blathering and a quick update

It’s mid-afternoon here and I’m just finishing up my last sips of chai masala tea. Yum. I like tea. Ryan took Jack with him to the studio and Forrest is napping peacefully (for the moment), so it’s quiet (except for the incessant traffic outside my window [yes, I seem to have lost perspective since moving from Southern California]). I was just sitting here on my bed, knitting and trying really hard to ignore the fact that it’s 67 degrees today (at the end of June) when I remembered that I have something to tell you. That made me much happier. Well, the knitting made me feel happy, too, because it’s a blanket for my wee one. Oh, and also, my thoughts were traced with bits of episodes of Dr. Who, and that also makes me (strangely) happy. (I feel really odd admitting that “out loud” here because I’m so ridiculously not a TV person and I don’t even have a TV. We’ll just move on now. But I seriously love Dr. Who.)

But anyway.

First of all, it’s really cool to read the comments from those of you who’ve been visiting my little space here ever since I began writing again this week. Thanks for holding out for me! It means a lot. Kisses to you.

Also, I wanted to give you all a bit of a site update. For the time being, I’ll be reverting back to the URL http://mamarissa.wordpress.com as opposed to http://mamarissa.com. This change will officially occur as of June 26th, so if you keep up with me via reader or anything else in which you may have entered my site as mamarissa.com, be sure to change it so you still receive updates! I wouldn’t want you to miss any of my riveting posts. Wink.

Love love love!

It’s 4:45pm & my kids are still in their PJs

I’m sitting here at the table with a cup of tea. My boys just got up from their nap time & quiet time. We’re giggling off and on because a storm just rolled in and our windows were open. I asked Jack to crank the window closed and right then the wind and rain came down so hard that he got soaked and the screen flew out of the window. He just laughed and laughed. I ran to close the window over our sink but the fan sitting in it was spraying me with so much water that I could barely see. Now, only 5 minutes later, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. Oh, little adventures.

Earlier today, I was adding a few knots to some of my front sections of hair that haven’t quite dreaded up yet, and Forrest wanted to “help.” He sat on my lap and just twisted my hair all around. It felt good. It’s something you kind of give up when you have dreads – there aren’t a lot of people who understand how clean dreadlocks can be, and so, there are few people who will just play with your hair for fun. Except your little kids. You can count on them for sure.

Do you ever have that feeling that nobody really gets you? It sounds narcissistic when I say it like that, but I mean it innocently. I think I feel that way because I have forgotten how to share myself. I mean, it’s so easy to share half-versions of ourselves on blogs or Facebook or whatever, but what about the full versions in real life? I’m sure that not everyone struggles with this. But I am a stay-at-home mama (who loves what she does) and I don’t get out a lot because there are so many blessings to tend to here within these walls. I would like to see myself open up so that people can get me. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the key here.

Anyway…time to get my kids dressed. (Yes, it’s 4:45pm.)

it’s good to be Mama.

I went to get an ultrasound today. It was my first for this pregnancy, and I was a little stressed out about it for some reason. I take that back – the reason is that they told me I had to guzzle down 24 ounces of water 30 minutes before my appointment and then hold it until after the ultrasound. (I really think that could be classified as abuse.) But it turns out that 24 ounces first thing in the morning isn’t too bad (except for when the ultrasound is done and you get up and your baby dances on your extremely full bladder and you think, ohmahgah why do these people hate me so much?). Truly, though, the technician was extremely sweet and she said that everything looked perfect.

I was amazed by how wonderful it felt to see my baby on that screen. I recognized the feeling – it’s something I felt with both my boys – but I guess it surprised me that I’m still in such awe of this process of bringing new life into the world. Those two lines on the pregnancy test, the swelling of my belly, the first kicks, those glimpses of my babies on the ultrasound screen, the incredible process of labor and birth and bonding and those teeny tiny little baby bodies – I love it all and I feel so honored to carry the title of Mama.

Ahh…happy thoughts.

Oh, and since we’re on the subject, here’s a I-don’t-own-a-real-camera photo of me and my belly from a few days ago. I was 20 weeks and 3 days pregnant at the time.

a long-winded explanation about why I am beginning to distrust stinging insects

I’m not really the type of gal who is easily disturbed by insects. I mean, I don’t really love them, but as long as they’re gentle or they basically want to avoid me, I’m happy to share the air with them. The problem is, I kind of feel like insects of the stinging variety are following me through my years, and I wish they knew how much I don’t like it.

