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This is Carter when he was a little boy, when he still had all his baby teeth, when he was too shy to let his tears out, before he had learned how to cry.

Now he is seven and he is finding words for his feelings. He knows how to say when something is off. He knows how to be curious when he has no idea what could possibly be wrong.

The other night we were having dinner with friends when we heard a horrible wail coming from upstairs. Carter was crying, and Dave and I both instinctively jumped from our seats to see what was going on. We found a very repentant Madeleine talking to Carter gently, our friend’s bewildered son and Carter nearly shrieking, saying over and over again, “I am NOT a baby.”

I wish I had a dollar for every time Carter cried his eyes out over being called a crybaby. The irony is too sweet. The best we can do is scoop him up in our arms and silently smile.

Since it was already way too late, I decided to take Carter home and put him to bed. The ride home sounded like this.

read the rest of the story here

even if you are not perfect
even if you don’t know the answer
even if you are horribly confused
even if you can’t make anyone feel better
even if you don’t know how to make yourself well
even if you made a mistake
even if you don’t know how to be
even if you are ashamed
even if you are hopeless
even if you don’t quite fit in
even if you are scared
even if you are lonely
even if you shouldn’t be having such a hard time right now
even if you don’t think so
even if you haven’t found your place yet
even if you aren’t proud of yourself
even if no one has really seen you before
even if you don’t know what to do
even if you try too hard
even if you’re disappointed
even if you don’t really like yourself right now
even if you are beyond good advice
even if you don’t know how to cry
even if you think this post must be meant for someone other than you.

One warm, sunny afternoon on the Oregon Coast, when everyone was laughing and talking and telling their truest stories, I had a wave of sadness come over me and I knew I needed to go sit on the sand for a little time away from my dear friends. Walking towards that massive sea and endless blue sky, I had never felt more solitary in some ways or more alone in this particular part of my journey. I could feel that familiar rush of despair coming to me when the beauty of the place captured my heart. I sat down right there and let the water speak to me, and that blue sky, and I realized I could never be alone really, as long as I was walking on this earth. That the earth herself was holding me, making sure I had a place to land with every step I take.

I hope today you will look up into the sky and then all the way down to your feet. That is the earth you are standing on. She is holding you. She is sending you all the love she has in her heart. She is there for you. She will not let you go.

for mfsh with so much love and hope

I’m in a strange little fog these last few days, trying to find myself in the family of things this Christmas.

Last night we had a very festive Hanukkah celebration with our neighbors Mark and Meryl and too many friends to crowd around a table and so many sweet, playful teenaged boys that my kids thought they’d hit the happiness jackpot. At one point, two of the boys picked up Madeleine and Carter like bayonets and did some kind of hysterical battle using the kids as weapons. I don’t know who was having more fun–the big boys or the little kids–but that laughter sounded so, so good.

I told Mark over latkes last night that this was just the thing I was missing so far this holiday–something festive, something celebratory. For all my decade long attempts to whip my own little family into some kind of giddy Christmas euphoria, everyone is fairly chill, relatively calm. No one has extraordinary demands for experiences or gifts and the kids have to think endlessly before they can make any kind of meaningful Christmas wish list. For this, I should be deeply thankful, I know, but I miss the hype and the fanfare of my own childhood. I miss everything being a big surprise.

My deep longing (and consequent disappointment) for a hyped up happy Christmas has been the source of deep contention for many years at my house, but this year I’m trying on the calm of a stress-free, truly peaceful Christmas. So far, so good. There’s no adrenaline rush, but there’s no fighting either. I feel a little adrift, but not completely lost. I’m letting go of my long cherished notion that without the rush of excitement, my kids will look unfavorably on their Christmas memories. I’m practicing just letting things be.

How is your holiday unfolding? What are you learning in the madness of it all about your lovely open heart?

Veronique,

Madeleine

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Veronique,

You are right it only takes a woman man or child to go after what they are looking for.
Plus it all adds up just like math. 1+1=2. We all work together and become one. What you said meant a lot to every body but also to yourself to realize you care for others just as much as you care for yourself.

