We snaked our way through the dusty valley, curls of smoke rising from the blue mountains that loomed in the hazy distance, searching for the turnoff.  Passing by a beautifully manicured golf course, a surprising sight in this desolate nowhere, we were finally stopped by an orange “Road Closed” sign.  An officer from the Bureau of Indian Affairs pressed her palm out the window, informing us that the Las Conchas fire, which has claimed over 145,000 acres in two weeks, had made the route impassable.  “So is the Cochiti Feast Day canceled?” we asked.  “Not as far as I know,” she said, indicating that we weren’t even on the right road that would lead us to the pueblo.  We turned around and passed the gas station, the attached mini-mart dark and shuttered in honor of the festivities, and nosed our way back along the winding road.  After another false start we turned around again, and then again, as if we were playing a crazy game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, finally following the line of cars at the unmarked intersection.  “I can’t believe there isn’t any signage,” I remarked to Maikael, who dryly responded, “Are you really that surprised?”

As we parked our car at the foot of the pueblo, bass voices and drums booming in the distance, two tourists tumbled out of the car next to us.  I knew they were tourists because they complained that a two hour trip from Taos had taken them nearly four, and the woman asked frantically what time the activities had begun. “When I called the pueblo office the man could only tell me that it would start somewhere between 10 and 11,” she fretted, clearly unfamiliar with the approximations that rule New Mexican time.

We followed the sounds of the singing and drumming to the plaza, where scores of pueblo members and visitors ringed the dusty square.  In the middle danced every shape and size of man, woman and child, circumambulating the crusty earth.  Some were covered in seafoam paint, others striped in black and white.  Some shook giant rattles.  Other wore fir boughs in their hair.  The sun bore down hard as one wave of performers made way for the next, an event that would stretch on for hours, a never-ending chorus of sound.  Although all homes are open to visitors on Feast Day, we had been invited to dine at the home of an acquaintance, the first time in six years that we’d been able to attend.  “Just ask for the Governor’s House,” Rose had said, assuring me that everyone would know the way.  After asking scores of people who had no idea where the Governor’s House was, we finally received vague directions.  Abra and I stayed at the car while Maikael disappeared down the dirt road, returning minutes later.  “That’s the one,” he said, pointing, miraculously, to an adobe house situated on a small hill just above our car.  “But nobody’s home.”

We sat in the car, the baking midday sun plastering us to the seats, while we considered what to do.  We hated to turn around after coming all this way, after all these years.  But it was hot, Abra was fussy and, having prepared to enjoy a feast, we were famished.  Just then, Maikael looked up and said, “Hey, isn’t that Rose?” Our friend’s eyes met ours and she let out a squeal of delight, clearly surprised that we had actually made it.  We hugged her, equally surprised that we had found her.  Inside the cool house my eyes wandered to a small altar, a framed photo of Rose’s father propped against a towering statue of the Virgin Mary.  Ceremonial drums were stacked alongside the big screen television, a collision of past and present.

At the other end of the house I could see a dining room table set with dishes.  “I got up real early to cook,” said Rose, who scurried amongst a throng of Crockpots that sat at the ready.  We gathered around the table, and soon a host of small bowls were placed before us:  posole, red chile, enchiladas, green chile stew, and a medley of salads.  Unsure of Feast Day etiquette, I followed the lead of my tablemates, who took only very small portions – the intention is to eat at many homes – and quickly exited, making room for the next wave of people who sat patiently waiting in the living room, like the vestibule of a restaurant.  “There’s room for two more at the table,” called Rose, the makeshift hostess.  Afterward, while Abra contentedly crawled around the floor, we spoke with state senators, old friends and family members.  A group of firefighters, brought in from Fort Apache, Arizona, to fight the blaze that roared just a few miles away, even stopped in to eat a quick meal before returning to the trenches.  A chorus of “thank yous” and a wave of gratitude followed them out the door.

