Everyday Day

May23

You know, there’s been a lot of going-through-the-motions around here lately. Joel’s been working a gazillion hours, home for about one of them and back out again. I’ve been holding our lives together in that ah, not really kind of way, which is to say that while energy and patience and nerves dwindle around me, so too do I. I’m kind and compassionate for all of ten minutes and then I end up suggesting, in a rather shrill voice, that maybe I’m tired too and that maybe I’m trying my best not to fling this piece of burnt toast directly at your really annoying forehead right now. You know, just the usual end-of-week kitchen scenario in most family homes about the place.

Anyway, having said all that, I’m using this post to write a letter. To the day. Just to this normal, everyday day.

Normal day,

Let me inspect every inch of you. Let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me hold you carefully before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of a perfect tomorrow. Let me capture you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.

Sincerely,

Rachel.

I’m going to climb up on my homemade soap box for just a second and proclaim my love for something which has changed me — taking photos and documenting the beauty of life.

I think everybody should do it.

When I look through that viewfinder, I see so much more. The clouds are bluer, the light is richer. I notice the way the sun bounces of Ella’s hair, how it bathes her smooth skin and makes it look like velvet. I notice the mess of lashes she’s blessed to have, and the wispy curls that are beginning to gather at the nape of her neck. From time to time, I’ll look back on photos I’ve taken and in doing so, I get to re-live the details of the moment. I get to remind myself where we’ve been and how far we’ve come. I remind myself how blessed we are, how much love there is, and how special these moments of our lives are. Living them together. Side by side. Just a whole bunch of normal everyday days.

Ella took her first steps today. Joel was there to see it. In fact, he was the one who called me over with urgency so I wouldn’t miss it. Everyday day, yes. Super magical stuff happening, too? Yes. Most definitely.

To Thine Own Self Be True

May19

I am a woman. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. I have walked many years on this Libra-buying, leg-shaving, hair-straightening, nail-painting, tear-shedding, hand-holding, love-falling, soul-jerking path, and I share this amazing place called womanhood with billions of other wonderful, complex, heartfelt double x chromosomed beings. The thing is, though, it wasn’t until I was lying in a candlelit room on February the 24th, 2012, that it hit me. “It’s a girl”, I whispered, stunned. I had been so certain we were having a boy. “It’s a girl. It’s a girl.” Every day since, it has hit me over and over again, and now more than ever, it matters to me to understand this whole being a girl thing. Not only what it means to be a woman but to model the kind of woman I hope Ella will grow to be. Since the moment I found out I had a daughter, I felt extreme gratitude. I thought about all the things the future would hold – all the hair-doing, late night talking, secret-sharing loving that is unique to female relationships. There is an untouchable kinship in mother-daughter bonds I’m so freaking glad I get to share with her. And yet, what I think about the most is how I will navigate this complicated world of womanhood with her.

It’s an achievement to find yourself, to know yourself, and to love yourself. It takes guts and heart to dwell confidently as a woman in a world telling you to be prettier, richer, smarter, softer, stronger, better, different from any spectacular thing you already are.

But, how will I raise my girl to know this? How will I teach her to believe that she is as amazing as I know her to be?

How can I show her who she is through my eyes? And how do I make that count?

It is only now, as I approach my thirties, that I feel I am finally arriving at the very comfortable place of Me. Of knowing myself, accepting myself, and celebrating the intricate dualism of my assets and flaws, talents and setbacks, strengths and struggles. It is only now that I am learning to own them and revere them.

I wonder how hard it will be for me to watch my daughter walk along this path of doubt and struggle to arrive at this place, too? I wonder how I will teach her that a woman for which to strive is one who has learned herself completely and who is unapologetically herself. That a beautiful woman is a confident one. That the important things are never about waistline sizes, or grades, or how much money she earns, or how her hair sits.

