful, truly.

The Places that Scare You

In life I want to be open. I want to explore possibilities. I want to share my heart and connect with others. I want to be compassionate, kind, loving. This is who I want to be.

Who I am right now is a scared child. I've had so much change thrust into my life that I have lost sight of my own anchor. I'm in a new town. New job. New people. New house. New school for Ellie. New potential for friends but as we all know, true friendships can only be built through time. I miss my family terribly. I miss my friends. I jumped off the proverbial cliff, landed on my feet, but I'm dazed. Is there where I meant to land?

Each day is wracked with questions of self doubt. "Did I do the right thing?" "Am I doing this right?" "Are you sure this is what you want?" "Are you sure this is what is best for your daughter?"

Earlier this week something happened to my body. It was a terrible, horrible thing. I became wracked with unrelenting nausea and vomiting. I spent the night curled next to the toilet, sweaty but also freezing. By morning I had consumed no water (it wouldn't stay down) and to move my head a mere few inches off the pillow not only racked me with nausea, but it gave me the worst, bone throbbing headache. My husband was hours away in Denver and I was alone with my daughter, as I am for much of the working week. I was too sick to get my child ready for school, too sick to drive. I had to keep her home though the mere act of feeding her was all I could muster. It was one of the loneliest, scariest days I've had in a while. I realized I was on my own island. I had no one to call for help when the thing I craved most was to feel nurtured. It was a really hard day.

There have been a lot of hard days. We are still living out of boxes (we do not close on our new house until next month). Without feeling settled I notice how hard it is to be the kind of mom I want to be, how hard it is to treat myself with genuine love. I feel myself withdrawing into winter, into the dark and cold that starts to permeate. And yet, for her, I can not withdraw. She needs me. Now I see that bravery in the face of change has become a wholly different thing now that I am a mother.

The Places that Scare you is a book I'm reading by Pema Chodron right now. She writes "Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

I do not choose fear but acknowledge that fear is ever present. I've left behind my comfort zone in exploration of new experience. I remind myself this is hard to do. I remind myself that I am being brave. Though I can be scared and feel so small among these mountains, these new faces, this new routine, I also stand here as a woman and a mother. I hold the hand of my child and navigate these waters, charting a course that is not yet known. I remind myself, because it needs reminding, that we are here now, and that we are actually doing the thing we were craving for so long. 

I remind myself that it is okay to feel scared and lonely, but that the things we need will unfold. In time. In trust. I know that we will be okay. I can be a brave warrior as I must for the sweet little girl who calls me Mom.

(Little child you have no idea how hard it can feel to be a grown up.)

a letter to the new owner

Sniff, sniff

This is the part

IF I WANTED A BOAT
I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn't know starboard from port
and wouldn't learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn't keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn't steer.  --Mary Oliver 

Yesterday we packed, exhausting as it was. We filled the uhaul and our car and headed to the mountains were we will now live. Ellie and I drove the car. She spilled something on her shirt and I had no idea where her clothes were. So she just took off her shirt. I watched her from the rear view mirror, my little child who, without a shirt, looked younger and more baby like then I had seen in some time. Suddenly I was overcome with the bigger picture. Me, mother. Her, child, being led by the hand by her parents. Parents, the ones that are supposed to be wise, the ones that are supposed to have the answers.

We are in the new place now. There are boxes everywhere. But today I am overcome with the enormity of it all. I'm overcome with the loneliness of new surroundings. We moved here to be closer to the mountains, because we both agree, (myself and Mike), that they move us on some level that can not necessarily be articulated with words. But today the gorgeous, majestic mountains outside of my door make me feel small. Scared. Questioning why exactly we are doing this. What chord in our reasonings rang so loud that it said "child, you must go to the mountains.".

This is the part where you have to trust the process. This is the part where your faith gets rocked. This is the part where you simply have to put one foot in front of the other and do what's best for the child.

I'm having a very hard day. I miss my friends. I miss the very bare home that we will, come Friday, relinquish ownership of. I miss the life that I lived there. I miss it all. I miss it so acutely that I don't possibly know how this can get better.

