Hey! Hi. It’s been a while. Truth is I’m nervous every time I publish anything, but especially when it’s been a while. No matter how many times I make things or write things…and share them, I feel a little shakey. I mostly wish I didn’t but I have to believe my awkwardness is a legit part of me. I’ll always have the nerves married to the need to share what I create. It’s a crazy-making cocktail and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this shaker.
Rippin’ off the not-posted-in-forever bandaid with some meandering thoughts.
My daughters are in second and fourth grades. I know Ruby won’t say haded (as in I haded to get a snack) much longer. And I know Margot’s talk of crushes will soon be more real than imagined. My eldest seems so grown up and then she wears a cat ear headband every day and I realize she is totally a little girl. My first vivid memories are from when I was around their ages. It’s wild to think that their experiences so far will be but a fuzzy foundation of the stories they tell; we never really know what will stick and become the bedrock of their childhood. All the ages have felt significant but right now feels especially so. Their earliest memories of me will be as I am now. That’s nuts.
A few of my earliest memories: my grandma braiding my hair, my other grandma spritzing Chanel No. 5 on her wrists and then rubbing her wrists on her neck, a family friend holding me under water in a pool because he thought it was funny, seeing the dead bodies of a litter of kittens my neighbor drown in a bag in the ditch, learning to skip with my dad at the zoo, saving turtles from the middle of a freeway with my mom, Mrs. Ryding (first grade) who only scowled and would never ever call on me no matter how desperately I wanted to be acknowledged, Mrs. Rasmus (second grade) who loved so big that every kid felt like the favorite every day, standing in the hall line and my fourth grade friend told me her uncle sexually assaulted her, that killer jump rope routine that landed Kristi and I first place in the talent show, gleefully eating a stick of butter under the Thanksgiving table with my brother, my first big bike wreck behind Courtney’s house.
Margot and I had a disagreement a few weeks back. We talked it out and there was one moment that really struck her, she’s mentioned it several times since. In response to her legit frustration with me, I noticed, “This is your first time being nine years-old and this is my first time parenting a nine year-old. We are both doing the best we can, growing together.” I was saying it to her but also to me. Sometimes we need to melt into our humanness. Release the pressure valve and just be messy, fallible humans.
I believe my current most important mothering charge/challenge is to give them my full attention when they are opening up. To hand myself over, silently communicating to them that there is no place I’d rather be. It’ll seemingly happen out of nowhere when one of my daughters leans her cheek into the soft landing of my waist and unloads her thoughts. I will feel a divine tap on my shoulder to stop everything and give into the lean. Of course, it is not always convenient and I don’t always react as gracefully as I wish I did. Like all important things I am learning, I practice. I practice listening without judgement or nudging or anything other than empathy. Feeling those feelings. Maybe if they know now (when the talk is about goldfish death and birthday party invitations and the nuance of short shorts) that we can talk about everything, that nothing is off-limits and everything is entrusted to my heart, it will also be true later (when the talk is about body image and drugs at the party and sex). Maybe.
Our new tent has built-in LED lights! We love it.
A friend died last week and as I was on facebook scrolling through photos of her and words by those who loved her, there was this one post by Nina Alviar that grabbed me. I love it when words stick to my bones.
Hug everyone who wants one, and don’t let go first. Make the thing. Go to places you want to see. Eat good food. Use your body for all the fun stuff it can do. Do something for someone else before they ask you to. Put it on the line. Find beauty in the mundane. Stop complaining and just find the beauty. Be bold and unashamed and live completely.
Andy and I went to California last weekend to be with friends and listen to some live music. In a sea of concert-goers by the calm ocean, the other ocean was kicking up waves that would swallow homes. One couldn’t help but get twisted up in the soul-rhythm of humanity, the flesh of the earth in perfection and pain, the fragrance of mortality amid our eager, ecstatic cheers for Eddie Vedder, for this life. All under the same moon.
The Montana sky has been thick, saturated by the smoke of surrounding wildfires since mid-August. Our windows stay shut, our eyes burn, our heads ache. The sun faithfully rises every morning, a glowing red orb with light so dim that we have lost our shadows, that we can just stare straight at the sun because it is a flat, opaque shape — like a circular piece of red construction paper cut out and pasted to the atmosphere. The tomatoes are giving up, their leaves curling into copper shrines to summer.
September 5, 2017, 8:30am
August 18, 2017 / Lolo Peak Fire flares up
August 14, 2017 / the hill behind our home catches fire
August 9, 2017 / When it was first getting bad but we could still see the mountains. We had a few weeks of very poor – zero mountain visibility.
The fires will extinguish. And we will all appreciate clean air more than ever before. This weekend, we will drive a few hours to a wedding and the temp is supposed to dip to 21ºF. It is supposed to snow. Holy shit, snow.