Abra started to yawn so we decided to head for home, an hour away and a world apart.  As we drove back to Albuquerque my mind drifted, reflecting on the day.  So often life here in the Wild West is frustrating, filled with hazy directions, dead ends and unexpected detours.  What I find maddening about this place is what I find maddening about life in general:  where are the clear sign posts to guide my journey?  While I know that no such thing exists I keep beating my head against the cosmic wall, always searching, rarely trusting.  Nothing ever unfolds quite as I expect it to, and yet through divinity I end up arriving exactly at the right place at the right time.  There is a reason New Mexico is called “The Land of Enchantment,” for it is here, on days like this, that we enter the flow of life, celebrating small wonders, the fellowship of others, a bounty to share with friends and strangers alike.

I wish I had photos to share of all the wonderful sights I took in last Thursday.  But in accordance with pueblo custom, no photography was allowed.  As I overheard one woman say, “We’ll just have to keep the memories in our mind’s eye.”  Instead, enjoy the above shot, which captures one of my favorite parts of living in New Mexico:  the incomparable sunsets.  Like my friend Lindsey, I’m becoming fairly obsessed with taking photos of the sky.

This past Sunday I went to a lovely tea party with a new friend, something I had been looking forward to for many weeks.  One of the unexpected pleasures of these early days of motherhood has been the women I never would have met had maternity not thrown us together.  The party was held in the airy ballroom of an historic inn, a place that’s come to mean a great deal to me over the past year.  It’s where Maikael and I spent our anniversary last July when I was eight months pregnant. It’s where we enjoyed a leisurely early spring dinner in March, a desperate reprieve from baby.  It’s where I spent my first Mother’s Day on the sunny veranda.  In a cosmic twist of fate, this new friend of mine used to work at the inn before she became a mother herself.

Seated in a sunny corner of the ballroom, we enjoyed tea sandwiches served on frilly three-tiered trays, frothy fruit trifles, delicate cookies, and savory scones.  We sipped iced tea and picked our way slowly through each course, filling the spaces in between with intimate conversation.  We talked about our mutual struggles with this new phase of life, sought each other’s advice, and shared our histories.  One of my favorite phases of a relationship is the “getting to know you” stage.  Every story is new, every exchange rife with possibility.  Because I am so rarely able to get out and enjoy these kinds of decadent, quiet afternoons anymore, these experiences mean so much more to me than ever before.  As the ballroom slowly emptied we lingered just a few minutes more, scraping the crumbs from our plate, sipping the dregs from our tea cups, until the inevitable couldn’t be prolonged anymore.  The ripe anticipation of this day, which I had held in my palm for so many weeks, was over.

As I drive home, still relishing the details of the afternoon, the blackberry clouds roll in, creating a sagging curtain that hangs low and heavy overhead, threatening rain.  Each afternoon for the past few weeks the air has grown thick and humid and just when it looks like the sky is ready to unleash its fury, the clouds retreat, the air thins, and everything returns to normal.  Day after day this same dance has happened, a pas de deux between us New Mexicans and the elements.  But on this day the skies finally opened up, first sending fat raindrops to dot the simmering concrete like splattered paint, followed by thick sheets of rain that pound my little car.  Monsoon season is officially upon us, a reminder that the beginning of the end of summer is here.

There is something about this time of year that causes me to wax nostalgic, especially this year.  Perhaps it’s that “beginning of the end” feeling.  Maybe it’s the fact that I was married on the cusp of the monsoons, or that my daughter was born at the tail end of the season.  But nearly every day I am reminded of what I was doing this time last year.  When I wake up refreshed, I am reminded of the sleepless nights that plagued the end of last summer.  When I exercise I remember those early morning swims, the only form of physical activity that I could manage in my late pregnancy.  When I receive invitations for first birthday parties from the friends I took prenatal yoga with, I can’t help but remember sitting in a hot yoga studio this time last year, talking incessantly about our impending births, aware that everything was about to change.  As I took an early morning walk around my neighborhood park this past Saturday I was reminded of my baby shower, held exactly one year prior.  I reviewed my mental photo album of everyone in attendance and realized how scarcely I see any of those women anymore, shocked by how a year can so dramatically alter the cast of characters in one’s life.

Now the rains are here, clearing out the smoke from ravishing forest fires, soaking the cracked earth, washing everything clean.  In the scope of a year the monsoon season is brief. But it creates a bridge in time, connecting the fullness of summer to the first whispers of autumn.  It is a season unto itself, a reminder of how quickly things can change, how everything has a season, how some periods in time bring us back to ourselves over and over and over again.