As a teenager, I was stung by a wasp while retrieving the mail. I don’t know why a wasp was hanging out by the mailbox or why it didn’t want me to get my mail, but I let it slide because it was the first time.

And then, when I was living in Texas and was still pregnant with Jack, I nannied for several different kids. I used to nap along with one of the little girls I looked after, and one time, I woke up to the sound of buzzing. A mud dauber (in other words, a hideous reddish-brown wasp) was flying angrily around my room. I was able to “take care of it” probably only because of the rush of adrenaline it gave me. Maybe a month later, I found another one in my room (thankfully, this time the little girl I looked after wasn’t sleeping in there). I “took care” of that one, too.

This one is the worst. One day, when Jack was only a couple of months old, he was sleeping on my bed and I was on the computer in a corner of my room. I felt something tickle my hand and figured it was just a cord brushing against me. Well, then I felt it again, got a bit curious, and looked over at my hand. Nope, not a cord. A mud dauber. GAH! I leapt up and the mud dauber buzzed to the window, behind the blinds. Fortunately, Ryan was home, so I grabbed Jack and ran to Ryan to ask him to help me. He searched the room and found no trace of the stupid bug, but suddenly, Jack was screaming. I looked all over him and found no reason for distress, so I hugged him to me and tried to soothe him. Suddenly, I experienced such an intensely painful sting on my finger, which was supporting Jack between his legs. It was so painful that I may have dropped Jack if I hadn’t been holding him right next to the bed. I laid him down and immediately stripped off his little sleeper. Lo and behold, there on his leg was the mud dauber, and there were at least five stings on Jack’s tiny little inner thigh. It was heartbreaking.

After that, I once had to chase a bee out of my apartment in California, but it’s nothing to get upset about when I compare it to the baby-stinging mud dauber.

And that brings us to our house here in New York. A couple of weeks ago, a honey bee was just hanging out above our kitchen sink. We tried to figure out a way to capture it so that we could let it go outside, but it didn’t want to cooperate and we (by we, I mean Ryan, of course) were forced to take more drastic measures. And then, just the other day, we came in from a long day away from home only to find a ginormous hornet hanging out on our kitchen ceiling!

What is the meaning of this?! I mean, really? Is it normal? Does everyone feel like they are constantly fighting off stinging insects, or have they just taken a particular liking to me and my home? It’s really quite ridiculous. I’m starting to feel suspicious.

These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night. Seriously.

as I jump back on the scene

I’m just going to jump right back in. Yes, I took a 9-month hiatus, but I really don’t have any explanation for it other than telling you I had a severe case of writer’s block. I’m back now!

It’s Monday morning and the sun is shining through the trees in my backyard. I don’t think I can properly express to you how much relief I feel when I see that the trees have leaves. Green leaves. This past winter forced me to hide inside myself and now that green just keeps inviting me outward. It’s quite refreshing.

A couple of days ago, I took some time to adjust some of my post categories and just do general maintenance on my blog. I was surprised by how badly I wanted to delete a bunch of my earlier more embarrassing posts. You know, the ones where I acted like I knew what I was doing. But I was struck by the thought that this blog is sort of like a journal. It’s a bad idea to rip out the pages of the dumb, embarrassing, shallow entries because really, whether we like it or not, those entries are a part of our past and they are a tiny little piece of the greater mosaic our lives have become now. You can’t just remove little bits here and there. So, all the posts remain (except for the ones where I talked about giveaways because those are just annoying).

I’ve been in one of those reflective moods lately. I mean, I usually am, but being pregnant (yes! I’m pregnant – 20 weeks and 4 days along) always makes me think. I love that peaceful stretch of time after the first trimester (and beyond) sickness leaves, but before the third trimester aches and pains come to visit. I love to feel my baby move and to think about when I felt my other two babies move in utero – look at their lovely little lives now! And my life! Look at how each child changes my life. They’ve opened my heart, softened me, and they embody such sweetness. How is it that we grow so hardened as we age? I want to be soft again. Life could be simpler that way, I think.

I’m starting this week by challenging myself to consider every task, every event, every conversation as assignments from God. What would happen if I chose to see things this way? I might stop rushing through the day. I might value every moment instead of classifying parts of my day as either “important” or “unimportant,” don’t you think? This moment with my cup of tea and the sunshine streaming through the windows with the sound of my boys playing happily together in the living room is just as meaningful as when I’m doing dishes, or hanging out with Ryan, or reading books to the boys – because it was assigned to me as part of my day.