And yet it will. I know that it will.

This is part where you have to trust the process.

Life. There are always multiple ways to get to where you are going.

Wherever you go, there you are

I'm going to miss it here. I know this, deep in my heart, even though we are going through the motions of house selling and moving. This house was never big enough, not once the child came. Still, it holds so much of the dearness in my life. We nestled in here perfectly, built community, built a family. Every day it becomes more and more sparse as we transfer our belongings from one home to another. Every day the echo of an empty home becomes more and more apparent, like the soon to be echoes of a life we once lived.

They say life is supposed to be messy, and you're supposed to go out there and get dirty. Moving to the mountains is something I've always wanted to do. Who wouldn't want to live in the place that enchants you the most? Still, are we doing the right thing? Will the stark contrast of urban living and country homesteading be too much for us? I'm scared, yes. Or maybe I'm simply grieving. Or maybe I'm just being human about everything and owning the one skill that I've never been able to master, the skill of making a true, unwavering decision.

I want to live in the mountains because they make my heart feel as though it is home. But in our call to move onward there is another (rather large) pull to move to California. In California life is beautiful, not in a majestic, mountain sense (although that does exist there), but in a salty, ancient, sun bathed sense. And like all things home, my mother and brother live there. I may be a fully grown woman, but I still want to share the beautiful things that life offers with my mother, with the family of my youth, just as my daughter wants to share the beautiful things she finds with me.

We are moving to the mountains because of a housing opportunity. An opportunity to live a life that we can see ourselves living. I wish the California factor wasn't there, because it makes living with a question mark, as though we are trying it on for size, ready to turn it in if the fit isn't quite right. It gives us an out, but it also gives us more family.

I don't know where life will lead us. But I like that the wheels are in motion. I'm scared and sad and elated and excited. I have no idea if the decisions we are making are the right ones. We are jumping off of the proverbial cliff. We are reminding one another that sometimes we need to close our eyes and just say "wheeeee!!!!!!!!!".

Brave face

Dear life,
It's not always easy is it?
We greet and part, kiss on the cheek,
hand in hand slowly slipping away.
We rise when we must
sometimes wondering how we could possibly handle more.
I've seen so many families
locked in the impossible stare of Grief.
Grief, a bold faced beast.

I've never seen a more beautiful organism
than that of family.
Never a more delicate flower
a more peaceful day
a more turbulent storm.
All we have is each other
until we no longer have that.

Dear heart,
I know you are breaking.
I know you are watching your father die.
Letting go of your mother
and Lord help me
saying goodbye to your daughter.
I can't help but wonder
how can our hearts handle so much?

I am but a small voice, one nurse,
doing my best when my best is no where near good enough.
I can't make people stay.
Sometimes, I can't even make the pain go away.
My heart breaks too.
I have to relive my own losses,
grieve for the losses that I will one day endure.
I see it all in you.
I tell you that you are strong.
And you are because you have no other choice.

I will help you through this, because it is what I have chosen to do,
because I've always known on a grand scale
that our lives are meant to go away.
But sometimes grand scales are hard to see
in ordinary moments.
Even though we know that we must,
letting go is the hardest thing we'll ever do.

It's only in facing the great beast of Grief
that I've ever understood
what "brave face" means.
I will keep wearing mine,
and I will gently remove it where thankfully,
I no longer need to be brave.

On being a hospice nurse

Sometimes it's time to go.

Though I have seen countless people die, there still remains something jarring about the visual of death. It still feels unsettling to see bodies that so recently contained souls I had come to know. I just lost my friend and former patient. (I wrote about her earlier in my blog.) I saw her the day before she died. I put off seeing her, knowing her situation had changed, that she was closer to death. My defense mechanism to stay away and not deal kicked in and I dreaded that last visit. But I made myself go. Death had already starting seizing her and her beautiful smile was diminished by a mouth that wouldn't close, eyes that wouldn't move. Still breathing but barely. I told her goodbye.