Here is Abra just moments after her first monsoon rain, hair plastered to her head!  She didn’t know what to make of the rain.

When Maikael told me he was leaving on a business trip for two weeks, I recalled how I felt the day he returned to work after Abra was born.  I wondered how I’d ever manage taking care of a newborn, all by myself, for nine whole hours. Those same doubts crept up on me again and, wondering if I could survive providing Abra ‘round-the-clock care for two weeks, I quickly booked a plane ticket to visit Heidi in Las Vegas.  She has three young children, and if anyone would know how to handle whatever pediatric emergencies and pitfalls might befall us in Maikael’s absence, it would be her.  Plus she had a spare crib, extra car seat, and umbrella stroller, making solo travel with a baby as easy as it would ever be.

Although our most recent trip to Portland was a disaster, I was convinced, as I always am, that this time would be different.  Despite the fact that she had the set-up that most traveling babies only dream of, the unfamiliar surroundings left her feeling unnerved throughout the trip.  She cried when she was held; she cried when she was set down.  She cried when I left the room, even when I was plainly in sight.  She whimpered as we snaked our way through the lush gardens at the Bellagio, the throngs of tourists too much for her.  She became so upset one night that she vomited all over the kitchen floor.  She did not eat, she did not sleep, and after Heidi and I tried everything to soothe her, it was clear that she simply wanted to be in the one place she loves most:  home.

When I was pregnant, Maikael and I would pass quiet evenings imagining who this person under the swell in my middle was.  I remember joking, “I bet we will have a total homebody,” not quite believing that a couple that has visited over 50 countries between us could produce someone who prefers to stick close to home.  Part of our decision to have a baby in the first place was predicated on the travel success stories of our friends with small children.  We had seen first-hand the infants who dozed in carriers, the babies who slept through the night in strange houses, the ones who sat quietly on their parents’ laps in noisy jets, which buoyed our confidence in the (naive?) belief that we could continue to travel in the same way we always had.

After an exhausting fortnight apart, I worked hard to clear the calendar so that we could spend a quiet three-day weekend at home.  Abra and I met Maikael at the airport, and after a few moments of confusion and hesitation, Abra clung to him like a monkey.  That evening we enjoyed dinner and drinks on our patio, something I look forward to all year but that we haven’t been able to do all summer because of the smoke produced from the wildfires that are ravaging our state.  We pawed through souvenirs, flipped through vacation photos, and shared stories of our time apart.  Over the weekend we turned off the phones and made waffles.  We took a walk and ate strawberry shortcake.  We watched the skies open up and produce a much-needed rainstorm from the safety of our local frozen yogurt shop.  We curled up on the couch and watched two movies after Abra was nestled snugly in bed, a first in nine months.  We enjoyed an outstanding 4^th of July lunch at a dear friend’s house, but made sure we were home before dark.  It was one of the nicest weekends I’ve spent in a long time, circling ever closer to home.

I have been a “go-er” my whole life, always propelling myself from one adventure to the next; the irony that I have a child who prefers to stick close to home is not lost on me, nor do I think it’s a coincidence.  A friend recently shared with me a quote from Zora Neale Hurston that I have been turning over in my mind.  “There are years that ask questions and there are years that answer.”  It got me thinking about the seasons of our lives, how there are periods of expansion and contraction, activity and stillness, effort and ease, sowing and reaping.  And yes, there are years for going and years for staying.  We don’t plan to quit traveling – it’s too integral a part of our lives – but in this season I think I have something to learn from being content at home, a place I’ve always shied away from.  Perhaps it has something to do with learning to be comfortable in my own skin.  It’s time to stop moving for awhile, to cultivate a life centered around home and hearth, to settle into the quiet moments and unexpected pleasures that the ordinary world offers up each and every day.