The most beautiful women I’ve known are the ones with infectious laughter. The ones whose eyes pool with tears when they hear a sad story. The ones who offer genuine compliments and accept them in return. The ones which curse every now and again, who declare when you’re over visiting, “Oh god, I don’t have to provide lunch for you as well, do I?”. Beautiful women are honest. They are alive. They walk to the beat of their own drum looking for good where good may not lie, and believe wholeheartedly in who they are. They proudly, beautifully swim against the current, lighting a path like a blaze of fire, shining brightness onto others to believe in themselves, too.

I wish I could have known back then.

Back as a thirteen year old. As a twenty year old. As a brand new mother.

I wish I could have known.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

When I used to stuff my bra with tissues because all the other girls had boobs and I didn’t.

When I pretended I didn’t cross stitch or like Celine Dion because I wanted everyone to think I was cool.

When I kissed a boy in year 8 behind the lockers not because I liked him but because my friends told me I should.

When I tried things with my newborn baby people told me to do even when I felt it wasn’t right for me.

When I wore my hair a certain way just because the guy I was with liked it like that.

I wish I would have known that confidence is beautiful. I wish I could have met my grown up self and heard these words

Be yourself. You will stand out. You will be beautiful. You will be worthy. I promise. Just be you.

As my girl grows and as those first signs of self-consciousness and armor appear, I don’t know what I’ll do. What can a mama do but love on her baby with ferociousness? Even if it’s met by eye rolls and whatever mum‘s. That’s all I know to do. That, and to be the kind of woman I hope she’ll grow to be. The kind of woman who screams this message:

To thine own self be true.

This above all:

To thine own self be true.

List-Crossing

May17

Give a girl a list and she’s gonna want to start crossin’ things off it. We’re wrapping up the Red Tent week in mini bucket list style. The little happy goals I set out to conquer this week were more fun that I anticipated and it’s definitely a tradition I’m keeping around for a while.

Some highlights.

Spa Day

Candles were flickering, oils were burning, music was playing. I sat a very excited girl down on her special chair and pulled out a whole array of nail polishes for her to choose from. Bright red was picked — the girl has taste — and as I painted each tiny individual toenail she sat still like a stunned mullet, looking up at me periodically as if to say oh mum, this is the coolest thing EVER. As I was sitting there on the floor at her feet, I thanked every god I could think of for giving me a girl.

Ella even brushed her teeth which was immensely exciting. That girl would brush her teeth all day if we let her. We really went all out.

Baking Treats & Devouring With Friend

We took a little road trip yesterday, Ella and I, out to visit my friend Joanne who lives in a quaint little country town. Before we left, I baked something new not in the slightest, but I decided that my bucket list can be open to flexibility. Jo cooked all sorts of yummy treats for us since she’s a goddess like that and I bought some flowers on the way because I decided we ought to stick to our strengths. I’m good at spending money. She’s good at hosting. Sold.

Cinnamon tea cake. Seriously amazing. And we drank from proper cups which everyone knows makes tea taste so much better.

Our girls had a tea party too and they loved it.

Duck Pond Morning

Mornings at the duck pond are always the perfect way to start the day, especially since the duck pond is five minutes from our coffee shop. Perfect combo.

As soon as Ella sees the ducks, her eyes light up like the sun and Joel and I look at each other smiling. Within that smile is a secret language. I say, How beautiful is she? He says, I know Rach, I love her so much. I say, Can you believe we made her? He says, I can’t. I can’t even believe it.

*****

In keeping with the listy theme of today’s post, I have two matters of List Business I have been meaning and neglecting to attend to.

Please someone sound the drum roll.

