honorary sister and a give~away!

today i’m an honorary shutter sister! check out the shutter sister website to see my guest post! if you leave a comment over there you could win yourself a free subscription to JPG magazine!

so, in the spirit of give-aways (and in honor of the photo love that is shared through shutter sisters) if you leave me a comment here on the~spirit~of~the~river  you could win a 2009 calendar of my own photography! how exciting, it’s my very first give-away! there’s only one calendar so there’ll be just one lucky winner announced Dec. 31st.

simply leave me a comment on this post (by midnight Dec. 30th) and river will pull a lucky winner out of his hat  to receive a calendar for the new year!

good night

today was a good day, a day of handing papers over for signatures. today was a day of things officially starting to be over. it was a day of irony and tears and laughter. it was the official start to a new beginning.

today i packed my bags, my unwrapped gifts, my toothbrush, and my laptop into a suitcase and wondered how i’d make it all fit. today i cleaned the house while i chatted on the phone. today i was finally excited about flying with river tomorrow. (tomorrow!!)

i always come back to the first time i flew with him. when we were both just four months old, fresh and scared, when i held him on my chest with one hand and gripped my one way ticket with the other. when we blinked at each other in silence on the curbside drop-off. maybe in that moment we could see where we were heading. where we’d come to be. “alrighty then. bye now.”

i can’t believe how far we’ve come.

we’ve come through a long week, we’ve come through a long day. we’ve come through so much. and it seems so fitting that we are insync with the solstice. the darkest hour, the darkest time of year is now. with nothing to look forward to but more light. it’s bound to come, knowing this to be true just as i know the sun rises everyday.

so, happy solstice to you all. may you sit with the darkness and know that it’s not forever. enjoy your holiday season, i’ll be back soon enough!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

uber: 

The ultimate, above all, the best, top, something that nothing is better than.

i’ve been sitting on this. relishing in it, and not quite knowing how to share. dare i say this is my first blog award? it’s very exciting. and i’m glad i have the time now to pass it along to those amazing blogs i read as well.

thank you, elizabeth, for the nomination. for thinking of me, and thinking of me as lyrical… it means so much to me.

and how it goes, i shall pass this award on to five other bloggers who rock my world, in no particular order:

Woman in a Window for the words, the humor, the wit that weaves the stories i love to read, the stories i wish i wrote. and because i can’t get enough, i knock at her back door too.

Jena for the positivity i gather at her place, and uncanny sense of synchronicity between lives. 

Kristin for inspiring photography and a zest for life that is simply contagious.

Conversemomma for the truth and honesty that she insists upon, it is anything but ordinary.

Suzanne for the kickass strength i hope to aquire just by reading her words, and  for the fire in me i hope to fan into flame.

Now, these bloggers need to do the following (only if they want):

1. Put the logo (award image) on your blog or in a post.
2. Nominate 5  blogs that you feel are Uber Amazing.
3. Link to the person who gave you the award (which would be me, of course).

meredith, where are you?

he’s talking in his sleep. clear as day. dark as night from down the hall. i swear i’ll hear him creak the door open and come shuffling down the hallway in his barefeet rubbing his eyes.

“meredith, where are you?!” he calls this out into darkness. then silence.

i almost go to him but then realize he’s dreaming and not infact awake. he never calls me meredith, and it jars me a little. even in his dreams, he’s keeping check on momma. even in his dreams, he just a little bit worried. i sit back down, in the house alone, and wonder to myself “where am i?”

i am here, now.

i am packing and sorting, and it’s proving much more difficult and draining than imagined. but i am finding that i am much stronger than i thought.

i am working and writing and wondering.

i am driving over bridges in the fog, trying my hardest not to burn those bridges, but at the same time remaining true to myself.

i am filling out pages and pages of legal paperwork. untangling a mess of strings that wound themselves into a ball 13 years deep.

i am growing grey hairs as i shift into a new role and realize i don’t make a very good working mother.

i am watching geese fly in formation over the colorado river, knowing where they’re going just by following their natural rhythm and instinct.

i am packing for the east coast, for a quick and very much needed visit to see and embrace family.

i am standing in my empty apartment on my lunch break, envisioning the future. summoning it to me with vision and love because i’m ready to be there already.

i am seeing beauty in the transformation.

