{ A Month of Thanks } Our little house

Peace - that was the other name for home.  

~Kathleen Norris

I am so thankful for this little house of ours.

When we made the heart wrenching decision to leave our Atlanta home and the dear people with whom we had shared life for eight years in community, not to mention the dozens of other beloved folks that were instrumental in shaping us as individuals and as a family, it was done with some trepidation.  What would life on the outside of our Atlanta bubble look like?  What would we look like?  Where would we land?

It turned out that we landed much further away from the family that we had migrated towards.  But that was where the job was and there are times when you have to take the hand your dealt and pray that you make the best of it.

It all happened so quickly. The job offer, the scurrying to find housing, trying to figure out where one should settle when they know absolutely nothing about the city to which they are moving, calculating what we could actually afford compared to what the bank said we could afford....

And then, on one of those days when there is already too much to do than can be accomplished, John happened to look on Craig's List.  And there it was.

Our house.

I can remember the day he called me on his cell phone.  I was in St. Louis and he was stealthily creeping around the land and house, trying to get a better sense of what buying this antique might mean and trying to describe it to me, all the while, hoping that no one spotted him and called the authorities.

But, kind of like I did on that first date, I knew somewhere deep down, that this was going to be our house.

And so it was.

And yes, owning a 175 year old house often provides us with constant entertainment, as well as aggravation, but it is such a blessing to be the caretakers of this piece of dirt and this piling of stones.  To own a bit of history and to be adding to its story.  Again, I will say it...

It is a blessing.

We have no idea how long we will be here in this particular house.  Life happens and new opportunities present themselves and you just never no what is coming down the pike.  

But it is my sincere prayer that as long as we are here, living out our days and nights, we continue to make this house a home.  

That we would infuse this space with grace and forgiveness and joy and light.

And above all, that we would make this a house of love, made real.

Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other.  It is the place of confidence.  It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts.  It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.  ~Frederick W. Robertson

{ A Month of Thanks } Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth

There is no happiness like mine.

I have been eating poetry.

~Mark Strand, "Eating Poetry," Reasons for Moving, 1968

I am so thankful for this new ritual of ours.  

The heating of the kettle, the clinking spoons in the mugs, the sweet crumbs on our lips and the delightful belly laugh as we read another nonsense poem...it is all so wonderful.   I doubted its power, this "tea-time and poetry," especially with two boys, but I am overjoyed to be so very wrong.  Sure, the warm drinks and sweet confections did their magical wooing but the word plays and rhymes kept them at the table.  And now there are favorite poems and there are recitations of verses, delivered at just the right moment and it

is. all. so. wonderful.

I will let the poems do the rest of the talking.

Soliloquy of a Tortoise

on Revisiting

the Lettuce Beds

After an Interval of One Hour

While Supposed

to Be

Sleeping

in a Clump

of Blue Hollyhocks

One cannot have enough

of this delicious stuff!

-E.V. Rieu

----------------------------------------------

Chocolate

Chocolate

                                                                                                 i

                                                                love 

                                                                                       you so

                                                                                                 i

                                                                 want

                                                                         to

                                                                  marry

                                                                         you

                                                                          and

                                                            live

                                                                forever

                                                                            in the

                                                                            flavor

                                                             of your

                                                               brown

-Arnold Adoff

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{ A Month of Thanks) My dog

With eye upraised his master's look to scan,

The joy, the solace, and the aid of man:

The rich man's guardian and the poor man's friend,

The only creature faithful to the end.

George Crabbe

I wanted you for a very long time.

You see, it's very hard for me to to successfully carry out this thing called life without a four-legged, hairy animal at my side.
It seems that dogs help define me as a person so, the years that I was without a dog (college, single, early marriage)...well, the memories of those times will always have a dog-shaped hole in them.

But here you are, in all your Australian Shepherd hairyness and herdingness, your Labrador chewiness, and your Beaglesque diggy/sniffiness.   And who could have imagined that the sum would be greater than the parts? I sure didn't.  Just a little over two years ago, if you had asked me what I was thinking about you...well, you would have found that the praise and adoration didn't come all that quickly.

I almost lost my mind over you.

But, who you were, deep beneath the trouble you caused and the havoc you wreaked, well, that is what saved you.

Because, at the end of the day, you don't seem to remember that I screamed at you that morning or that we forgot to feed you until noon or that we shoo you off of the bed just as you've dozed off.  You just choose to leap for joy at our return, lick the tears from our faces and bark at all of those horrible vicious squirrels that are trying to take over our yard.

All of that and

when we are walking freely, taking in the air and the sunshine and all that is glorious about this world, well

   you

      always

         wait

            for

              me.

I am joy in a wooly coat, come to dance into your life, to make you laugh!

Julie Church

{ A Month of Thanks } Reading aloud

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, 

Go throw your TV set away, 

And in its place you can install, 

A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

— Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

He's sitting in the big blue chair, the one that has held all of us at one time or another, and sometimes, two or three of of us together.  The lamps glow softly, holding the darkness at bay, and the blankets are pulled close around wiggling toes.  Eyes look slowly about the room, focusing and blurring as they listen to the word pictures being painted by his deep and easy voice.  We are all at attention, despite our relaxed poses.  

We travel the world, traipse through time, try on different personas, imagine new beginnings and weep at sad endings.  We laugh, we muse, we sigh, we gasp.

And the most beautiful part of it all...we do it together.

This daily ritual has become sacred.  Despite their growing minds and bodies and no matter that some of them can read all by themselves, this hallowed time is kept.

"You may have tangible wealth untold.  

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. 

Richer than I you can never be – 

I had a mother who read to me."

— Strickland Gillilan

{ A Month of Thanks } a slight pause

Please be patient with me as I take a break this weekend to go live out my thanksgiving...

I will be spending time with my parents, my husband and my boys
embracing the great joy
that is my life.

{ A Month of Thanks } Creation

My whole body is covered with eyes:   
Behold it!
Be without fear!
I see all around.

-Eskimo poem

Some days, it overwhelms me, all of this beauty.  I will walk in the woods or bend down to touch flowers or stand on toes tipped to feed birds and, suddenly, it will fall in on me.

The beauty.

Crashing and swirling and whistling through my fingertips.  And a whirlwind spins in my core, lifting my soul and my eyes upward, singing with music of the spheres.

He is here.  Always, He is here.

His mark is everywhere.

Everywhere, evidence of the shaping, the molding, the creating.

His tenderness.  His strength.  His fury.  His glory.

All of it melting and blending, one into another, boldly, then quietly.  Brazen, then hushed.

And in everything, a rhythm.

For creation is the very heartbeat of God, pulsating with ripples and shimmers and gold dust.

"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

-John Muir

{ A Month of Thanks } Homeschooling

“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less slowly. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggest that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of colored paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.”  

~Anne Sullivan

I'm thankful for...

sun dappled afternoons spent exploring the woods with a boy and a dog...

being surprised by new skills acquired and fears conquered...

lifelong friendships forged because of and despite all of the being together...

discovering snow covered islands in the middle of big muddy rivers and, maybe, just maybe, spotting an eagle, too...

listening to the real trumpet of a swan after having cherished the idea between the pages of a book...

building and tearing down...

time enough to sit and realize that the jagged edges of a cut tree stump look just like a city skyline...

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

-John Dewey