I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award twice from two lovely separate bloggers. Thank you Jennifer from Chopping Potatoes and Renate from 2craftand2create for nominating this here tent of ours! The Liebster Award is given to new bloggers (those with under 200 followers) by another blogger who deems the aforementioned bloggers to be up-and-comers and “ones to watch.” The rules for the Liebster Award are as follows:

1.List 11 Random Facts about myself
2.Answer 11 questions that Lovely Nominator wrote for me
3.Pass the torch by nominating 11 bloggers
4.Create 11 questions for my nominees
5.Display the Liebster Award logo

So here goes. 11 Random Facts

I nearly drowned when I was four but my mum pulled my drowning body out of a rip via my hair.
The ticking of a clock drives me absolutely insane when I’m trying to fall asleep. No clocks allowed in the bedroom.
After watching action movies with people getting killed in them, sometimes I can have sporadic thoughts over the next few days about how you could murder someone and get away with it. I then immediately freak myself out and vow to never watch an action movie again.
I hate stopping for petrol. Hate it.
I always wish I had a sister.
When I met Joel in Nepal, he had bought a bracelet for me as a welcome gift. He put it on my wrist in the back of the taxi on the way from the airport and it was in that moment that I knew I loved him.
I’d like three children.
The reason Ella’s middle name is Grace is because the psychic we visited when we were pregnant and scared told us she had been talking a bit with Ella after she was born and since we couldn’t think of a middle name, Ella wanted us to know she liked Grace. It was a name she had in a previous life when she and I knew each other. So Grace it is. Weird, I know. We’re weird like that.
Sometimes, one day I can feel like the most unloveable person on the planet. Like if anyone knew how awful I was I’d be alone forever. The next day I can be so full of confidence and self-assurance I’m confused as to why I’m not running the world yet. Of course people love me, I think. Well of course they do. I have since learned it’s wise to attach to neither voice as gospel.
I backed my last car into a fence almost two years ago and I still haven’t got the ding fixed.
When people say “What’s your favourite-” I never know how to answer them properly because I don’t often have favourite things. I like heaps of stuff, different stuff, depending on the day, my mood, the time, how much I’ve slept, etc. This fact may make some of the answers to the Lovely Nominators’ questions a bit challenging but I’ll try my best not to panic in indecisive fear.

And now…Renate’s questions and my answers.
1. What is your favorite animal and why? Yikes. A ‘favourite’ first up. I’m sweating. I don’t have a favourite. Sorry. I do like cats though because they don’t tend to require much. A bit of food, a bit of warmth and the rest they can sort out on their own.
2. Describe the room you blog in. Well, it’s the first room people enter when they visit our home. It’s light and airy with big windows begging to be flung open. It’s the one room of our house which is perpetually clean-ish because I also work from this room. Behind my desk, where I write, there is a massage table and rows of herbs and boxes of acupuncture needles and a big box of tissues. The tissues are used regularly. It’s my space, this room. I love being in here.
3. I have another blog http://minimonotypes.wordpress.com. Do you? What is it? Nope. Only this one.
4. What is your Chinese star sign? Um, I’m not entirely sure, but I was born in the year of the rat, if that’s what you’re asking? Not a fan of being a rat, really.
5. Did you have a favorite cuddly toy and what was its name? No, weirdly, I don’t remember any cuddly toys from my childhood. I have two older brothers. I think I probably had no time to cuddle toys. I spent most of my time trying not to get killed by them.
6. When you are not busy with your blog what do you like to do? Photograph my family. Read books away from my family. Scour second-hand shops. Dress up cute. Go on road trips. Make my daughter laugh. You know, the little things.
7. What would a special day for you look like? No children. No Joel. Spending the morning writing. Getting my hair done at lunch. Maybe a massage. Meeting girlfriends for dinner. Sipping wine. Coming home and writing. No children. No Joel.
8. What is the best/nicest/mot interesting country you have travelled to? Nepal. Best, nicest and most interesting.
9. Name your favorite museum or gallery? I’m not so arty, sorry. Does the library count?
10. Which magazines do you read? The only magazines I read are the glossy ones at the check out line of the supermarket, perusing long enough to catch the latest Hollywood goss, but not too long that I’ll get busted for not buying it.
11. What is your favorite fairytale? Oh God. Um, Cinderella?