I arrived at the grey house on the beach spiritually, emotionally, and physically depleted, having quickly handed Abra off to her father at the airport with a swift motion and a hasty goodbye.  We had already spent four ragged days in Portland, during which time Abra was unnerved by the rhythm of the city.  Each of our attempts to do the things we enjoy – visits to nice restaurants, hip clothing stores and coffee shops humming with life – were met with deep resistance on her part and resentment on ours.  Her sleep was fitful and truncated, resulting in early morning walks through Portland’s damp, deserted streets, the only sign of life the city’s swelling homeless population.  After being trapped in a 400 square-foot hotel room with a teary infant for four nights I couldn’t escape the airport’s parking garage quickly enough, where my chariot waited in the form of a gunmetal minivan to whisk me away from my troubles.

Our house

Although I wasn’t sure what to expect from this group of almost-strangers, I came prepared to make some decisions about my creative pursuits.  Most days I harbor nagging thoughts about the writing I should be doing, and I was ready to put those thoughts to rest by moving into action mode (a regular posting schedule, a visual redesign, an online marketing plan), and I thought our conversations would revolve around the online world.  What unfolded over the next four days was anything but virtual.

After an exploratory walk down the sandy spit of beach that lined the front of our house, where tentative getting-to-know-you conversations transpired in small circles, we retreated to the cozy living room and crowded on the Tiffany-blue couch and sprawled ourselves amongst a collection of wicker chairs.  I crouched on a stout leather ottoman springing like a mushroom from the carpet.  An uncomfortable hush fell over the group as we settled into that middle place between perfect strangers and kindred spirits, and it was clear that we were collectively thinking the same thought:  now what?

First steps

Meghan, our group’s de factor organizer, who has an innate gift for connecting people, began the “opening ceremonies” with a poem by David Whyte.  As her throaty voice intoned the opening lines, I felt a small space open inside of me:

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

Meghan reading (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

By the time Meghan reached the closing lines, hot tears were running down my cheeks in a fat stream, and something had shifted in the room.  Over the course of the weekend that small crack was pried wide open, flooding the space with the light and energy of this collection of women who, while disparate on the surface, proved to be true sisters in spirit.  We shared glittering pieces of our souls that had been crouching in dark corners over sunrise walks on the beach, twilight runs, communal meals, art projects, book discussions, shopping trips, photo sessions both goofy and serious, and too much red wine.  There was midday laughter and midnight tears, bedtime whispers and afternoon roars.  Our group solidified not in tentative steps but giant leaps, and the weekend unfurled in a beautiful string of days where time played tricks on us.  Being so far north so close to the solstice, the nine o’clock light often felt like late afternoon, such that we found ourselves in that rare, delicious place in life where time slips through our fingers.

Snapshots of togetherness (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

As the weekend progressed it became clear that, in each of our own ways, we were all struggling with starting “close in.”  Whether the poem set the tone for our time together or was simply the perfect message for our collective struggle I can’t say.  But what I do know is that, as we tried to create our personal “mission statements” late one evening, attaching tangible words to our faltering attempts to start close in, many of us broke wide open.  As the starry night blanketed the house I curled up in a chaise lounge in a dark corner and strained to make the words fits, arranging and rearranging them as if trying to make the pieces of a puzzle fit together.   I tried desperately to cram “writing” into the cracks, jagged edges running headlong into smooth corners.  Exhausted by my efforts, I finally gave up and collapsed into bed.  But after my second full night of sleep in nine months and a clarifying morning conversation with Darlene, the pieces began to fall into place.

Connecting (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

I thought I had come to this house by the sea to plot my path to a successful writing career.  But what I quickly discovered, wrapped in the warm embrace of this group of like-minded souls, is that I had come here to plot my path back to myself.  It wasn’t until I had stripped the worn patterns of a tired life, if only for a few days, that I could see how desperately I needed to rediscover my joy before I could do anything else.

That is starting close in.

We all have different first steps to take.  After just four short days there is already talk of leaving jobs and dusting off abandoned book proposals, resuming blogs and shedding unwanted commitments, moving houses and improving relationships.  There is talk of new creative projects and new ways of being in the world.  Someone’s mosaic tile, which we spent painstaking hours creating around the sturdy kitchen table, split clear down the middle on the trip home, an apt metaphor for how most of us left this weekend feeling.  My “close in” is more modest, but equally important.  Before I meet this group of women again next June, my work involves manifesting a new reality and realigning with my spirit, and sharing those understandings with you, dear readers, as I have time and energy.

