A letter to the New Wee One...

     Having Finnegan enter the new phase of toddler-dom sure doesn't lend itself to many new blog posts, and now that we are expecting a new one in just over six weeks, I'm interested to see where it leads us as well as far as staying connected with loved ones more far than near...
     That being said, we are expecting the last addition of our family on my birthday, December 14th, and cannot wait to meet what the ultrasound technician is expecting to be another lovely little boy!  It's been a little harder to really connect as much with this little guy in utero while adventures abound day to day with the not-so-wee-one, but the moments come in tiny breaths here and there...and here is a small one while the boy naps...

                                                                                  beautiful artwork by Megan Duncanson

     Dear Little Bird,

           I cannot wait for you to arrive.  Your big brother is waiting patiently, he is very excited to teach you to run and throw a ball and somersault through the living room.  He asks often "How is Baby Ollie doing??"  I worry about the balance in those first few months between you and him, but I know we will make it through and grow wonderfully as a family.  My wish for both of you is to grow to know the true power that lies within kindness; to discover what makes you passionate and happy in this world, in this lifetime, and to follow your heart with it.  To grow happy, healthy and whole.  

          I am so excited to watch you grow into who you are meant to become, and to see the differences between you and Finnegan.  To discover how we all fit as a family together in this world.  I wish for you to always know how loved you are, and how important you are to this world around you.  To revel in the beauty of this world and time and space we exist in, right here, right now.  I am honored to get to laugh with you and discover this world with you all over again.

                                                                                 I love you and we'll see you soon,

                                                                                        Mama

     

     As the holidays begin to approach and these last few weeks fly by, I'm trying to take in the last few precious moments of Finn's as the only child.  To look closely with him and to snuggle in a little closer and enjoy those last few moments until the equilibrium is shaken and comes to again.  Excited, nervous, in love with our family as we begin to grow together, complete.  The feeling that comes with that notion of completion (Reid and I have always thought to be a two kiddo family...) is one of absolute calm and peace and contentment.  Now we get to simply exist together.  And the feeling is lovely.

Finding a Tribe of my own...

How do you find your tribe in today’s society?

As I’ve been home with Finn for nearly the past two years, I have struggled with my decision to be a stay at home mamma at times, questioning the “quality vs. quantity” of time spent with my little guy, and wondering how our journey will evolve so that everyone feels completely supported and loved.  In my bones I know home with Finn is where I'm supposed to be, and don’t get me wrong, eighty-five percent of the time I spend laughing, splashing in puddles, drawing on windows and feeling gratefully blissful as I sing Finnegan to sleep at naptime…but every so often, I get kicked in the gut with impatience or frustration, and a deep loneliness and yearning overtakes me.  It has opened me to reflection on how I want to grow on this journey. 

One thing that has struck me very recently, is the lack of a tribe in my life.  The village it takes to raise a child is comprised of Reid and me.  While we are the best team I know of, it sometimes doesn’t protect me from that loneliness of physical isolation.  Part of it is simply being in a new community, finding my small place on an Alaskan island.  Part of me wonders if it’s just society today.  We are raised so independently, and have such autonomy over our own lives, but perhaps that comes at a rather lonely cost at times.  Many of us no longer have aunties and grandmas close by to help give advice and encouragement, simply by their physical presence.  To want to be with and see our kiddos, for those indulgent breaks from parenting before we feel overwhelmed and need that break to take time for own sanity.   Time away from Finn scheduled after I’ve felt overwhelmed somehow carries a twinge of guilt for me.  

Over the holidays, hosting guests in our home, I was struck at how heart warming and encouraging it is to see other people love on your kid.  That seeing others experiencing joy out of being around Finn was one of the most nourishing things for me to experience as a mother.  To witness the effect he has on people close to us.  It also made me realize that those experiences are very rare, for we simply don’t live around family. 
 

This year, I am deciding to find ways to nourish and support my tribe.  For Finnegan, for me, for our family.  To engage the tribe that I do have around me, just not physically.  It will have to be unorthodox, and I will have to get creative.  Three aunties, three uncles, and three grandparents, all living afar.  Two best friends who live afar.  A new community filled with some of the best people and mamas.   An amazing extended family who I sometimes feel I barely know, yet love to death.  This will be my journey of the year.  

I want to connect.  

