A perfect day

I don't usually like Sundays. They seem too squished from beginning to end. I spend too much time thinking about Monday, and often wish I was born with multiple hands to accomplish everything I see that needs doing. Sundays bring that out in me. Everywhere I look, I see a project. Sundays are usually a great day for a local outing away from the house and all the work that beckons.

I thought yesterday would be a pretty awful day. I didn't sleep well, waking often and pacing the house, getting drinks of water, checking on Cora, falling asleep to too-busy dreams. But in the morning the sun was shining and the day beckoned with possibility. We decided to go out to breakfast, but as soon as I checked our bank balance and saw how much we've managed to spend over the past couple of weeks on birthdays, outings, dates, babysitters, and $400 garden building materials (including soil and compost), I dug in my heels and made a huge breakfast with all the yummy produce in our refrigerator--scrambled eggs with red peppers, onions, and mushrooms, served over fresh spinach with grated cheddar, roasted potatoes with paprika, toast with butter and blueberry jam, fresh fruit, and coffee and tea.

While I whisked the eggs and roasted the potatoes, Brian and Cora played with Play-Doh at the kitchen table. They made trains with wheels and tracks, chug-chug-chugging along.

It was so much better than waiting in line. The sun streamed through our kitchen window. I listened to them talk animatedly. We sat down and ate and listened to each other. Somehow, breakfast turned out perfectly--crispy golden potatoes, acres of flavorful eggs, just-browned toast. All of us agreed it ended up being so much better than going out. And we meant it.

Afterward, Brian played the guitar and then he and Cora headed out to the backyard to pick spots for our garden beds, and replant our indoor plants.

I started cleaning. You might not think this sounds like the beginnings of a perfect day, but hear me out. I cleaned the baseboards, dusted all the furniture, vacuumed under the beds and sofa and chairs, watered the plants, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. Meanwhile, every time I looked outside I saw Brian and Cora in different parts of our yard, bending over to study bugs, picking flowers, spinning and falling down, transplanting our potted plants and sifting through dirt, scoping out areas for the garden while Cora pointed and offered her opinions. Finally they took a break and rested in Adirondack chairs while studying the bird house and searching for bumblebees.

The windows were open, a breeze wafted through the house, everything started to feel organized and clean. By the time I was finished, there wasn't any more dust. I went outside and played with Cora while Brian started building the raised garden beds. I kept getting distracted by the clear view of the Cascades etched in the sky, still partly covered with snow. But in our yard bluebells, tulips, and daffodils are pushing up and blooming everywhere.

Soon, the neighbor kids came out in their backyard to see what we were up to. Shortly after, a little girl who lives behind us climbed the fence and we all started playing soccer in our backyard. Then we migrated over to our neighbor's super cool play structure and zipped down slides and swung on swings and played a hilarious game of T-ball. Meanwhile, just over the fence, I was able to see Brian constructing our cedar gardens.

By lunchtime we were filled with fresh air and sunshine.

It is spring here. It really is. It feels amazing.

We ate an easy lunch of leftovers and put Cora down for a nap, and then Brian and I spent several hours working in the yard. He finished the beds and I raked the yard and swept the patio and just generally looked up at the sky and felt happy. There's still a lot to do out there. There always is. We don't bother with the yard during the winter. The lawn doesn't grow, but the weeds do. We have some major weeding to do. Major. But I'm excited about it.

The garden beds are arranged and ready to go. We just need to fill them with dirt and compost and plant some seeds. I went to bed reading my gardening book. I'm going to start with some of the easy seeds that don't require indoor starts: carrots, bush beans, radishes, corn, spinach, yellow squash, and potatoes. This week I'll start the ones indoors that need it: cauliflower, lettuce, onions...and a bunch more that I haven't decided on yet. Hopefully more greens, but I can't remember the growing cycle for those.

The apple and pear trees are starting to bloom. I'm worried we didn't prune them back last year and thus may have another year of low fruit production, which makes me sad when I think about all the lost apple sauce and apple butter and apple pies. But we'll see. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Today, Cora and I sat in the sun and had a picnic, then wandered around barefoot, feeling springy wet grass and moss beneath our feet, and puttering around in the raised beds. We spent a long time listening to the birds and filling the bird feeder with seeds, then sitting quietly on our blanket waiting for them to come.

"Shhh, Mommy. The birds are coming," said Cora.
"Yes, I'll be very quiet," I whispered.
"I maybe see a bird!" she shouted. Then, "Shhh, Mommy. Quiet. The birds are shy."

We sat like that for a long time. The sun made us drowsy. Now she's sleeping and I'm going to start writing.

Wanderlust

Lately I've been more enamored with the dreaming portion of life than the stuff of it. And all that dreaming is beginning to make me feel like we need a big change, that perhaps there is something on the horizon, something exciting and different and profound just waiting to be discovered. Maybe it's a state of mind, maybe I'm supposed to be looking inward instead of wanting to change external circumstances. That's possible. But I feel change singing in my bones, a Spring-soaked sense of discovery around the corner, a kind of transformation waiting for B and I and our sweet child. I don't know what that means, I just know that I feel like my thoughts of change are getting so strong I wouldn't be surprised if an onlooker might see them shooting out from my brow and spiraling into the ether and concocting a new existence for us, one that embraces everything and is constantly grateful and connected.

I just don't feel all that connected to stuff here lately. I look out our back window while I write, and I think--oh yes, I shall plant a garden. I imagine constructing the pieces for raised beds and tending to the vegetables with Cora, and it makes me happy. And then we visit Vashon with our in-laws and we go to the beach. Suddenly I am watching Cora and her cousin playing in the sand, dancing around merrily with arms spinning against a blue sky, and then diving into the sand to gather handfuls of rocks before throwing them into the water. I take a deep breath. I look out at the waves. I feel salt air on my face. I imagine weekends like this. I feel life zip through my veins.