It feels like a long time ago that we camped under the milky way, memorized the negative shapes created by mountainscapes, ran up the hill just happy to have lungs doing their thing. It hasn’t been that long. It’s just that the smoke has stretched the last month’s time into a hazy, itchy fog.
Yesterday Ruby felt conflicted about whether or not she wanted to go to the neighbors to play on the bike obstacle course. She clipped her purple leopard helmet strap under her chin and sobbed as she said, “I really want to go but I don’t! I just don’t!” I hugged her. “It’s just that they are all having fun…and what if I don’t? I’m the littlest. What if I get there and I feel like I can’t keep up?”
Shit, my love. That self-doubtful beast stays alive in girls and women way too long. We have to just keep showing up and speaking up. On bikes and in board meetings.
Remembering my current favorite mantra, I offered: “What if you just begin? And if it doesn’t feel good you change it up? Come home and make dinner with me or read a book or bike by yourself…?”
Anything was ok, including continuing to cry in the field. She decided, symmetrically wiping her tears with her pointer finger knuckles and used her strong legs to bike into the unknown, blond hair waving me goodbye.
Just begin.
It’s so easy to get ahead of ourselves and feel like the choice we’re making is for a day or a decade. When, really, it’s just one choice until the next one.
Today, the fawn’s spots are fading and the browning garden is muscling out the last fruit. The air is cooling and the fires seem to be more of a rumble than a roar. The creek is lazy, moving around rocks, instead of over. We make bread and soup. We put up peaches and corn and collect kohlrabi the size of my head. Grasshoppers leap from straw colored grass shafts, knocking seeds into the dry wind. It is supposed to rain this week. Air is shifting, kids are biking, earth is orbiting, people are making art, glaciers are melting, today is happening, tomorrow is coming. Everything is just beginning.
43 Comments
Oh how I love Nina Alviar. She literally SAVED us when we were brand new parents and drowning in the seeming insanity of the fourth trimester. Such an amazing woman.
So happy to see you back and read your words 🙂
Happy tears of gratitude for this beautifully eloquent post. Thanks for sharing 💗
What a lovely post, your last paragraph had me feeling and smelling your words, remembering when my children were that age and my own summer outdoor childhood , too. The part about listening hard to your children when they open up to you , w/o judgement,
really rang true for me. I can tell you that it will serve you all well when they are older… when they come to you and tell you there’s a party with underage drinking in the works or a friend has hurt them or maybe they should drop that hard class in college that they really love , but they are doubting thier abilities. Just being able to talk it out with you , trusted parent who may be gulping back unsolicited advice or a scolding, will enable them to make the right choice all on their (most of the time!). They usually innately know what the right decision is and your silent listening speaks volumes of advice to them as they think it thru, out loud, with you.
Okay– this is my first time posting– I’m such a lurker! I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your writing. So many of the blogs I used to enjoy post new content regularly, multiple times a week. However, it’s not the authentic writing it was in the beginning and has gotten so overly curated and polished and ad-driven. The charm and authenticity is gone completely.
I can always count on your blog to be YOUR voice and the content driven by your own experiences and observations– not by sponsors or the latest blog trends and styles. I would much rather wait for one authentic post than to get a crappy, shallow one every day. Thank you, thank you, and please don’t ever change!
P.S…. This particular post really spoke to me as I struggled this week to parent my two daughters, always second guessing myself and always hoping/trying/praying to be a better, wiser parent. Thanks for reminding me that the struggle is real for all of us!
This is magnificent. I adore your writing and it hits home every time. I have 2 children, 2 years apart (nearly 3 and nearly 5.) Sometimes I dread them getting older, but I love reading about your adventures and your mothering and your life – and it all gives me inspiration and poignant reminders and… something. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I feel like it’s just written exactly for me and I love it. Beautiful! <3
It’s so easy to get ahead of ourselves and feel like the choice we’re making is for a day or a decade. When, really, it’s just one choice until the next one.
Great words….I have a friend to share them with. 💜
I’ve really missed your posts xx
Have missed your posts, but sure can understand how busy summers get (as well as life). LOVE your words about it being just one choice until the next one, I will continue to share that. Your photos capture the very essence of summer. Thanks for sharing, and always look forward to seeing a new post.
Thank you for these words. So well written. Your disagreement with your oldest made me think…Have you heard of the nine year change? It marks a developmental shift in the child. There is also one at age 6 and 12. The article below has a bunch of resources if you’re interested in reading more. It has helped me a lot as a teacher to understand what children are going through in the different stages of development.
http://www.themagiconions.com/2016/03/the-nine-year-change-discovering-waldorf-education.html
I don’t care how long it’s been I love your writing. I think ive been readibg from nearly the beginning when mine were tiny babies too. I hope your little space on the internet stays so I can peek at your lovely creative life and watch you all grow. It inspires me so! This post spoke to me as a mum of two boys one is 7 and one who is 9. You are so right. It’s our first time being a mum to that age too. It reminded me to stop trying to do everything and just listen xxx
Just beautiful!
