Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.
—from “Mysteries, Yes” by Mary Oliver
“A portrait of my children every week in 2016.”
Lillia: You made it through your sixth grade year! While it was certainly a big adjustment from fifth to sixth grade, you were determined to step it up and work to your ability. I appreciate so much that you basically did this on your own, with very minimal pressure from us. And, you had a GREAT year. You got all A’s in your second AND third term, and your final grades for the year were all A’s as well—this qualified you for the high honor roll! This year you also ran for student council and were elected Member at Large, you starred in your school play, and you aced your spring dance performance. Words can’t describe how proud I am of all you’ve accomplished, and how wonderful it is to have you as a daughter. I love you so much, Lillia!
Zane: You have officially “graduated” from preschool, which puts you on track for kindergarten in the fall. This year you learned all of your letters and numbers, and how to write your name. You developed a real enjoyment for doodling, and you’re still enamored with babies and birds. You made lots of friends, and had your first real playdate this month. While it seems incomprehensible that you’ll be going to “real school” in the fall, I know that your kindergarten teachers are going to love having you in their class—your cheerful personality and natural curiosity will take you far. I love you, Zane-a-roo!
[Note: It’s been very hard to get photos of Lillia this year—she’s been very busy and I just haven’t been taking as many pictures lately, which makes me sad. Regardless, the picture of Lillia backstage at her dance performance was taken by Sarah Manning.]
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be writing my first garden post of the year! We’re doing things a little differently this summer. The big change is a new half-size (4 ft x 4 ft) raised bed just for the little guy (you can see him working on building it with Papa, above). After reading in several sources about the value of having a “children’s garden,” I thought there must be some way we could make it happen for Zane. Our back yard is framed by massive, old oak trees which are beautiful and give us much-needed summer shade—the downside is that their umbrella of leaves covers the entirety of the plant-able space and limits our ability to grow sun-loving vegetables behind the house. So…side-yard it is, and the new box fits just fine. Zane would like to grow tomatoes, radishes, flowers, and…eggplants! He’s a funny little fellow.
My parents have a great setup for starting seeds indoors, and they graciously gifted us many tomato and kale seedlings to get us started. Zane chose a cherry tomato and a kale plant for his garden. We still have room for some additional plants, so we’ll be acquiring those this weekend. I’d really like to do zucchini this year (we skipped it last year and regretted it). I’d also like to do some pickling cucumbers. We did beets and carrots last year, but they take so.long.to.grow. I’d rather focus on something else this summer. We also didn’t bring back the pea teepee, since the peas did really poorly last year, and it’s already pretty late in the season for peas. I think I might still try to do some bush-type peas in one of the raised beds, just to see what happens.
The last change is swapping out the unwieldy (but effective) cat-deterring chicken wire for more convenient (but expensive) deer fencing, also donated by my parents—it’s what they have been using in their beds for the past couple of years and it seems to work. I think it’s a much safer solution, especially for the kids.
What are you planting this summer? I’d love to hear about your gardening adventures!
“A portrait of my children every week in 2016.”
I’m really far behind on publishing the posts for my 52 week portrait project, so I’m just going to give you the pictures from weeks sixteen and seventeen, and let you write your own captions!
All night the dark buds of dreams open richly. In the center of every petal is a letter, and you imagine if you could only remember and string them all together they would spell the answer. It is a long night, and not an easy one—you have so many branches, and there are diversions— birds that come and go, the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye. Finally you have spent all the energy you can and you drag from the ground the muddy skirt of your roots and leap awake with two or three syllables like water in your mouth and a sense of loss—a memory not yet of a word, certainly not yet the answer—only how it feels when deep in the tree all the locks click open, and the fire surges through the wood, and the blossoms blossom. — “Dreams” by Mary Oliver
This morning I was looking back at my birthday post from last year, written by a thirty-four year-old me who was obviously feeling very vulnerable and uncertain. I was confused, the future completely opaque, and I was worried about where I might be in a year or two when both kids were in school and didn’t need a full-time mother—I didn’t have a career to return to, and the idea of starting from scratch was completely overwhelming.
Things have changed.
In the past year I got a part-time job, doing something I really enjoy. I did some professional photography work and realized that I don’t really have the desire to take pictures as a full-time career—what a relief to be certain of that! I finally launched, and have been pouring myself into, a new creative endeavor called around the year.
I feel like myself, now more than ever—in fact, I feel a lot like the person I was as a child.
Thirty-five feels like possibilities.
It feels like standing in a beautiful forest, with the early morning sunlight touching down on my skin, like golden petals, as it passes through the leaves and branches—ahead of me are many paths, all of them inviting, all of them drawing me closer to myself. God willing, there will be time to explore each one, and that’s just what I plan to do this year.