I’m kicking if off by spending a quarter of a year with my parents in Salcha.  While Reid finishes his Ph.D, something that will be great for his soul and sanity, I’ll be hanging with grandma and grandpa, as well as doing a little theatre.  I’m curious and excited to see how we find ways to incorporate family, our whole family, into our everyday lives.  That is, perhaps, my New Year’s resolution.  Perhaps it will be through handwritten letters exchanged.  Or collaborative Skype calls with the whole family.  Or more scheduled vacations just hanging with family.  Or elaborate, extensive family reunions…I’m up for it all.   Let’s start a conversation about it, at the very least.  I want my mommies (both Reid’s and mine!) and sisters.  I know we get on each others nerves half the time, but I’m really wishing we could all be on the same block.  As that is impossible, we’ll have to get creative.  I’m open to suggestions as to how anyone reading this might foster that sense of “tribe” in their lives.

A Letter to my Cynic

        The last few months have been really tough for me.  I’ve struggled with my own faith, faith in humanity, faith in the direction our world is being sent to by the apathy of our choices, or lack of…and struggled with my own seeming insignificance, the weight of what seems like never being able to do enough to help the plight of our Mother Earth, and the hopelessness of that struggle.  And it all seems so much more dire with a tiny bundle of light and love who truly represents limitless possibility.  I’ve also been struggling to find a balance of intention, energy, faith and tangible action.  It seems like they cannot be mutually exclusive: without faith, your tangible actions will never seem enough, there will ALWAYS be something more you could have done.  You have to have faith that your path is meaningful and thoughtful, and that your choices are what you can do with the information you have at the time.  And without tangible action, one cannot rely solely on intention.  Intention is the seed, but action helps water it into a mighty oak that will have the meaning and impact you long for.  

            I have a terrible inner cynic…she says to me…

            “Go ahead and have whatever you deem as “faith” that things can get better.  If that helps you sleep at night, do what you need to do.  But don’t turn your head for a second, or you will see the truth of what humans are doing to this planet, and you will know there is nothing to be done.”

            “People have known about these things for so long, you will never get the general public to see the benefits of simplicity and to abandon this consumeristic, disposable culture we live in; or the corporations to look at anything other than a bottom dollar, it is nothing you can have an impact on with your small existence as a mother at home.”

            I really could go on and on.  It sends me into a spiral of depression of doubting my very existence on this planet.  That seems pretty abstract, but that is what keeps me up at night these days.

            And then…

            Recently, while talking to a dear friend of mine, I thought…as I say these things, I am also saying them to Finn, and about him.  That HE can’t make a difference.  That there is nothing for him to do but wallow in pity and shame for what our species has done.  And the part of me that longs to be hopeful and optimistic takes great, great offence to that.  Like mama bearish.  Like I will kick the shit out of you for saying anything like that to my son.  There in lies the conundrum…how to get that hope back, that honest hope for the future, that will inspire our children to be the problem solvers we need, without riddling them with guilt over what we have done up to this point. 

            We need to address our cynics.  There is simply no room for cynicism, it will do nothing to bring about the change we need.  She has been useful to me, because she has called me to own up to my choices in this world, and to our choices as a global community.  Okay, done.  Let’s move forward.   So I decided to write my cynic a letter…

Dear Lady of Cynicism;

            My name is Sarah the Lionheart.  I come from the part of Sarah who longs to be hopeful, who longs to radiate optimism and hope for the future generations of children, who stand to make a large difference in the world.  It is only with the confidence and love from us that they will grow to their fullest potential, otherwise they stand to continue this cycle of hopelessness, from which inaction springs.  Nothing will get any better from inaction, and since that comes from the hopelessness of cynicism, I have come to let you know that you have worn out your welcome here, residing in Sarah.  For when you say those things, you are also saying them about her son, and that is a deal breaker.  This will not happen, and you will no longer have room in her spirit.  The only thing you do is paralyze her and keep her from realizing her fullest potential as well, and she cannot move forward with you here.  Thank you for getting her to take a good realistic look at where we currently are, and to inspire her to take action NOW.  To proactively find ways to nurture her faith in the Universe.  To keep up with the small changes in behavior that will turn the current nature of society into one of love for our Earth, and stewardship for each other.  You have done your job.  It is time to transform your energy into something creative, something positive, or vacate the premises immediately. 