slowly, ever so slowly.

transplant

i am pulling up my own roots. shaking off the clumps of dirt that cling to them. like mud on my hemline, they drop away with each step.

the windowsill in my mother’s kitchen is reserved for cuttings. for as long as i can remember, tiny glass bottles with thin necks lined the window over the sink where she washed her hands, set her rings, did the dishes.

if i were more of a gardener i’d know the story of african violets in our family. if i hadn’t been the tortured teen i might have seen the importance and beauty of this green thumb. but my thumb is black and all i know is that my grammy always had african violets. when she moved in with us when i was 12 all her plants came with her too.

if i were more of a storyteller i’d know the history and marvel in the hows, but all i know is that my grammy passed away 11 years later and my mom still has her african violets. i know that they are grandmothers and aunts and sisters and cousins to each other. every year my mom would take cuttings from my grammy’s plants and put them in these jars.

grow, grow you delicate babies.

there on the windowsill they would grow. tiny at first, as if they were growing only because they were being seen and feeling love. white baby roots like fine hair, clear as day in the sun. suddenly all at once they’d have taken root and outgrown their home. they’d need transplanting. and i’d come down for cereal in the morning and find the windowsill empty. they graduated to their own pots on the deck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i’m picking up roots to start over. i don’t even feel my roots anymore. i only know they exist because i can look back and see them trailing behind me like some ratty old security blanket. i only know that i have roots because if i didn’t i wouldn’t survive. i wouldn’t gather nourishment from the ground i walk on, i wouldn’t grow and bloom.

and it’s obvious that i am growing and blooming. i can feel the photosynthesis coursing through my veins. it leaves the smallest hint of wheatgrass shots in the back of my throat. it causes me to reach for the sun with my mouth open to the sky. it is beyond my control. it is all things natural.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i was wondering, musing, worrying in my way that i often have about me… wondering how to begin this conversation with river. this concept of moving. explaining to this kid who has seen three homes in his three years. this move will make his fourth. i was worrying about too much transition. life changing, full time jobs, preschool, and now this move to a new place. how much can one child handle? i guess we’ll see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yesterday river was playing with his toy treehouse, rearranging logs to become stairs and hanging swings to become rocket launchers. he hung a bridge by a rope and was pleased with his creation. “it’s a balcony!” he proudly exclaimed (pronounced Valcony which always makes me smile and hope that he doesn’t let go of his language for a long long time)

this Valcony got me thinking of my new apartment, the one that he hasn’t seen. the one that i know exists, the one that i love near the trail we hike, the one that puts us closer to work, the one that i would like to introduce to him slowly with a room set up for him on our first visit together.

he was excited about the Valcony. so i heard myself speak before i thought of what i was gonna say or where it would lead to. “hey, you know some apartments have balconies! that’d be pretty fun to have a balcony huh? then you could look out and see trees and trees and trees!” he agreed and told me everything he loves about balconies. “hey, you know what?” i said, “i think it’d be fun to live in an apartment with a balcony,” i’m wondering where i was going with all this. he took the lead and finished my thought, “i have an idea!” he said, “maybe someone else could live in this house, and we could live in an apartment!” wow, what a great idea! “yeah,” i said, “we could move out of this house and get an apartment and we could have a balcony and walk to the park!” he agreed, “i could take all my leggos. and my books and my bookshelf and my kitchen and my …..”

so it was decided. like a pact we made right then and there. and he’s on board and excited, which is a great thing cause i pick up the keys to our new place tomorrow.

coming in for a landing

i haven’t cried in a long time. i realized this tonight as i felt that familiar burn creep up on me as i lay in the dark. me, the crier. i haven’t cried in a long time, but tonight i did because it suddenly hit me that i am it. i am the foundation. i am river’s rock. and that suddenly became heavy. 

sometimes i get sad for him. sometimes i get lost in the future of his eyes and all the statistics and all the everything about life that is going down wrong right now. sometimes i get lost in that. in the fact that i feel very alone. and not alone in the simple sense of no other adults in my house. but alone in the sense of his future. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i got up after he fell asleep, i padded down the hall in my socked feet. i stepped around the usual creaky floorboards. the ones i have grown to know so well. i sat down and rubbed my eyes. feeling that intensity lifting in my chest as i greeted each emotion as they joined me on the couch. hello sadness, have a seat. hey there, bitter. long time no see. well, hello lost in the past for things i cannot change. hello memories, you are full of sadness and questions tonight. come sit beside me. put up your feet. you are full of wonderings and whys. you are full of feeling alone and remembering anxiety. you are full of ache for your newborn, your baby, your toddler, your son.