Jennifer’s questions and my answers:

Why did you start your blog? Because I was pregnant, isolated and a little bit scared.
What’s your grandest dream? To have a gazillion children, okay maybe just 3, and to be living off fresh bread and sunshine in our farm animal country abode. To write and photograph all day long wearing stripes and paisley and cute red gumboots.
What’s your favorite color? I’m sweating. More F bombs. At the moment, mustard yellow, but I’m also digging red.
Name the favorite room in your home and why. At the moment, our lounge room because we’ve set up a mini tepee in there with a whole heap of fairy lights and it’s so cozy I could go to bed in it.
What’s your favorite word? Okay, two – I know it’s hard to choose. Um, I can’t say I have a favourite word. I like saying “chippies”. As in “hot chippes”. I also like hearing the word “mama” spill from my daughter’s mouth. Actually, yeah, that’s my favourite word. Mama.
What do you put off in order to write? Um, everything? Don’t even ask, I say to Joel when he comes home sometimes, as if I’ve spent the day in domestic chaos rather than in front of my computer writing. Don’t tell him that though. A girl needs her secrets.
What do you do instead of writing? Reading. Reading and writing go together for me. I don’t think you can truly appreciate one without the other.
Where’s your favorite spot to write? At my desk, in my ‘office’ which is generally child free and Joel free. There’s a door. People know to knock.
Have you ever been to Spain? No I haven’t.
What’s the last meal you cooked? Pumpkin and mushroom risotto.
What’s the last song that got stuck in your head? Can’t Hold Us. It’s been in there for about a week now. I can’t get rid of it.

So there you have it. Thank you so much for my award Jennifer and Renate. And to keep the Liebster torch going, I would like to nominate bloggers who are also fellow Red Tenters. I’m always up for helping a sister out.

So…here they are. Other blogs to check out by our Red Tent sisters.

Motherhood Is An Art

Life As I Know It

MUSECONFUSE

The Hour Of Soft Light

F Words

Here are your 11 questions:

If you had one day left to live what would you do?
If money or practicalities were not factors, where would you most love to live?
What was the last book you read?
What are you wearing?
What is a typical Saturday like at your place?
What are three things that make you happy?
Name one quote you love.
What was the last meal you ate?
If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be and why?
What can you not live without?
What is one thing you’d love to improve on?

Go!

And seeing as though this is possibly the longest post in history, I’m signing off with a Friday phone dump and wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

(@theredtent if you want to follow the IG feed)

Happy Friday!

One Word

May14

So I’m sitting here in front of a blank page, and apart from the voice inside my head telling me I should clean up the kitchen, I can think of only one word.

Home.

Home.

It’s been grey and cold the last couple days. We’ve pulled out big striped socks and warm baby jackets and though I love the expansion of summer, I especially love the feeling of winter coming and the rainy days which accompany it. Things bubbling in the slow cooker, rain pattering on rooftops, treats baking in a cozy kitchen. Staying in. Staying home.

Living in a city which barely has seasons has always been something I’ve secretly disliked. Oh to carve out pumpkins and jump in orange autumn leaves and declare it to be Fall. Or to paint chicken eggs and spend Easter celebrating the shoots of new flowers in garden beds or the new baby ducklings while we say words like “spring break”. I envy those who spend their Christmas in front of fire places sipping hot cocoa and watching the snow fall through misted windows. It seems that where I live, it’s hot and then it’s not for, like, not very long. We have summer most of the year, with a little spurt of slightly cooler days, and the timing of this hot-coldness is always in the opposite order to how holiday celebrations are traditionally spent. I feel like we miss out on the ceremonies and the seasonal hype surrounding these distinct times of the year. I feel like I am out of the momentum of things, that I never get to truly experience the spirit of these seasons. Despite this fact, or maybe because of it, I worship the coming of winter, one of the very few times I can really sense a season change. I go overboard with celebrating the change in weather, which is to say, I generally end up in Target buying beanies and scarfs and cute little baby tights. Things which scream WINTER, BE MINE.