I try not to get too emotionally invested in my patients. It's my own defense mechanism to staying sane. But the young ones always get me, always. I like my role of being an educator and nurse to people that are dying, but sometimes it's hard to watch it happen. Slowly and steadily people lose their grip. As a nurse I understand this needs to happen. As a human I sometimes want to help them hold on, keep their grip a little tighter, a little longer.

Once someone dies there is a family that goes on grieving. My friend that just died leaves behind her mom. I love her mom and my heart aches at what her new void has become. She is strong. She knows her daughter is free from a deeply battered body. She knows this and yet at the end of the day her daughter has died. And in the history of the world there are countless mothers that have lost children, but you hope and you pray that it is never you.

Sometimes the sadness of my work builds up. For all the BEAUTIFUL connections I get to make with people, I always have to say goodbye. Saying goodbye to this young friend was hard. Seeing death with such regularity can start to feel immense. I see humans for the transient beings that they are. Our bodies will fail us.

If you are my friend you know that sometimes I go away. Sometimes I don't call you back for a long time. Sometimes life can feel very heavy and sometimes at the end of the day I just want to go home and not talk. Thank you for being my friend even when I "go away". Thank you for being there when I always come back.

Life is hard and messy and sometimes kind of ugly. But it's all we've got. I love it so much I can barely contain it. And I hate saying goodbye.

But that's life.

.

You're going to have to let go

Someday something you love will slip away.

Nothing is forever.

You're going to have to let go.

 I mourn places I've lived,
connections and friends and an idea that life could be a certain way.

The world keeps going around,

and people and notions grow further away.

 I want to hold and contain them.

They are sand through my fingers
and closeness becomes subject to a
moment in time's ever fading memory.

But wanting and missing and craving and mourning

are too jealous for this world.

There's no room for such emotional immaturity.

The world marches forward, only forward

Maybe we march together,

or maybe our roads go in opposite directions, as most eventually do.

Hands don't stretch that far.

You're going to have to let go.

My daughter just turned 5

and I still let her sleep in our bed

and I still pick her up and carry her places like a baby.

Picking her up feels like we're hugging,

her sweet, fresh hair, buried into my neck. Stop.
I want to suspend this moment.

Her long dangly legs, heavier by the day

but still, she's my baby.
And my heart aches at the memories of my baby. My baby. She'll always be my baby.

You're going to have to let go.

My hospice patient can no longer walk on her own

and it pisses her off. "I was so independent" she tells me.

I see an old woman starting her journey to death

with a personality that is jamming her feet in the sand as she is pulled closer to death's door.

She was a dancer. A mother of 4. She was widowed for 20 years. She can take care of herself. She's got a can do attititude

Except now she can't

You're going to have to let go.

I've lived in this house for 6 years.

I've been married, suffered a miscarriage and bore the most

miraculous daughter.

No house of mine has ever contained such memories.

I sit here now, aware of how small this space is and how ready we are.

But that's where she learned to walk.

That's where we learned we lost the baby.

That's where we nearly got divorced but didn't,

That's where I said I love you and really really meant it.

It's all in here, it's energetic memory bouncing off the walls. Our walls.

We're going to have to let go.

The wind comes in and dies.

The ocean kisses the shore then leaves it.

The Earth doesn't stop moving.

But there is no mourning.

The Earth is the wise one. 

It has learned to let go. 

The observer.

Sometimes we don't let our brains stop and think.
Sometimes we let the world stop them from connecting back to the themselves, the brains to their owners, the heart to the soul. The observer gets lost in the business.

I do observe, and sometimes the things that I see need time to settle, or need to be reviewed. My brain functions in my own unique way, carrying it's own form of sadness, strength, solace, numbing abilities and renewal. But that is my brain.

My inner observer does nothing but observe. She watches the beautiful face of my nearly 5 year old whenever she can. She notices how enchanted I become. She notices that the swelling in my heart could never be put into words, that no love could ever be documented, only observed and felt. This love carries with it it's own kind of brain activity, and the observer in me notices how worried a human I can be. And she notices how terrible it feels to worry.