i sat in this moment. i planned on writing it down. i planned on releasing the buzzing bees in my caged heart. and then my phone rang. “is this a good time?” the voice asked. kindness. it’s the perfect time. it always is.

an hour later i hung up smiling. and i couldn’t remember what it was that i had wanted to write. i simply didn’t need to go back there, to that place of alone with buzzing bees. they had found another hive. poof. just like that. positivity begets positivity. love begets love. there’s no need to dwell. not right now atleast. 

there’s always something, a bit of light somewhere, in someone i meet. a flash in their eyes, a story they share. i met someone this week who reminded me of a friend from long ago. it was the energy and spark of life. as the story unfolded and laughter subsided, i realized i was given a gift of foresight. the place it takes me is a place of youth and kindness and love. but what it gives me is truth in knowing my son will be just fine. i find that light where i can, in those i meet. it’s small today, right now it’s small like a marble; but i hold it in my hand and roll it around as i talk. and in doing so, i regain hope in the future.

i can see it in his eyes.
momma love trumps all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

music heals me, inspires me, encourages me to step outside myself and remember . i am not alone. i’m aware enough to know what words and thoughts bring me right back to that place i don’t want to be. not now. i thought tonight i needed to sit with that, but i didn’t. what i needed was to be reminded of love. love. love. it’s given that those words will gurgle to the surface again, they always do. they’re not lost, they’re fermenting. they’ll bubble up like sticky oil. they’re bound to peak and climax as we find our way along this new path. writing it down has been nothing but healing for me. but for now, today, it’s the music that rebuilds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t bring me no bad news, no bad news
I don’t need none of your bad news today
You’re a sad little boy
Anyone can see you’re just a sad little boy
That’s why you’re carrying on that way

Why don’t you burn it all down
Burn your own house down
Burn your own house down
Try to kill your own disease
And leave the rest of us
There’s a lot of us
Leave the rest of us
Who want to live in peace
To live in peace

I’m gonna find me a man
Love him so well
Love him so strong
Love him so slow
We’re gonna go way beyond
The walls of this fortress
And we won’t be afraid
No we won’t be afraid
And though the darkness may come our way
We won’t be afraid to be alive anymore
We’ll grow kindness in our hearts
For all the strangers among us
Until there are no strangers anymore

Don’t bring me no bad news, no bad news
I don’t need none of your bad news today
You can’t have my fear
I’ve got nothing to lose
Can’t have my fear
I’m not getting out of here alive anyway

And I don’t need none of these things
I don’t need none of these things I’ve been handed
And the bird of peace is flying over
She’s flying over
And coming in for a landing

~ Patty Griffin “No Bad News”

let it snow

we spent the day at the park yesterday. it was unseasonably hot, a record breaking 81 degrees at noon. i contemplated going home for short sleeves when i looked up at the sky and took notice of the clouds. the wind picked up and in about thirty minutes the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. the wind was whipping leaves around us and our picnic lunch. river and i both sat facing the wind, watching the weather unfold. “let’s pretend it’s snowing” he said, and i laughed and so did he as we sat trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues. “oh, one hit me on the cheek!” he exclaimed as a yellow pecan leaf blew past him.

this kid dreams of snow.

before bed river noticed the moon, he pointed it out to me and i realized just how much he brings me to now. right now.  and i actually thanked him for it. outloud. “thanks for noticing the things i don’t always see.”

after he fell asleep i heard the wind through the window screens, making its way into our old house. the rain started and continued most of the night. it became the background noise to my evening beside the christmas tree. it was loud, it was weather, and i was loving it.

then suddenly it went quiet.

i went to the window and noticed snow flurries under the streetlamp. the snow made it quiet. i went outside and stood on our front porch in my socks, the freezing concrete seeped into my feet but i really just wanted a photo to show river. to let him know it was real, and that it snowed.