Last week when I was feeling the most conflicted with our lives and in love with the possibility of an island, I read a beautiful March 12th post by Shauna Ahern. It encapsulates many of the things I imagine about Vashon.

I also dream of a farmhouse in the woods in Mendocino. Therein lies an alternate existence, one that makes me feel excited and thrilled, where we breathe brightness into our soul all day long, where we hike all the time and explore sunny days.

B has had asthma lately, I think that's a part of why I am feeling this way. I am convinced it's because he is stressed and feels constrained. I think he needs more sun. I think he needs a soulful life, and I'm worried he doesn't get enough of that in our current one.

I think many of us spend far too many days of our lives feeling satisfied but faintly befuddled, like we're wondering why the shoes we're wearing don't fit because surely they should--they're well made, they were purchased with care and thought, they are what everyone else is wearing, so what's the problem?

Sometimes there's an alternate life--a journey and a thousand discoveries--waiting for us, but we never listen to it calling our name. It's so much easier to keep on doing what we're doing. I question this.

And so today, for the moment, I am going to put on my running shoes and take Cora on a long walk along the Burke-Gilman trail. I am going to jog just a little even though my knee doesn't want me to (a longtime injury). And I am going to do everything in my power to conjure the sun for just a few minutes. I am going to meet B at Green Lake after he gets off work and we're going to pump cool air into our lungs and walk like there's reason to. And I am going to take all these thoughts of change and transformation and consider what it all means. Why do I spend my days considering alternate realities? There's plenty to keep me in the moment, that's for sure. I will allow the possibility that maybe, yes, maybe we are on the precipice of something new. Maybe our wanderlust deserves a hearing. Maybe it's time for a change: either a change in location, or a change in mindset, or a lifestyle switch that is significant enough to be noticed.

And I am going to be infinitely grateful for the influence of our beautiful little lass: backpack on, shoes on, charging forward with zeal, a huge smile announcing herself to the world.

Wa-wa on a spring day

I have many childhood memories of making boats out of leaves and sticks and floating them down streams and ditches or setting them off to sea in the rocky waters of Puget Sound. Yesterday we celebrated the sun by walking down to the Ravenna trails and playing in the creek. Have you ever spent the afternoon watching water sparkle beneath a spring sun, the kind of northwest rays that are lemony and transparent and filter through leaves in the most gentle of ways? And then looked at the entire scene and wondered what it was like to look at it for the first time ever in your life? I don't think I'll ever stop getting all choked up and amazed when I see the curiosity and excitement on Cora's face when she sees something for the first time.

"Wa-wa!" she shrieked, pointing at the creek.
"Yes, it's water. It's a creek! Let's make boats and float them in the water!"
"Wa-wa!" she shrieked again, just to make sure I heard her. "Wa-wa!"
"Yes, water! Let's make boats!"

While I was desperately excited about reliving childhood memories, I think it's safe to say that Cora could have stood at the little wooden fence and peered over for upwards of an hour, staring at the water dance merrily through the canyon and rustle under trees and leaves. I ended up coaxing her toward the water's edge with a variety of items in my hands: branch bits, rocks, cedar boughs, and dried leaves. We stood on a tiny bridge and crouched low to the ground, sometimes lying on our bellies and looking over, while we dropped items into the water below, waving bye-bye to each one as it was pulled away. She was smitten. I was transported to carefree days alone and free, or with a friend or my dog or my sister, wandering through the day with my heart high in my chest and a thousand new discoveries around the bend. I remember great efforts going into the making of boats, searching for the perfect flat branch and broad leaf, then sending it off with a pine cone sailor and my blessings for safe travels.

The Ravenna trails have been so well renovated in the past few years that they are truly an outdoorsy paradise in the midst of a relatively urban circle of neighborhoods. We ended up climbing a new trail out of the canyon and managed to arrive in one piece. Remind me not to try to carry a small child in my arms while pulling a too-heavy stroller and climbing exceedingly steep, muddy paths. I had hilarious visions of being that sad little headline in the local news: Mom and Child In Critical Condition After Hiking Local Hill. We were rewarded with such a sweet little patch of neighborhood streets, though, that it was well worth the trip. I wandered through the quietest, most lovely little spot in Seattle and ended up at the end of a dead-end street where I found a rope swing jerry-rigged over the canyon. Oh, the memories! You must have them, too--there are few children who can't remember one or more blood-curdling journeys high in the sky, the world dropping away while friends cheer in the background. I had half a mind to park Cora on the curb and take a few flights myself.

At the end of the day, I told B that if we lived in a slightly more welcoming climate, I'm not sure Cora and I would ever be inside. I think we would just fill our backpacks with snacks and head out on long adventures, coming back for naps and necessary toddler rejuvenation. I truly can't think of a better way to live than to be outside all day, breathing fresh air and dipping fingers in cool, clear water. We spent all day yesterday singing our praises of spring, looking at crocuses and daffodils and green moss and willow tree buds. It made me wish for the farm house in the woods that I dream about nearly every day...on acreage, surrounded by creek beds and birds and gardens, with a playhouse and a giant garden, and a ton of kids circling the lawn and shrieking at the top of their lungs. I continue to have an escapist obsession with Vashon Island and northern California, both, and can get all woozy and weepy with my vision of our lives in either place.

As an aside, I wish I had a picture to post of the trails. I've decided my blog looks really naked. I'm going to make an effort to add pictures, which will be a fun addition to the process. Maybe I'll even come out of the closet a bit more and post a picture of myself, or even send my blog to more people. I've been relatively anonymous about the whole thing, but have been thinking it would be fun to share these silly days and anecdotes with more people.