I’m so glad you decided to begin this post. What excellent advice for all of us. Thank you for sharing your words.
I can tell by the content of this post, even though you may not have written lately, you sure have been thinking! A beautiful heartfelt post Burb one that every mother, no matter what her age is, can reflect on both past and present.
I love you…Mom
Thank you for putting words to so many of my feelings–beautiful writing!
Your writing and observing and photo capturing are all so rich. I feel lucky to get to take them all in and add them to my life. Thank you.
And oh reading Ruby’s words about whether to bike or not. Squeezed my heart to recognize such a familiar feeling. How incredible that she can articulate it and that you can support her through it. That self-doubt is my regular companion these days and I sure hate it.
Ah the self-doubt! It’s just in us. Necessary I suppose – to keep our egos in check, to push us to consider other options – but it’s kind of an asshole. Hugs to you, you hands-full-times-two mama. xo
Niki:
Never doubt your writing or your photos. You are killing it! It is so great to watch your family evolve thru your blog posts. Seeing the email from Dig This Chick is always a highlight of my day. Thanks!
Thank you for this little slice of truth and beauty this morning.
you don’t post that often, and i comment even less. i don’t know you, and i’m even more anonymous to you. yet i still feel a personal connection, a pull, to a woman i would enjoy having as a sister or neighbor. your photos are often breathtaking, awesome in the true sense of the word, and are always like a package of little presents. and the writing … what a great way to learn about life in another part of the world, and your posts always inspire me to enjoy and do better in mine. thank you. –suz in ohio
Sigh…I’ve missed you, Nici.
I sure love you. This is beautiful. xo
Good lordy, thank you for all of that! You put the richness into my day today.
So glad to see you back, Nici. I was wondering if I had somehow been missing posts. Your photos are beautiful and your girls so grown up.
Thanks for taking the plunge back into the writing world, and the scary part of sharing/feeling vulnerable. You’re a wonderful writer, I think that’s what come through for all of us. Maybe the fear is because you write from the heart.
This is just so good. So good. I’m so grateful for your posts.
I am glad that you ‘just began’ as I missed reading your blog posts – such a treat when a new one pops up. Beautiful and inspiring words and photos, as always.
Damn, that was good. Thank you for writing, for sharing.
Holy crap! I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear words like these. Thanks for all the reminders of living life. Don’t stay away so long!
Beautiful Nici. You say it so well, so meaningfully. Glad your back writing !
Miss you and Love you,
Aunt Penne
Your words “stick to my bones.” Thank you!
This post is a gift to me today. Thank you! And my husband knows that if I am to go into the night before he does, he should play Eddie Vedder for me as I move from one world to the next. His voice gets me every time. I highly recommend his ukulele album.
What a lovely post. Some of your most beautiful and thoughtful writing yet (and the bar was already very high!). Hope all is well with all of you. Thank you so much for sharing your words with us – we are grateful!
Aaaaannd…exhale. Thank you.
You’re the best! Your words are like a warm blanket! Thank you.
I adore your writing about as much as I adore my camp blanket! Both create spaces that I adore. Thank you!
Awe, love that! Thank you. 🙂
This post and your words are leaving me with a lot of feelings, but ones I can’t quite name at 2am after a night of drinking.
My heart aches that our last visit to Missoula was smokey and short lived, as we decided to head back westward instead of on a backpacking trip (which was the best decision, as just a couple days later fires sprang up and surrounded where we would be). It aches because it was short, but it also aches because I know the fires and smoke got worse after we left.
I’m so happy to be back in Seattle, but your photos make me so homesick for the place I lived the longest (as a Coast Guard brat, moving to Montana was a big deal for me because it was my first land-locked state. This past December I passed a milestone only I seemed to care about – I lived in Missoula longer than I had ever lived anywhere for a continual amount of time – a distinction previously held by my middle school years in Virginia.).
Growing up is hard and wonderful. I appreciate the time and care you take to listen to your girls. The small, insignificant-in-the-long-run things need to be listened to and heard before the important big things can ever be said.
Thank you for these simple words of the soul. They reached me today to give me courage in my hopeless worries of mothering. XOXO
You’re not alone in the hopeless worries, mama. It’s real stuff. xo
Hello,
I missed your posts and always love reading them.
i too have self doubt, but you cant make it stop you.
love from switzerland
Isabelle
True. Can’t make it stop us. I saw this yesterday:
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
― Joan Didion
I needed this today…glad I clicked your link in my favorites and grateful you took time to share your thoughts.
All the important stuff…I love reading your posts but they make me cry too xx