The geese honked overhead
I ran to catch the skein
To watch them as they fled
In a long wavering line.

: May Sarton

Rahima Baldwin said that reverence and gratitude form the basis of our spiritual lives.  that if we can approach life with reverence and respond with gratitude, we will be able to lead our children as well.  and that just rings so true to me.

late one night as i was sweeping up the kitchen, i realized again that i was spending my life cleaning up messes that would be made new in the morning.  but i was doing it because i wanted to show forth my thanks not only with my lips but also with my life.  i was grateful beyond words for the lives that had made this mess.  it was reverence for these lives that had me re-making our home.

no one understood the connect between reverence for life, profound gratitude, and a life given over to service better than Dorothy Day.  she made life on the edge of the Bowery in New York City beautiful by offering a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup to the least among us.

how will you and your children give thanks this year?

tomorrow is Dorothy Day’s birthday.  like so many good things in my life, i first heard of her in the living room at the Wells’ house in SE.  here was a family who loved each other and loved God and were serious about their faith.  and here on their coffeetable was a copy of the Catholic Worker, a periodical that at 1 cent a copy even a very poor college girl could afford.  i promptly wrote and became a subscriber. 

a few months ago, just after Nicolas was born,  our copy got delivered to a house down by Cathedral Park by mistake.  the man, also a longtime subscriber, knocked on our door and delivered our paper.  he said he wanted to see another “worker” in St Johns.  i was nursing the baby at the time and only overheard the conversation.  i’d be curious to see a fellow worker too.

…AP was buckling her into her carseat, and she said, “some people, like Gandhi, don’t think you should hurt other people.”

yes, that’s right.

“but, Papa, what about David and the little stones he threw at Goliath?”

um.  any ideas on what to say?

just a bit of window sill magic today…

this boy.

in the dark, in the middle of these long nights, sleeping next to Andy, they look so much alike.  i watch them sleep and breathe till i can’t anymore.  he is one of the most affectionate babies i have ever known.  he is generous with his kisses; he snuggles close.  after he’s finished nursing i stand him up for a burp.  he often takes my face in his hands and looks into my eyes and then kisses my cheek.  a hearty thanks.

one of our favorite books while he was growing inside of me was called We Have a Baby by Cathryn Falwell.  the mama and papa and big sister have a baby to wash and hold and feed and love.  they have a baby who loves them.  and what a revelation this has been for me.  this boy loves us.  we make him so happy.

it feels like i don’t talk about him much.  part of that’s because it’s so hard to take a picture of him that really looks like him.  as soon as he sees the camera, all he wants to  do is get his hands on it.  so we have many, many blurry pictures of Nicolas.  and part of it is that he’s just beginning to enter the world of language.  if i ask if he wants to nurse, he’ll smile and grunt and move toward me.  there will be stories to tell, but for now we are touch (his hand on my skin) and smell (his fuzzy head) and gap-tooth smiles (four teeth this one has!).

(i like the sound of that so much more than “blogging everyday”.  i like the resonance that everyday takes on…daily, ordinary, common place.)

which is to say that i’ll be trying to show up here each day this month.  it’s not the same thing as writing a novel in a month.  there’s no narrative arc involved, no character development.  one of these years i’ll take up that bit of crazy-making again.

but i didn’t want to always be sitting in front of this screen.  i needed a way to regulate my time here.  so…what if i didn’t get on the computer until the kitchen was clean?  that way i’d have a clean kitchen and be temperate in my computer usage.  well, that means i’d have to do the dishes…

and i broke Kim Stafford’s mug tonight.

when he came to do a writing workshop at my mom’s school, it was important to me that we have good coffee in real mugs.  i brought all of my own mugs from home.  and of course i watched as he chose which one he would drink out of.  he chose the big, thick, black mug.  no ornament, just the most coffee.  and i had kept that plain mug for all these years (16 years!).  and always called it Kim Stafford’s mug.  and now it’s broken and my knuckle is bloody.

everyday.

The Real Work by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

(but it’s hard to live.)

Jolly St Nic and a Leaf Fairy…from last night’s festivities.

do you have your Blaze tattoo?

here’s a link to a sweet little video of the boys thinking about the one thing they would take with them on a desert island.  Martell wins!