Keep on giving,
Isabel

Grace and Bella walking back from my field

Good, good news in tiny bits and pieces coming to us regarding Odette’s girls and the future of this sweet family. Can’t say much more than to admit we’ve never been more hopeful or excited to see what happens next.

If you wanted to send a little holiday cheer to Odette’s family in Rwanda this season, here’s what’s on my wishlist:

Funds to finish the amazing little house that love built. More than five thousand handmade bricks are out drying in the sun as I type, and the best cement mason from the old days in Uganda is laying down a strong and lasting foundation on the sweetest bit of land you’ve ever seen. What’s needed now is money for lumber (all the wood is coming from the war-torn Congo, so prices fluctuate daily) and some strong iron sheets for the roof.

A little nest egg of school funds for Betty, the young woman who cares for Odette’s girls now while Innocent (who is still having some health issues but is world’s better from some half-decent medical care and his last round of medication) is back in the village with his mom, keeping an eye on the construction of the new home. In spite of the fact that Betty has been an orphan most of her life, she’s still managed to find a way to continue her junior high and high school education. I’d love to send her a little something to help her continue her school come spring.

A bike for Michel. Michel has been Grace’s faithful tutor this last six months, helping her learn how to read fluently and with good comprehension. Since Grace has missed so much school over the years due to various illnesses and is now close to 5′10″ at thirteen years old (someone got their daddy’s genes!), regular school feels daunting and very embarrassing. Can you imagine being 5′10″ and in third grade? By teaching her at home, Michel is saving us from the pressure of her wanting so badly to drop out.

New clothes for everyone. The girls have basically grown out of everything I brought in May and really need new things. We’ve explored sending clothes from here, but have concluded the most efficient way is to send money for Betty to shop for them in the local markets.

If you’re donating to Odette’s mom’s house and would like something to put under the tree, I have lovely little envelopes in little bronze pouches that have Esteria’s picture and a brief explanation of the project attached. If you’re willing to pay priority shipping, just let me know and I’ll drop one in the mail to you today.

As always, even five dollars is magic, truly. I never know what to say or how to express how much I love this community for being such serious superheroes when it comes to making a difference halfway across the world, but know that I love you all dearly and don’t know what I would do without you. And before I forget, here’s the giveaway part–I want to give a Lucy Bracelet to one person who donates today. Just leave a comment, saying you donated and I’ll have Madeleine pick a winner on Saturday morning.

Okay, right about now you’re ready to shoot yourself because it’s Christmas and everyone is supposed to be happy and you are supposed to be organized and finished already and some of you haven’t even really started yet and just the idea of maybe disappointing people with less than perfectly thoughtful presents is paralyzing you and you’re feeling selfish because all you really want to do is take a bath and crawl in bed and read a book and then take a nap and then wake up and make tea and get your paints out or your knitting or your scrapbook or your camera or your collage papers and that would be totally totally wrong right now because there’s not that many days left and you really should be thinking about others goddammit, what the hell is wrong with you? Enough already.

It’s totally futile for me to give you a pep talk now about the virtues of taking care of yourself and about everything working itself out by itself because you know that’s kind of bullshit, that this really isn’t the time or season for ridiculous things like balance or peace or calm. It’s the insanity season, the time of the year where you have to revisit your childhood and your unrealistic expectations and all the dysfunction you heap in fine doses on the heads of the people you love, the very people you would prefer not to torture, the ones whose faces you have superimposed on the Norman Rockwell paintings, but really, really, even though all that is true, it’s not too too late to do something good, to do something secretly good for yourself because if you don’t work this shit out, then January? oh my God, January will be bloody hell and no one needs that really–no one, especially you, after all this busyness, all this chaos, all this wrapping paper and what my friend Maureen calls the nuclear bomb of Christmas, going off in your living room where the swept floor and idyllic children are supposed to be.