Mostly though, this time of year represents home to me. It’s a time to stay in. To read stories. To watch movies. To bake. It’s a time to gather people in. Into our homes, where we play our own music and make our own fun, all the while dressed in the appropriate foot attire of daggy slippers.

So we’ve been doing just that.

I turned our lounge room into a native Indian campsite yesterday morning and though I claim to have set it up for Ella, I can’t promise you that Joel and I didn’t lie inside it long after she’d gone to bed.

Her first ever taste of cake

We stayed like this, the three of us, for most of the afternoon, and when darkness finally fell we rustled up some food for dinner, got Ella in the bath and then tucked her tired body into bed. We switched off every light of the house except the ones which dangled from the centre of the tepee, Joel and I. Then, we lay a blanket down for hips that are not as supple as they used to be and watched a movie under the glow of the lights. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time and a weekly tradition we will continue.

Home.

Lately, it’s just felt like home.

Joel and I have been talking a lot recently about where we truly madly deeply want to live. What we want our children to grow up with. Where we want to dig down our roots and call home. We talk about moving up the street to keep the community we’ve created close. We talk about moving to India, or maybe Indonesia, just because we can. We talk about moving to the countryside where the air is thick with energy and bonfires are built every night. We want a place to call home and we want it to be filled with our wildest dreams. In the end, though, we don’t decide on anything. Wild dreams are awfully large to contain. They are challenging to fit into each little decision we make, because each decision eliminates another dream we hold. So we talk and dream and dream and talk and put it to rest each night, hoping that when we wake up, we’ll have the answers.

What I’ve realized is this.

Home is not where you live but rather the people who exist within it.

I can sit here all I want pretending I know which town will make my family’s life the happiest. I can imagine all the fun we’ll have, all the richness a different place will bring, but in the end, as long as Joel walks through our front door and scoops our baby up with that look on his face that can make me cry, I will always be home. As long as we put each other first, as long as we endure the exhaustion and repetition and challenges of life and parenting and loving well, as long as we spend evenings under fairy lights reading stories to each other in pajamas, we will always be home.

What do you love about home?

Dear Ella

May13

Twenty one months ago I saw you for the first time. Through the grainy flickering of a screen, my eyes made out an image of you lying on your back, one hand behind your head, elbow kicked out to the side, as if vacationing on a warm beach somewhere in Fiji. The kind lady with the cold jelly stick was very interested in how you were doing. You didn’t like her much, nor the cold jelly stick she was waving about the place. Five minutes in, you began somersaulting quicker than she could keep up with you. Soon, you wedged yourself under my hip bone and stayed put like that for the rest of the session. She got a little frustrated, the kind jelly stick lady, and she told me to move this way and that and she dug the jelly stick in deep. But you wouldn’t budge. You curled yourself tightly in a ball and asserted your position as boss.

I loved that you wouldn’t budge. I loved it because it was then that I got my first sense of who you were.

I couldn’t know that years from then, on Mothers Day, I’d be doing the exact same thing. I’d be watching your image through the flickering screen of a camera. I’d be watching you squeal with joy because we let you in the water, even though it was colder than it should have been. I watched you tantrum when we tried to get you out, desperate to stay in a little longer, just a little bit longer. I clicked the button of my camera, tears pooling in my eyes, hoping to freeze in time what I saw. What I felt. Who you were.

After we said goodbye to the kind lady with the cold jelly stick, we got in the car, your dad and I. While your dad drove, I gripped the photo the lady had taken of you. My eyes scanned every millimeter of that picture, glad to have it in my hands, but aching for the weight of it to turn into you. I stared at it until it blurred; trying as hard as I could to choke back tears. I looked across at your dad and he smiled at me. I’m so in love, I said. All I could do was look at him and whisper, I’m so in love.