Manifesting a new reality (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

This rejuvenating weekend was the first small step in reconnecting with my spirit and remembering what it feels like to be in sync with one’s self.  I had forgotten how much I love the water, the feel of sand in my toes, and wide swaths of green.  I had forgotten how important it is to feel deeply connected to kindred spirits.  I had forgotten my love of frilly pants, breezy shifts and hula hooping.  I had forgotten how to sing, dance, laugh and wear tiaras in public.  I had forgotten how much I love creating with my hands and appreciating beauty.  I had forgotten how much I love peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and sleep.  I had forgotten how to have fun.

One of my long-forgotten talents (photo credit: Celina Wyss)

One of the highlights of our trip to Portland was a quiet, unexpected day spent outdoors.  The skies cleared, making way for white, puffy clouds, and rather than spend another day in the frenetic pace of the city we huffed our way up to Washington Park to escape the constant thrum.  Here Abra crawled around on the dewy emerald grass at the Rose Garden, completely delighted.  We pushed our way further uphill, passing under the lush canopy of the Japanese Gardens, a cloak of silence falling over us as we entered the space.  We gazed upon sun-dappled maple trees that shone scarlet, moss-covered pagodas, murmuring streams, and narrow stone paths.  It’s not the kind of thing we would have done without Abra, our quiet soul, but for once we weren’t clinging to the past but creating a new way of being as a family in our present reality.  We were all, for once, happy.

Words cannot express how grateful I am to have been a part of this transformative weekend; it’s a testament to the power of connecting a group of like-minded women, and it’s impossible to fit all the insights and stories into a single blog post.  Over the next few weeks, I plan on expanding upon what I took away from my time with The Tribe, and how I am starting “close in” now that I’m back at home.  Thank you to my soul sisters Meghan, Sarah, Emily, Melissa, Celina, Darlene, Sophia, Rebecca, and, in absentia, Stefanie and Lindsey.

The Tribe (photo credit: Rebecca Murphy)

A few years ago I wrote a post about the power of saying “yes” in our lives.  We are trained to have restraint, to set boundaries, to limit our obligations, to conserve our emotional resources.  When it comes to taking bounding leaps of faith into the great unknown, most of us struggle mightily, myself included.  But just days after Abra was born, my friend, Meghan, approached me about a retreat she was organizing on the Oregon Coast for creative women from different walks of life, and would I be interested?  At this point I was still traipsing around the house in a nightgown at all hours, taking showers at 3 pm, and crying most days.  June seemed like an impossible future, eons away.  In my mind, Abra would be walking, talking, sleeping through the night, and eating T-bone steaks by that time, and although I wasn’t sure how I’d manage the logistics (I tend to be someone who jumps and then worries about the details later), every fiber of my being said, “Say ‘yes’!”

Over the past eight months it’s been exciting to watch Meghan’s creative brainchild grow from a flat, abstract idea on paper to a living, breathing, 3D collection of women.  We come from different states and different countries.  We are writers, artists, photographer, and filmmakers.  We are mothers, sisters, wives, and partners.  We are all spokes radiating out from Meghan’s wheel, but most of us have never met.  We have only spoken by phone a few times and have gotten to know one another through the modern marvel that is Facebook.  And next week, in Manzanita, Oregon, we will finally come together to share our stories, to help each other along our rugged creative paths, to relax, and to become, as we’ve dubbed ourselves, The Tribe.  But most importantly, I’m excited to spend time with a group of women who weren’t afraid to say “yes,” who committed their precious time and resources to one big unknown.  Is this not faith incarnate?

It’s the first time I’ve left Abra for more than a few hours, who will be with her dad two hours away, on another spit of Oregon coastline, visiting with her aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, and grandma.  Little did I know when I said “yes” so long ago that Abra would still be nursing eight times a day (my “project” the past six weeks has been pumping enough milk to sustain her for four days while watching  a nightly episode of The Wire).  I didn’t know then that she’d still be happily inching her way across the living room using her head as a pivot point, babbling nonsense syllables, and that her sleep would be a disaster.  But I’m glad I said “yes” anyway.