No, it’s not too late, and it will be easy, really easy, you’ll just buy yourself one thing, one stupid thing and you’ll wrap it up and put it under the tree or have it delivered to arrive AFTER Christmas and you’ll tell your husband you have no idea where it came from that maybe you’ll put it in your gift drawer for someone’s random birthday later this year, but the someone special will be you and thank God, because you need it, you really, really need it and if there isn’t kindness in your heart for you, then we’re all in way more trouble than we realized.

I’m serious.

So.

If you need to be told a bedtime story to send you off to a peaceful sleep…
If you need to have pages and pages of beauty telling you that ordinary is magic…
If you need a bit of beauty with a mantra hanging ’round your neck…
If you need something in the mail every month with your name in lovely handwriting…
If you need something soulful and good on your wall that looks beautiful in an IKEA frame and doesn’t cost a fortune…
If you need your incorrigible toddler to remind you who you are, who you always were meant to be…
If you need to remind yourself you are indeed a superhero with heart and soul…
If you need for Christ’s sake to be comfortable while you nurse that baby twenty-four seven…
If you need a good laugh…
If you need to trust yourself…

Then be a big strong girl, dammit, and give yourself that one tiny thing. I’m not even kidding. It will not kill you, I promise. I promise. And if the thought of any of that doesn’t help, then this video will. It will, it will, it will. For sure.

thanks, A!–this was a really really good one.

I love you, invisible internet people, even when I’m tired and slap happy and ranting and silly. I’m not alone and you aren’t either. May the thought of that one magically appearing thing under the tree, your ace-in-the-hole ticket to Christmas morning happiness, keep your days merry and bright.

I’ll be with this dear girl on Thursday in New York City. Andrea connected us and I immediately recognized in Maggie a soulsister, a sage, and a friend who might be familiar with the journey I’ve been on this last year. Maggie, I can’t wait to meet you!

Last minute holiday shoppers guide coming in a few!

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.”
William Newton Clarke

These are the days of dark winter nights, too much to do and too little time.
These are the days of snow falling lightly on trees, perfect silence before dawn.

This is what I think as I race from studio to table, from table to post office, from post office to home.
This is what it looks like when I am not thinking anymore, when I am only moving in slow motion, watching my hands sort the notes and then place them tenderly in their little brown envelopes.

So much goodness going out into the world. So many, many kind words.
I stand in the post office and cry. I’m tired and worn out, but it’s still good. It’s all good.

Last night we cleared the table of envelopes and little mountains of TRUST notes, leaving the leftover, sorted, unpacked stacks at the head. After dinner, we stared at them a little bit and without too much thinking picked up this card or that one and told each other–you need this one or this one is good for you, too. I loved the little stack made for me, but these ones in particular meant the most:

you can be kind to yourself
you can trust the path unfolding before you
(and this one, handwritten on a napkin from Nick) it’s okay if you over-vignette sometimes.

Everything after that made me laugh.

This week only, I’ve added some oldies but goodies to the Etsy store–everything is $10. You can clean up on neighbor and teacher and oh-it’s-just-a-little-something gifts in one fell swoop. For all you TRUST note friends still waiting for your orders–never fear–almost every last thing is out the door tonight and tomorrow. I’m almost all caught up after a tidal wave of orders. Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much.

story here at Shutter Sisters

Your Basic Love Poem that Can Be Read at Any Wedding

Things in their most basic form
are the hardest to put words around:
the winged tail of a shrimp.
a freshly washed pillow case,
growing crisp in the autumn air.

The late winter sun
quenching itself on a bowlful
of snow. The half moon
resting, always,
in your right thumbnail.
What I mean is this—
after the long ride home
when the grass is wet, and the dishes
have been dried, and the wrinkles
have begun to set themselves
in lines more broad
than fine, there will be you—
asleep. Your head in its infinite state
of undress. Each hair
set upon another
wrestling against the grains,
that by some unwritten rule,
must form in your blue eyes.
There will be you, again.
You.
Alight, aloft, adrift,
in my arms alone.

There will be you
and me
and we will be
at home.

-M. C. Boyes