It was that moment that I felt it for the first time. It almost winded me, the force with which it hit. I gripped your photo and I cried because I couldn’t believe it was true. I became a mother that day, honey. I hadn’t met you yet, not really, but it was a pivotal moment because I knew that I was forever changed. I knew that it would never really leave, this new-found ache in my heart, so piercing it was almost painful. I finally knew how it felt to love a child that was your own. I finally knew that it was like my heart muscle had stretched, like it was pulling out its own sides and wrapping them around a tiny treasure. I acutely understood that once a heart muscle is stretched in this way, it can never go back to its original shape.

I finally realized that this was both the agony and the ecstasy of a mother’s love.

Honey, I realized something else that day in the car. I realized it was possible for dreams to come true long before they are even dreamt. You might one day roll your eyes reading that. You might cringe at how corny it sounds. I don’t mind. You might be where I’ve been one day, honey; in wild love with a baby inside your belly, having no idea what it is about to hit you. You can’t know what’s about to hit. You might be nervous and a little scared, too. That’s okay. It’s not until that baby is in your arms that you find yourself staring in utter awe thinking over and over, “It’s you. It’s you. It’s you.”

This is what life with you is like, honey.

We wake up early, before the sunrise. You don’t like to sleep in much. Some days I try to will you back to sleep, just so I can rest a tiny bit longer, but you call out for us over and over. I go in and scoop you out of your bed and you wrap your arms around me and nestle your head into the nook of my neck. We spend the first drops of the day together while your dad meditates. Sometimes, we light candles. Sometimes, we play music. Sometimes, we grab the sidewalk chalk and plonk our sleepy bodies down on the driveway, mama sipping coffee, you drawing, and we watch the sunrise together while the rest of the world is quiet.

It’s those moments I find myself silently thanking you, honey. It’s then that I realize just how much beauty you expose me to, beauty I would surely miss with my eyes closed in bed.

You want to be just like us, honey, and ain’t nobody gonna tell you you can’t have what we have. So, mama quickly drinks the rest of her coffee, fills the mug with imaginary coffee and hands it over. You are delighted. You are growing with rapid speed before my very eyes.

Sometimes in the morning we go to the park. You are obsessed with slides. And dogs. And other children. All I usually do is put you down and let you run free. You’ve got business to do at the park. You’ve got things on.

Over the weekend, we had a special couple of days, honey, you, your dad and I. You see, the weekend honoured that day in the car. The photo I gripped. The change which took place in my heart. Sunday was Mother’s day, honey, and even if there are more babies to come, brothers or sisters to love and cherish, there will forever be a special place in my heart for the girl who made me a mother. You. You made me a mama.

We celebrated the family you’ve bound us to be. But then again, we usually spend the weekends doing that.

We had a picnic by the water, after a quick trip to the markets where I picked up this new little tee for you. Fitting for Mothers day, I thought, and sound advice at that. When you grow out of it, I’ll have it framed and it will hang above your bed the day you turn 13.

It was a weekend that just felt like family. And home.

One we never would have had, had it not been for you.

Love,

Your mama.

Boat Floating

May10

The windows are flung open. Candles are burning. And I have one thing to say.

Why hello Friday.

This week, so much has been floating my boat. My tank’s been topped with renewed energy and I’m looking for — and finding –beauty everywhere. I’m still in bed by 8 and there are always dishes in the sink because, well, we’re not talking about superwoman here or anything. We’re just talking about a wee little person sitting in a boat that is FLOATING.

So, I bring you the Red Tent weekly wrap up…some boat floaters that have been keeping this place a-sailing.

1. Macklemore. And Monsters and Men. And Vance Joy.

What humanity would do without music, I’m frightened to think. Every now and again, tracks come along that reach right in and move us, enliven us, free us. They keep us carrying on, and the body-shaking-finger-wagging abandon which follows is up there with some of the greatest medicines around. We’ve been having dance parties most days and the music streaming from our open windows has been louder than it probably should be. Edwin Denby once said, “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” Which only makes me turn the music up louder, you see. Thank you musicians, for grabbing our souls and swinging them round. Thank you for your poetry. Thank you for the way you keep us carrying on. Listen to this, friends. And this. And this. Play it in your lounge room. Play it loud. Play it in front your kids or your dogs or your plants. Anyone or thing you feel comfortable shaking your hips alongside.