Think they'll survive without me?

I’ll be back after June 6 with lots of stories from our summer vacation to Portland, Oregon, and my time with The Tribe on the Oregon Coast!

Life in Pencil is taking a much-needed vacation to Mexico!  I’ll be back after February 22 with many “life in pencil” stories and insights to share from my time away.

Also, thank you to those readers who participated in yesterday’s “Mindful Mothering” chat at TheMotherhood.  There were about 600 people who watched it all unfold live (!!!).  If you missed it and are interested in reading the conversation, click here.

Until then, be well.

“We should live perceptively at the surface…we should cultivate a spirit of gratitude and wonder for the many excellent things the world supplies.” ~ David Brooks, The Arena Culture

Even though it was barely 9 am it had already been a long morning.  Abra rose with the sun, something that’s becoming an unfortunate habit these days, and I was running out of activities to occupy her.  Maikael had left the house early for a haircut, and my one planned outing for the day – a coffee date with a friend – had been canceled at the last minute.  With nothing to look forward to in the hours that yawned long in front of me, I was feeling a little blue.

Just then the phone rang.  “I’m going to Michael Thomas Coffee on my way home from my appointment,” said Maikael.  “What do you want?”  For years we have talked about going to Michael Thomas Coffee because Maikael shares the coffee shop’s name, and we’ve often wondered if that entitled him to a complimentary latte.  Despite the fact that the shop is minutes from our house, we have never once, in our seven years in Albuquerque, ventured that far afield.  When he returned home with steaming cappuccinos, we gathered around Abra’s blanket and swept foam off our lips while we laughed as we watched her roll back and forth.

Although it was Maikael’s day off, he had planned to work from home.  But the morning was already unfolding so nicely that, after lunch, we set off on an impromptu shopping trip, my first since becoming pregnant over a year ago.  I meandered through my favorite store, snatching colorful tops and pants I was convinced wouldn’t fit (but did!) off hangers.  Abra snoozed while I modeled new outfits for my very patient accomplice, and I realized that after hobbling by on a worn and ill-fitting wardrobe for the past few years, sliding fresh clothes around my body felt good.

That evening we left Abra with friends so that we could enjoy a quiet evening out together at a cozy restaurant for which we’d been saving a gift certificate.  In a rare moment of quiet and calm, we talked in hushed voices about all we longed for from our new life, which is slowly becoming just “life.”  A glass of cabernet was poured as we sifted through hopes and dreams, and I felt effervescent as I savored the last drop.  “I’m a cheap date,” I laughed, a year of pregnancy and nursing having left me with a low threshold.  By the time I dipped into the last profiterole, a scoop of cinnamon ice cream wearing a puff pastry cap, I realized how true that statement was.  These days I ruefully acknowledge that “it doesn’t take much to get me excited.”  I can’t help but feel a little lame when I gleefully anticipate an evening out all week, pouring over the menu days in advance and dreaming about what I’ll order.  What was once considered standard weekend entertainment – lunch out at a favorite restaurant followed by a new-release movie – has been elevated to sacred status.  I even let myself order the popcorn.

In recent years, it has taken increasingly novel experiences to bring me pleasure.  Maikael and I traveled to far-flung destinations, ate at the newest restaurants, courted new friends.  While these things were wonderful in their own right, it also left me feeling somewhat jaded and, more times than not, disappointed and dissatisfied.  I couldn’t enjoy a steak without comparing it to the one I ate in Argentina, or have a scoop of local gelato without rating it against the ones I sampled in Italy.  Like a magpie, always in search of whatever was shiny and new, I was slowly reverting back to my years as a petulant teenager.

It’s easy to feel like you’ve traded in the good life when you wake up one day and suddenly realize that you are awed by very small things that didn’t used to mean much.  But I can’t help but think that this is the gift of this new phase of life, a deep and abiding appreciation for “the many excellent things the world supplies.”  With a life bound largely to home and a paucity of leisure time, I am supremely content with life’s small wonders:  an extra 30 minutes of sleep while Maikael occupies the baby, a cup of very good coffee, a new outfit that makes me feel nice, a single glass of wine, a special dinner once a month.  In this moment, happiness is a day that slowly unfurls itself in a glistening string of surprises, producing one small wonder after another.