                                             Sincerely,

                                               Sarah the Lionheart

        

          My hope is that this is the first step in coming out of the darkness.  And that if it shows up again, to revisit this and find the light before it hits me so hard.  This journey is messy, dark, frightening, and impossibly beautiful all at the same time.

Transplanting...Sitka Bound.

    How do you leave a place you have grown to call home?  A place where you know when and where the sorrel and boletas and wild rhubarb are ready to pick, and follow the seasons of the flowers during the summer months that nourish your soul? 

 I feel as if we’ve decided to rip our roots up and try to transplant, although not sure if the weathering process will do more damage, or make our leaves stronger.  In this town we became a family.  We were married.  Bought a home.  Decided to start a family.  Survived the loss of our first pregnancy, and welcomed a beautiful light into the world.  Here I met kindred spirits and became an artist and played music and found a voice for myself.  These are not simple roots offshot, but tap roots dug deep.  How do you transplant without a little of the ends being ripped off?  I feel so intimately connected to the windy tundra of these hills, that the rainforests of Sitka seem dark and scary.  But something about that fear, and the leap of faith required of this next adventure also makes me feel alive.  It makes me acutely aware of everything I’ve ever taken for granted here.  It makes the colors brighter, the wind sweeter, smiles more friendly, and it makes me treasure hugs and conversations from friends more than I thought possible.  If you see me grocery shopping and you ask how I’m doing, only to have me start crying in front of you, please don’t be alarmed.  It’s not a negative.  It’s good to love so deeply that you are heartbroken when it begins to come to a close.  Even if it is to a place.  And I am definitely heartbroken.  I am hopeful, and grateful, excited and heartbroken.

Sunday Prayer - April 14th, 2013

Thankful for tiny fingers and eyelashes.  For sideways smiles and giggles.  For the way Finn looks around for me when he's playing, just keeping me in sight, it makes me want to cry.  Thankful for patience and love from family and friends.  For people giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and for kindness and smiles in unusual places.  Kindness seems to be one of the most powerful things in the universe.  Give it freely, and you can completely change someone's day.  Withhold it, and you can make someone feel so alone.  I am thankful for kind people.  I pray that I can be a force of kindness in people's lives.  I pray for strength to keep my optimism alive.  To see the good in people.  To see the good in me.  To see the good in the world. 

Sunday Prayer - April 7, 2013

Dearest Earth Mother,

       Spring comes and goes in the air in the Aleutians, but the rhubarb is coming up, as is the mint and the chives, signaling rebirth once again.  I am grateful for days when the weather is calm enough to take Finn to the beach, and thank you for the wonderfully mild winter we had this year.  It was good for my soul to have walks to Summer's Bay, watching the seals and otters, as well as the sea birds and sparrows flitting about on the dried puchki. 

       My heart is heavy some days when I think too much on the apathy people have towards you, and the hopelessness it seems to begin the healing process in taking care of this wondrous place we live in.  I pray that you give humanity time to become aware of what is really important in life, and send you white healing light to surround you and the diverse creatures and plants who are at the mercy of decisions we make, both globally and individually. 

      I thank you for the grass between my toes, for the rosy finches that Finn loves to watch out the window that join us for lunch most days, for puddles to jump in, and the wind that signifies impermanence in everything, and our continual evolution.  May it be in the right direction to sustain us and our brothers and sisters in the world.

Father of the Heavens,

     I pray that you enter the hearts of humanity and plant the seeds of empathy for your magnificent creation, so that we may take better care of our Mother.  Please make us more thoughtful of the choices we make, and the implications they have on our world around us.  Let us slow down and take time to look at the beauty and find hope in the upcoming Spring season.  Give our leaders wisdom to make the right choices for us as a global community, not just what is best in the short term.  Give us the commitment to make small choices in our every day behavior towards more sustainability, more empathy, and please give me the hope that I can make a difference in the world with my actions.  Help me to make decisions in my parenting that will inspire these beliefs in my son, that he may be part of the generation that saves the world.  Help me to be inspired with what I see in the world, instead of downhearted.

    Thank you for the stars and the moon in the heavens that teach me of the vastness of the universe, as well as the order of it in the ebb and flow of the constellation cycles.  Please let me feel hopeful of the direction we are going, and make me a part of the positive change.