Raise those hands, this is our party
We came here to live life like nobody was watching
I got my city right behind me, if I fall, they got me.
Learn from that failure gain humility and then we keep marching ourselves.

Here we go back, this is the moment
Tonight is the night, we’ll fight ’til it’s over
So we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us
Like the ceiling can’t hold us.

***********

2. I came across this video yesterday, and even if you do NOTHING else today, watch it. Ten minutes of your time and simply one of the best things I’ve ever seen. I sat there thinking, Is this guy inside my head? OMG, he’s in there! It will change your day, this video. I promise.

**************

3. Horses and Hay

Another visit to The Farm this week. The weather’s been cooler and crisper. Boots have been grabbed, cardigans worn. I’m getting excited for the coziness of winter, eating stews on laps during movie nights, extra afghan quilts thrown on beds and the wearing of warm woolen slippers. We dragged out our boots ‘n pants and headed to The Farm. It was full of magic. Magic meaning hay.

Ella came back covered in chicken poo and dog hair, and with a slight-to-severe goose-fearing complex, but my brother — who is so smitten it can make me cry — taught her some of her first words this week. She said “bye-bye” for the first time yesterday and at one point, after they came back from the fish pond Chris said, “Did you know she can say fish“? I said, “Whaaaat?“. He said, “Ella, are you going to tell mummy what we saw? Did we see some fish?”. A smile broke upon her face. She looked up at me and said, “Ish. Ish.” It took everything I had not to squeal like a crazy person and scoop her up to kiss her like mad.

It was a good day.

The horses are not her favourite. They are not. She clings on timidly to us and I wish I captured the expression on her face because it is somewhere between extreme disbelief and utter shock. Imagine seeing a horse and not knowing what the hell it is. I hear you, honey. Cling on tight. We got you.

*******

4. Mornings. Mornings have been floating my boat this week. In the morning, I am somewhat rested. I am sweet and decent and kind. I am excited for the potential of the day. I am thrilled about the drinking of my morning coffee.

As you can see, Joel goes to creative lengths to ensure his coffee doesn’t get swiped by a predator. He barricades it in with walls, but may I let you in on a little secret; those walls are very easily removed and put back when he’s not watching.

Also, you guys, he gives Ella — among other things — seaweed for breakfast. Seaweed! I ask him if he’s forgotten she is a land-dwelling animal, not a creature of the ocean. He ignores me.

******

5. Lastly, baby jeans. Huge boat floater. Seriously, how cute are they?

********

Bringing you the weekly Red Tent Friday photo dump (@theredtent on Instagram if you care to follow the feed). My small happies.

And lastly, wishing a happy Mothers Day to all of you with children…and for all who offer that part of their heart to others. I have friends who ache to be mothers but are not yet, so I approach this day with sensitivity. What I believe is this. To mother is to nurture life, and there is not one woman I know who does not do this. We nurture because we’re wired that way. Child-less or child-ridden, we make and keep bonds, we offer solace and care and soft places to land and we love because it comes easily to us. Pets, friends, partners, basil plants, doesn’t matter. It’s all life-nurturing. So on Sunday I’ll be celebrating Mamas and the damn hard work they do, but more importantly, I’ll be celebrating women everywhere, because without the love they house and the nurture they offer, the mothering they do, the world would not go round.

Have a happy weekend, friends.

What’s been floating your boat?

Finding God in Mini Bucket Lists

May8

I’ve never been particularly good at friendships. I make friends easily and I love people, but the things involved in keeping bonds going do not come easily to me. Remembering birthdays, checking in, returning emails and texts. I don’t know what it is, but I never seem to be able to keep on top of it. I go through phases of engaging ferociously, and then I get tired and a little burnt up. I recoil from the world and read a lot. I turn off my phone and I stay in jammies. When Joel tries to speak to me, I flash him a look which sends him disappearing deep inside the house, scattering like a mouse who has suddenly seen a cat. My friends know this about me and they love me anyway, which I’m glad about.