earlier in the week he had found himself a copy of The Snowy Day at the library and we’ve read it nearly every hour since then. he says “remember a long long time ago when it snowed in the backyard? why dont’ i remember?” it’s a long ago memory he only holds onto with a photo of his baby self.

this kid loves snow.

so i did the unthinkable. at close to 1am, i woke him up. i couldn’t resist. he lay on my shoulder and we crept outside, into the hush of the night. and he lifted his head and said “i can hear the snow” because he could. because it’s all you could hear. the quiet of nothing. the soft of air.

we awoke in the morning and had to hurry hurry hurry to get out the door. keys, shoes, bags, lunches… my arms were full. he was at the back door looking out like a mournful puppy. i had glanced out earlier in hopes that the roads were not slick (um, no, i live in texas not colorado anymore) i hadn’t noticed what he saw. “there’s snow! there’s snow on the trampoline!” and sure enough, there it was, on the tiny bouncing trampoline i picked up second hand. elevated just one foot off the ground, the snow had not melted yet. and he found it. so i set down my stuff, ignoring my clock, and we went outside.

all he really wanted was to touch it. to feel it. to eat it.

so he did.

it’s something he’ll remember until the next time it snows in texas, which might be a very long time from now. half an hour later, we pulled into the driveway of our school and he noticed the roof. more snow! we walked around front to get close. and i shared his excitement. for what little snow there was. for all the mounds of snow i remember as a kid. i mourned a little for what he’s missing. for what he wants. for what texas can’t always provide. “take a picture momma! it’s snow!” and so i did. and i saw the world through his eyes, and i slowed down to join him in this wonder world.

me, happy.

today i left the bookstore with my arms full. i wanted her to ask why i was buying four of the exact same magazine. but she didn’t. so i offered up my reasoning because i could no longer keep it to myself. “a photo of mine was published in this magazine.” she glanced at me in her ho-hum way of tedium that comes with full time work and the christmas rush on a sunday afternoon. “that’s great.” she said and asked me if i wanted a bag. i couldn’t hide my pleasure. it sprung from my heels as i headed for the door.

lighter. i feel lighter.
and somehow more complete.

i walked out of there with my camera slung over my shoulder like it always is, like some cheesy gunslinger pacifist because i bring it with me everywhere ‘just incase’ something catches my eye which it usually does, and then if i need to make a stop somewhere i can’t seem to leave it alone in my car. i can’t help it. i’m the hovering mother. i’m the shoulda woulda coulda woman.

it’s my only possession.
it’s my best friend.
my third eye.

today i was walking down a sidewalk with both arms full of photo love and a shit eating grin spreading across my face. a smile so big i almost didn’t recognize the feeling. those muscles have been hibernating, too scared to come out and see the light of day. those muscles finally pulled around my mouth and i let myself be happy. i let it out in a big ol grin cause i’m doing it, whatever it is, i’m doing it right now. and it feels really good. and i’m happy.

for reasons of conscience

life is zipping past me, leaving a streaking blur and a gust of stagnant air like i’m trapped in the subway missing my train. the subway that he recreates with leggos and his true fascination of Maine and Boston and all things New England.

life is zipping and speeding around corners with windows down and papers catching air getting away from me in my slow reactions. in my procrastination.  papers. papers. so many papers. so much to do.