Please join me, Katrina Kenison, Karen Maezen Miller, Lindsey Mead Russell, Meredith Resnik, and other inspiring women I admire for what promises to be an invigorating chat on “Mindful Mothering” at TheMotherhood on Thursday, February 10 at 1 pm EST.  Registration for the site and the chat is super simple!

“You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck.”
~Rumi

It’s a strange thing to wake up one day and literally find yourself with a completely new life. That I felt this way in the inky hours of September 7, when I was handed a screaming, slippery pink baby to care for, is not the surprising part. The surprising part – at least to me – is that I’ve felt this way every morning since.  Four and a half months later, I still have moments, upon waking from a deep slumber, when I am briefly confused by the cries I hear issuing from the baby monitor.  Not a single day has been easy, and when I think about everything – everything! – that’s still to come, I can’t help but feel completely overcome.  My daily mantra, which helps me to cope with this anxiety, is a familiar one.  It’s what’s gotten me through the most difficult moments of my life:  my mother’s death, the rigors of graduate school, some truly awful jobs.  It won’t always be like this.

It’s one thing to bear down and grit your teeth through some passing trauma; it’s quite another to wish away years of your life with someone who is, by all accounts, a force of joy.  After enjoying an adulthood crafted around order and routine, of rushing around and Doing Important Things, my days are now untethered, and I often have the feeling that I am unmoored from my own life.  As I sit eating large spoonfuls of oatmeal in the all-too-early hours of the morning, the sunlight pouring through the kitchen window and throwing long shadows across the heart-shaped face that stares expectantly back at me, I am mired down by the thought of a day that stretches ahead of me like a long, open highway, and I wonder how I will fill the vacant hours that lie ahead.

But fill them I do.  While someone reminds me at least once a week that “the days are long but the years are short,” I feel as if the days are long and the days are short.  Sometimes I am caught up in a burst of activity, as Abra and I dash between appointments, mama and baby yoga classes (yes, seriously), and coffee dates with newfound mommy friends, which leave both her and I exhausted.  Other days run slow as molasses, a sluggish creep to 7 pm involving shaking rattles, eating lunch by myself standing up, and rinsing out diapers, the outcome of which is an entirely different kind of exhaustion.  My life is a strange mix of absolute boredom and frantic activity, and as different as the days can be, they share one thing in common:  I am rarely in my body, aware of what’s going on around me.  I am speeding ahead or dragging my heels, but rarely attuned to the actual rhythm of the day.

Earlier this week both Abra and I were itchy to get out of the house.  It was a brisk but crystal clear morning, so I covered Abra’s head in a sunny yellow knit cap with a curlicue of yarn on top and strapped her to my front in my trusty wrap.  As I began to walk to our neighborhood park with Abra’s head nestled into my chest, lulled by the motion of my steady stride, my heartbeat, the whoosh of the cars speeding by, the crankiness that had marked the morning began to melt away.  I spoke softly to her about everything that we passed.  A bush, a dog, a house.  When we rounded the first bend of the park I heard a tap tap tap overhead and paused to see what was making the noise.  There in the naked branches above me, much to my delight, was a woodpecker!  I happen to be a big admirer of birds, although I know embarrassingly little about them, and I had never seen a woodpecker before.  He didn’t look a thing like Woody, but sported beautiful black and white jacquard plumage.  His beak, a graceful black golf tee, rapped intently at the bark, and both Abra and I gazed searchingly skyward.  Soon Steve the Mailman – who has to be the nicest employee in the history of the United States Postal Service – came along and craned his neck in the same direction.  “You see something?” he asked.  “I think it’s a woodpecker,” I replied.  We stood there for a few moments on the sidewalk, two amateur birders discussing the local avian population.  “If I hadn’t seen you looking up I never would have noticed he was there,” Steve said.  Soon he continued on his route, but I found myself reluctant to move, my feet planted firmly in place.

