Bless Her Heart

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 19

Day 19: Collective Intention 

I stand in awe of the moments where the thoughts, light, prayers, 'vibes', and candles are collectively summoned from many people with the intention of providing strength or healing for those who need it...

A mama in labor, a badly needed job interview, a child in surgery, a family keeping vigil at hospice...

If we're on the outside, we often feel helpless, except that we have one powerful thing, this virtual clasping of hands together with one another, this single-minded intention towards lifting a person or family in need above their troubles.

Those moments are so powerful and, not surprisingly, often move me to tears.  

 

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 18

Day 18: Crazy Cousin Love

We're going on the third day without The Girl as she is hanging out with my brother's lovely family up the highway a stretch.  Although we are missing her, we're loving that she's getting to be with her cousin. I feel so blessed that between The Man's brothers and my family, we have three beautiful nieces all close in age to The Girl.  It's awesome to watch these relationships build as the girls grow older. They play together for hours...days on end.  Reading, laughing, making believe, they are knitting together their relationships one long holiday weekend at a time.

 

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 17

Day 17 - The Wimmins in my Kitchen

Loved watching Auntie and my Mama whip up a mean soup for family craft night last night. I'm still feeling the warmth today.

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 16

Day 16: Simple Flavors

No sweat.  No tears.  Just good, crisp, simple flavors. The kind that make your eyes close and your lips smile in appreciation for how these things taste like food is supposed to taste.

Amen.

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 15

Day 15: The Teenager

This one who pushes me, pulls me, turns me upside down.

This one with the crusty exterior and the layers upon layers.

This one that can glower with the best of them can also make me laugh until I don't think I can laugh any more.

Quick witted, sparring partner.  Button pusher. Boundary Jumper. My sometimes wiseacre, sometimes tenderheart.  Growing so. damn. fast.

My first true teacher of the real things, the big things, the hard things...the wonderful.

Thank you.

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 14

Day 14: The Rah-Rah-Rah-ers

The kind souls that whisper,

"You are a good mama...you are a good mama...you are a good mama."

When I have doubts, when I'm tired, when I feel like I've run out of answers.  

"You can do this.  I've seen you do this."

Those that remind me to get creative, to find some neutral ground, to count backwards from 10, to find the playful parent that's been lying dormant for too long.

You refresh me when my mothering well feels empty and nudge me back to the path when I feel lost.

Thank you.

 

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 13

Day 13: The Marriage

Typing. Deleting. Typing. Deleting.  There doesn't seem like a good place to start.  Not all gratitude is equal, and this is the deep kind, the bowing-down-to-the-magnitude-of-it-all kind.

This quote was read at our wedding:

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction”

This thing we have, this rock, this constant...I stop and take it in daily.  How we ended up finding and latching on to each other in the midst of our crazy young lives still amazes me.  That he took my hand and asked me to spend forever with him changed my life for the better from that moment on. We are blessed in that the marriage itself is easy and its security has afforded me the opportunity to stretch and grow and learn, always feeling nurtured and supported along the way.  I'd venture to say that we are both very different people than when we were first married, but it's so beautiful to me that we've grown along this path together. He still makes me weak in the knees and there's no place I'd rather be on Friday night than snuggled up on the couch with him watching movies.  Grateful for the easy, for the butterflies, for the nearly 15 years of holding hands and looking outward together.  

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 12

Day 12: Family Craft Night

My gratitude post comes late because we didn't quit with the ink and glitter until just before midnight. Card-making night is our way of collectively pulling ourselves up by our holiday bootstraps and declaring that we accept, nay embrace the crafting and creating frenzy that will occur around here over the next couple of weeks. Bring on the baking and sewing, the late night packaging with jars and boxes and pretty paper and ribbons.  As long as we have the Mariah Carey (don't hate) Christmas album blasting, we're ready for any and all things holiday related.

Tonight my heart is complete with singing, dancing, gluing and glittering. aaaahhhhhhhhhhh......loveliness.

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 11

Day 11: Words that move me

Gift
by W.S. Merwin

I have to trust what was given to me
if I am to trust anything
it led the stars over the shadowless mountain
what does it remember in its night and silence
what does it not hope knowing itself no child of time

what did it not begin what will it not end
I have to hold it up in my hands as my ribs hold up my heart
again in the mountain I have to turn
to the morning

I must be led by what was given to me
as streams are lead by it
and braiding flight of birds 
the gropings of veins the learning of plants
the thankful days
breath by breath

I call to it Nameless One O Invisible
Untouchable Free
I am nameless I am divided
I am invisible I am untouchable
and empty 
nomad live with me 
be my eyes
my tongue and my hands
my sleep and my rising
out of chaos 
come and be given

 

*30 Days with a Grateful Heart - Day 10

Day 10: This Pot

My friend Cathy gave me this pot when The Man and I got married almost 15 years ago.  I love that it does everything that it is supposed to do....which is to say it is a pot. A good, sturdy, consistent pot. It's a simple thing, but I know exactly what to expect of it, and I appreciate that it simply gives me what I need time and time again.