I just want to slow down.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I don’t want to cry over cold coffee.

I’m gonna be honest, here…

I’ve had a rough go of it over the last few months. For whatever reason, my stress and anxiety have taken a pretty bad turn and at the beginning of each day I think, “Is this really how the day is going to go?” and then at the end of each day I think, “Seriously? Do I have to be like that?”

I get angry with myself because my attitude is ugly. All day long, I feel impatient and then I get mad at myself for being impatient. I feel irritated, and then I get mad at myself for being irritated. I feel rushed, and then I get mad at myself for being rushed. And that list? It just goes on and on and on.

In the mornings, I find myself in utter chaos. Toys have been flung everywhere, my 16-month-old is asking to nurse for the 3rd time in an hour, my 3-year-old is taking every single toy away from the 16-month-old (which is what’s making him want to nurse 3 times in an hour), and the coffee (that I made at 6am) is cold and the devotions (that I began at 6:15am) sit before me, half-finished. When I catch a moment to dive back into my devotions, my 16-month-old brings me all of his favorite books and makes his little “Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh?” sound that means, “Will you read this to me?” while making the sign for “please.” And I want to smile, and weep, and crawl into a hole, and read a thousand books to that precious boy all at the same time. And I just think, why am I so stressed out? What is it in me that causes me to react so strongly to this chaos? Why does my brain feel like it’s about to explode every time one of my children need something from me?

I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

But in the midst of the stress, and the anxiety, and the weeping, I can hear this voice in the back of my head: “Slow down. Just slow down. One day, your boys won’t be begging you to read Snuggle Puppy 5 times in a row. One day, Forrest won’t want to nurse 3 times in an hour, or ever. One day, Jack will stop wanting to cuddle your arm and kiss it 70,000 times. Just slow down.”

And I’m so perplexed because I keep trying to listen to this voice, and yet – I fail. I feel defeated, and I want to ask you, “Is this just the way it is?”

But I don’t want to hear an empathetic “Yes,” or “It’s just a season,” or whatever. I refuse to believe that this is what I must settle for – even if it’s just for a season. I refuse to believe that I cannot overcome this in this season.

If there’s one thing I’m positive of, it’s that God made me the mama of my boys for a reason. He gave me to them, and he gave them to me – and that also means that he gave me the tools for the job. He gave me the ability to rise above the stress and look at the situation for what it really is.

It’s beautiful. Beautiful chaos. And I know that.

I’m just trying to figure out how to live that. I’m trying to figure out which pocket of my brain has all those tools stashed away in there.

I don’t want to cry over cold coffee. I don’t want to have to remind myself to take deep breaths when my baby asks me to read to him.

I want to remember, “I’m gonna miss this,” right in that moment – and then choose to cherish it all.

Because what’s a cup of hot coffee when compared to my babies curled up in my arms?

Six Dreaded Months

Six

whole

months.

Even as I write this, I’m giggling to myself. How weird would it be if someone who’d dyed their hair red, for example, were to write updates on the state of their hair? “It’s been 6 months since I dyed my hair [red/blonde/brown/black/whatever]. I feel like such a different person!” Hehe. It seems kind of trivial if you look at it like that — but with dreadlocks, it’s just…different.

Anyway, I haven’t gone into a lot of detail about my dreads, so I figure that their half-birthday is as good of a reason as any to enlighten any of my curious readers.

I think anyone with dreadlocks would admit that there are stages in which either you hate the way they look and want to rip them off your head, or you’re so in love with them that you get a little misty-eyed at the thought of ever chopping them off. In general, although I’ve experienced both stages, I have found that I usually land somewhere on the love side of things. I love them and they feel like they’re part of me, but I also sometimes forget that they’re even on my head. And that’s not to be taken as a careless remark – I think, actually, that it speaks a lot about how me they really are. They just belong there – so much so that I forget to consider that they ever weren’t there. Are you following me? Hehe.

My wash routine has stayed pretty consistent. I started with really, really short hair, so I washed my dreads once a week until they were about a month old. Then, once they were more locked up, I began to wash them twice a week, and I’ve continued to do so ever since. I wash with a rosemary shampoo bar that I buy from my local food co-op. I wrap my head in a towel afterwards and then I allow my hair to air-dry. Easy-peasy!