It occurred to me that I never would have seen that woodpecker had I not heard him first, and I heard him because I was listening, and I was listening because, for a fleeting moment, I had been riding the rhythm of the day.  I realized that for once I was not running or stalling, but simply walking a steady pace, one foot in front of the other, just as we should all be moving through life.  That rhythm, a sturdy backbeat, is always thrumming in the background, but it’s so pervasive that it often renders itself mute.  But this new life of mine is offering me the chance to set the tempo – to speed up or slow down as I need and choose – and to more readily access the sweet music, always available, that surrounds me.

When I finally peeled my feet from the sidewalk and directed them back into the park I felt something I don’t feel very often:  not happy, but content. I’m not sure if it was watching Abra’s cheery hat bobbing along, or the novelty of a feathered friend, or simply being grateful for the dawning awareness that, in that moment, life was good. But maybe, with more moments like these, I can come to see the other side of my mantra:  it won’t always be like this.

Posted by Anne

Hello folks.  It’s good to be back.  Very soon, I’ll tell you all about the “Life in Pencil” lessons I learned from my life over the past 30+ days.  But not today.  On this sunny fall day, drinking my passion tea lemonade, I want to write about other women.  The women that have formed the basis of the only writing I completed over the past month.   

I didn’t need a new writing project.  But I couldn’t resist.  The idea took shape at happy hour with a journalist friend of mine.  In between bites of my caesar salad, I described a very special group in my social life—my women’s fly-fishing club. It will come as no shock that I’m at least a couple decades shy of most of the women in this group.  And I love them.  They teach me better casting technique, they give me rides to the river, they share whatever fly the fish are biting, and they tell stories.  Men, as it turns out, are NOT the only ones with great fishing stories.  (Women’s are just more truthful…most of the time.)

My friend listened patiently while I talked fondly of these women—many in their 60s and 70’s— and said, “Now that sounds like something you should be writing about.  There’s an incredible oral history there, and you ought to capture it before it’s too late.”  And I instantly knew she was right.  One by one, I’ll interview them all, and write profiles highlighting their unique stories. 

I’ve interviewed two of these women so far…both among the club’s founding members.  When we meet, I flip on my cheap tape recorder, and ask them why they started fishing.  What the club means to them.  Why fishing with women is unique.  And so far?  They’re open books—ready and willing to share the intersection of life and hobby with a young woman at the cusp of the kind of life they’ve already lived. 

As I listen to their stories, I’m struck by many things.  Like the fact that they care about the experience of fishing more then they care about catching some trophy trout.  But most of all, I can’t help but notice the life in pencil nature of their lives.  From their stories, I can hear the twists and turns, and the fact that their lives are different than they would have ever imagined at my age.  They’ve lost marriages to death and divorce, seen relationships come and go, and endured endless accounts of patronizing men on the river.  And in many cases, it was life’s detours that led them to the meditative peace of flyfishing.  

And the club itself?  Like one of those overexposed novels about knitting clubs or sisterly societies, these women have supported each other through the simple (??) act of flyfishing—through their love of the outdoors, their commitment to preserving the Northwest wilderness, and their love of great laughs and friendship on the river.    

I wonder—if someone were to interview me when I’m 65, what hobby will I have discovered?  What will it mean to me?  How will I discover it?  And what crazy turns will my life have taken?  Part of me hopes none, and part of me hopes…many.

Posted by Anne

There are many reasons I love my husband.  He makes the Costco trips for starters.  I hate Costco.  But believe it or not, he does something even more important.  He keeps me moving.  And by keeping me moving, he keeps me grounded.

When life’s inherent ambiguity wears on me, I have the tendency to over-think our plans, and overplan our life.  And even overplan our plans?  It’s not helpful.  But that’s when the husband, like a superhero of mindfulness, intervenes.

He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.  It’s just that he can’t see the point in sitting around pondering when we could be doing. And just like that, he whisks me off to activities that force me to be mindful, present, and free of hyper-analysis.   And yes, we do sit still too, but there’s something about activity that magically frees my mind.  Since moving to the Northwest, a quick rundown of some of my favorite mindful moments, all at the suggestion of my fella…

Concerts…

Snowshoeing…

Getting a puppy…

New landscapes…

Fishing trips…

And hikes, upon hikes, upon hikes…

I think I’ll keep him.