work starts full time in less than a month. and school for river as well.  all things i never fathomed are now things i’m embracing, pulling close to my heart and embracing with love, but also glancing sideways and  bracing myself for the shock that comes after the shaking of earth.

~~~~~~~~~

i’m holding an affidavit that needs notarization. i am suddenly the grown up calling the shots and this paper needs signing and stamping infront of someone official in order for my son who’s never taken a shot from a doctor in all his life, to be admitted to school with this, an exemption for reasons of conscience.

is this telling? i make choices based on conscience? based on heart?

he trails behind me with his library book in tow. wearing the overalls he picked out himself and the brown turtleneck that makes him look more childlike and less like himself.

he lays at my feet, on the yucky carpet of this place where i must stand and wait to be notarized. with my paint splattered fingernails signing on the dotted line thinking of our art project this morning and how his style of art is so different from mine. how art is sometimes painful for him. how i worry about him going to school, me going to work, and somehow someway still manage to keep it all together and muddle through our day. just a couple hours ago the frustration rose up in me like a child.  i am the 5 year old who doesn’t want the crayons broken. and he’s the artist who won’t clean his brush, who wants to see what it looks like when it’s all mixed together. and i let him through clenched teeth because it’s his art, not mine. and i try not to think of the money, the dollars and cents that is being wasted on pouring paint into water just to see the result. he is he. and i am i.

so he lays at my feet with hands propping up his head, casually turning the pages to read Snowy Day and fulfill his lust for snow and winter and all things Maine.

grown adults have to step over him, in all his three-footedness. and i smile because i don’t care. cause would you rather he be a maniac and dismantling the shelves with high pitched screams that send you and your shriveled ovaries running for the door in search of birth control? i’d rather him laying here in public taking up floor space like he does so often.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the official notary comes out from around the corner.  and it’s him. again. and i smile at his pretending not to know me after i say “hey how’s it going?” and leave it at that because his eyes are empty and i just play along. i laugh outloud and probably wear a smirk because it truly is humorous now. the things that people do to manage their lives.  the ways that humans compartmentalize their thoughts just to make it through the day.

this time he even takes my drivers liscense and puts pen to paper to spell my name in the great book of all things notarized.  and i feel as if i should raise my left hand and repeat an oath after him. but all he asks is if i want a receipt and this time calls me “ma’am” because i’m a head taller than him but we are exactly the same age. i chuckle again and wonder why i care and say “sure, thanks.” thinking of how the man i lived with for so many years was outraged and somehow humiliated at what i wrote last time our paths crossed because it was so damn surreal to me. i laugh thinking of his tudor house in New Jersey where we went to kindergarten and how his parents divorced and how for the longest time i thought all texans had pools in their backyard, the luxury that came from living in the hottest place on earth. atleast that’s how i imagined it when i was 5. back when i didn’t want the crayons broken to pieces.

i gather up my belongings and say “let’s go babe” to river, and he collects himself off the floor and happily bobs along behind me stopping only briefly to look at his reflection in the christmas ornaments hanging from the tree in the corner near the po boxes.

i think of what i was writing then. and submitting. and what i am writing now. and sitting on. what i need to be writing. and what is still digesting waiting for regurgitation. i think of the places we’ve come to and the places we’ve been. and i realize, now, today, that i’m truly thankful for all of it.

even for the games we play, because life is endlessly fascinating.

hello anger

Fall fell into a puddle of denial.
i think the sun came out for a bit and dried it up
because the denial is gone
it’s left the ground parched, sharp, and pokey.
i knew anger was hanging out backstage.

enter anger

hello anger
i know you but you’ve changed
or i have.
that’s quite the performance.
i’m sitting front row center
now my eyebrows are singed
the smell of burnt hair drapes on my tongue
in the back of my throat it gags me
i’m not sure how long this show will go on.
how long i can sit and watch.
i’m just a member of the audience
i’m just receiving
still deflecting as best i can
i know you mean no harm.
you’re just angry.

i find myself unusually calm.
i hear my words and wonder where they come from
how can i be in it,
part of it
at the same time detached from it?

anger used to back me into the corner.
anger used to scare me into submission.
anger has no power over me anymore.
and that makes anger even angrier.

something is better than nothing

something made me open the door and walk out into darkness in my socks. the cold rose from the concrete stepping stones into my feet with each step. with my sweater around my neck i just kept walking. away from the house. further from the kitchen door with one light on. yards from the house with the sleeping child. into the very center of my big big yard shaded with pecan trees, blown bare from the wind.

where did it go? the moon tonight. it was the child’s drawing of a crescent with two stars below as if hung there from a fishing line. i walk further still, into the cold and find myself crouched in the grass, my socks now damp from fallen leaves. i don’t know what it is i’m looking for, but it’s pulling me towards it. pulling me towards what is to be, the beauty i can hardly fathom, the life i can barely see when left walking alone in the dark. if you squint it comes into focus just briefly.

what am i doing? i really think this as i grow a bit cold, wondering if i’ve found it yet. i don’t even know what it looks like. i don’t even know how it smells or what it feels like to touch. i just know that i’ll know it when i see it. when it hits me square in the eyes. i’m just a dharma bum along for the ride. looking for something. knowing in my heart that something is better than nothing.