Surprisingly, I’ve gotten very few (positive or negative) comments while out in public. I’ve had one incident where I could tell a couple of goofy highschool girls were giggling at me, but other than that, I haven’t gotten any weird looks or anything. In our city, dreadlocks are fairly common, which probably has a lot to do with the lack of attention. I can’t say I mind!

If I could do it all over again…I’d do it again. I would! I was about to say that my dreads have taught me a lot – but let me be honest here – God has taught me a lot. By choosing to wear my hair like this, I gave up (the lie that I even had) a lot of control. My hair does its own thing. I have to roll with it. People may have their own (sometimes opposing) opinions. I have to roll with it. Sometimes I don’t look very put-together. And I’m reminded that on the inside, I’m not really very put-together either, and I’m glad that I can’t just resort to appearing like I am. God is in control. I am not. If anything, in my dread journey, I’ve come face-to-face with that single truth more than anything else.

Giving up my hair – choosing to wear it this way – is a reminder for me. It reflects what’s in my heart. I’m slightly messy and out of control, but creative and eccentric and I was chosen and I’m supposed to be here.

And now, any dreadlock-related questions out there? Ask away – I’ll respond in the comments section!

Pssst…see also:

Do you dread change?

5

Dreadlock Chronicles on Flickr (I promise to have Ryan take some real pictures of my head soon!)

and there’s also the dreadlocks tag on my sidebar for all posts pertaining to my locks

Littlespeak, Part 2

It was early in the morning and I was taking a quick shower before beginning our busy day. Jack peeked around the shower curtain and asked, quite sincerely, “Mama, what are you taking?”

“A shower,” I said.

He smiled. “Oh.”

Oh, the things he says.

this moment

{this moment: Jack’s house}

find other moments here

floating, twirling

I rarely sit down at my computer. I usually have at least 2 or 3 emails waiting for replies, and I often have a pile of mental notes dancing around in my brain, faintly reminding me to read a certain blog or to check a certain sale or to find a certain recipe. Oh, and then there’s my blog.

(My blog and I have a bit of a rough relationship. If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you know that my blog and I are a struggling couple. We’re seeing it through, but it’s not easy.)

I am coming to terms with my desire to write. Like, to really write. I’ve always wanted to be a writer but recently, all of my life dreams have sort of combined and then spontaneously imploded within each other – I know they’re still there, somewhere in the mess, – floating and twirling and vaguely tottering back and forth, the way dreams do – but the difficulty lies in articulating them and then practically pursuing them.

Do you know what I mean?

So, although I’ve already articulated my desire to write several times throughout my life, I was especially aware of it during the past week, and I was even feeling the faintest bit of irritation with myself for sitting in front of this wall (otherwise contemptuously known as writer’s block) for so long now. I’m so over sitting in front of this stupid wall.

I realized that I am a strange, tormented type of person – a person who can’t seem to stop thinking about her fears, her hopes, her failures and her successes. I am someone who cannot escape the trap of my mind, and yet – within that trap, there is a flood of words and art and beauty just waiting to escape. I know it. I know it because I am a writer. So many of us are tormented by ourselves. And sometimes, the torment simply comes from subtly refusing to acknowledge our utter need to write – to take part in something larger than ourselves, something uncontrollable, something scary, something beautiful except that we don’t know how it got so beautiful.

To some of you, this will sound like rambling.

To the artists – the writers, the painters, the potters, the photographers, the musicians…well, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

So, not only have I chosen to inwardly acknowledge this dream of mine, but I’m also facing the scary reality of admitting it out loud. Not just to my husband or my mom or my friend – but to all of you. Whoever you are.

I’m a writer.

And while we’re talking about dreams (or was that just me talking?), I have to say something else. There is a deeply-seeded desire within me to simplify. Not just by getting rid of junk or driving one car or only cooking from scratch. Yes, those things are a part of the bigger picture, but oh how my heart longs for a simple life. A little white farmhouse full of children. A garden. Some animals. An outdoor fire over which I cook all my summer meals. A clothesline full of billowing sheets and diapers and my husbands socks and dishrags. Widlflowers and strolls through the forest and picnics and oh, my heart just hurts for these things. Not because I am a young girl with impractical ideals, but because I cannot stomp these yearnings from my heart.

Perhaps it will come to be. Perhaps not. But I am looking for them – looking for my farmhouse, and my forest, and my clothesline – I’m watching for them in case they happen to be waiting for me to notice them.

I do not know what will come, but I am not going to use that as an excuse to quit searching for a home for my dreams.

My floating, twirling dreams.