My inner observer sits on death beds. I realize this is a strange observation, but I sit at the bedside of the dying for 12 hour stretches. I observe my own empathy, my own occasional indifference. I observe that my empathy is strongest when the family is there, and the person dying becomes more than just a failing body. I observe a curiosity to know that the dying are really great life stars, going out into the ether, becoming untouchable to us. I observe that often, at the end of the long day of watching death come, my heart and brain want to numb themselves and not reflect.

The observer in me knows that I do not always want to observe. Sometimes I don't want to feel things, and sometimes I observe how adept at numbing my own brain I have become. I have to observe this, and not judge this. The observer is the ONLY aspect that does not judge. She only watches. Neither with love or self pity. She just looks on. Notices. And occasionally her noticing catches the attention of the brain, and the noticing and the brain can align, if only for a few moments.

My observer knows that there is an undertone of melancholy that exists in life, in my life. But I do not observe a resistance or an avoidance to the melancholy that creeps in. My observer knows this is a an important time for my brain and my observer to align. Sometimes there is sadness. Sometimes there is joy that is so rich that it makes me nearly sad. It's like tides in a moon cycle; I can observe how easily affected I am. How my brain finds such solace in music or how, when alone, I can allow myself the space to release through tears. My brain knows that without exercise the delicate balance of keeping it together becomes unraveled, and that through physical activity I can renew myself, again and again.

I find it all good, truly, the sad and the joy. The observing and the avoiding. Light can not know itself without dark. Life is full of so much. My observer watches it all and says it's all okay.

She is the wise one.

Fairydust.

I bought some bright red galoshes. This past week they have taken me through complete wonder: splashing through the Pacific Ocean, hiking through the freshly fallen rain filled redwood forests, kicking through tide pools to search for treasure. This world is fantastic. It is bright and colorful and electric and mysterious. I'm a small visitor to a grand place. Last week I tapped into the feeling of enchantment.

I am in love with this world. Really in love. And like any love, you can't contain it. You can't be jealous or resentful or territorial. You just have to love it. Accept it. Be a part of it.

Being surrounded by such beauty brings epiphanies, or rather, helps you to remember things you deep down know to be true. This is it. This. This now. This typing. This reading. This moment. This is it! Now my brain is sprinkled with these beautiful memories of trolloping through redwood forests, but really, it is nothing but fairy dust anymore. You can't contain beautiful moments. You can't package them up and put them on display (well, you can take pictures, okay). The most gracious thing you can do is to be present, for those moments in the tide pools, the moments in quiet solitude, the moments with your friends and family.

Sometimes I think this life is just fairy dust. Our moments are sprinkled behind us. They are shiny, intangible memories.

My job is to stay enchanted.

Portraits of a beautiful person.

In my job I am blessed to know some amazing people. I meet them in an intimate setting: as their nurse as they navigate their terminal illness to the end. It can create personal heartbreak, yes, knowing that the people you grow so fond of are not long for this world, but it all feels worth it. I meet amazing people that do amazing things. I meet people ready to see the end, people fighting their diagnoses, and people that simply live each day to its fullest, with a unique intention that a terminal illness can bring.

I have been blessed with the honor of knowing a woman named Christi. Christi is very much alive, and during my months as her nurse her optimism has been simply enchanting. She was dealt such a crappy card in this life, but she smiles like no one I've ever seen. She is kind, she is appreciative, and really, I have grown quite fond of her. I have returned to my favorite local hospice agency, so she is no longer my patient; she is now my friend. As her friend she has given me permission to photograph her, not only the beautiful, shining self that she is, but the harder, more sick parts that are very much a part of her reality. She does not hide her cancer, it is a part of her now, just as her pain pump that is constantly infusing medicine into her is a part of her. Just as her colostomy and nephrostomy tubes are a part of her, the cane that she must use because her gait is too unsteady to walk without it. Just as the smile that she gives when she sees you is a part of her. The compliments she always doles out, and the attitude that keeps on looking at the positive; these are a part of her. She is multi-facted. She is beautiful. 

Thank you Christi for letting me take these special photos of you and your mama. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life. Thank you for making my life even more meaningful having known you. You are a special human being.