I’ve also never been particularly good in groups. I find it stressful navigating social dynamics and group hierarchies. I get tired thinking quickly on my feet, saying the right things, laughing when I’m supposed to, feeling included but not being grabby, asking appropriate questions in silences, appearing relaxed, effortless, likeable. I like my friends one on one, where I can ask how are you? and they can really tell me. Where they can ask how are you? and I can really tell them. I feel most comfortable on a couch, or on a floor, talking about the things we cover with cute clothes and make-up when we meet a bunch of people for dinner. I love a night out, I really do, and not all my conversations need to be deep and meaningful. It’s just that most of the time, I think the dynamic of friendship groups leaves little space for the intimacy occurring between the people themselves.

In moments when I am sitting in front of another human being, sharing tissues and secrets, I get a strange sense of something outside of myself. In the midst of unrelenting honesty, of heartache and of loneliness – and we all house these things when we dig deep enough- I feel a basic human connection. I see how fragile and strong we are. I see how connected we are in life’s simplest pursuits – that we love, that we lose, and that we dream. I feel right there, in those moments, that the bridge between us overrides all the things we believe make us different.

We’re not different.

Throughout my life, I have studied a lot of spiritual practices. I’ve read countless books. I’ve turned concepts over in my mind until I found a way to understand them and then integrate them into my life. What I could never quite understand was that many practices found peace and bliss and enlightenment and God by being alone. By sitting on a mat and going inside.

While there is not a shred of doubt inside of me that discounts the need for isolation in mastering myself (that is an inside job, after all), I am not convinced that inside is where God lies. I think God exists in the space between me and another human being. The moments in life I’ve felt to be most holy have always included other people, and still to this day, the times I feel the presence of something sacred, something divine, something greater than myself is when I am sharing in something real with another person. When one of us is hurting and the other is caring. When one is needing and the other is providing. Those experiences right there – the small acts of love between people – are the only true thing I know about how to find God. I think God is really just sitting there quietly, waiting to be found in each other. When we love. When we realize that love is not a feeling to have, but simply something to do for one another.

So, you guys, I’m doing this little thing. A weekly bucket list. To love people better and to love life better.

And it goes a little something like this:

Good morning Monday, what are you looking forward to this week? and I will make a list–a miniature week version of a bucket list, full of ten very doable tasks, and I will cross them off all week long and celebrate on Friday.

So (drum roll please….) (and I’m sensing this could become a very Monday thing…watch out)

My Mini Bucket List:

1. Text or email someone randomly every day this week. Pick a person and let them know you are aware of what’s going on in their life; that they are important. Grab the phone right then and there, even if you’re in the middle of a domestic drama. Do not just think nice thoughts. People are not telepathic, Rachel.

2. Bake something new. Take a plate of before-mentioned treats to a friend. Devour together.

3. Put babies to bed, turn off the phone and watch a movie on the couch with Joel.

4. Spa day with Ella. Ask her if she wants a massage, knowing full well she will rub her hands up and down her belly saying “mass, “mass”. To this, you will smile, which is the precise reason you asked her in the first place. Paint her toe nails. Light candles and burn incense and play classical music.

5. Try to not yell at Joel if he leaves his clothes on the floor. Or forgets bin day. Or does not put his dishes in the sink. Instead of starting sentences like, OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU I AM NOT YOUR GOD DAMN SLAVE, I will smile sweetly and remind Joel that it is important to me that Child Services not take away our one and only child so would he please mind picking up the dirty plates he has left around the house before the cockroaches carry us all away.

6. Feed the ducks with Joel and Ella one morning.

7. Mexican food and games night with friends.

8. Dropping dinner off at my brother’s house. He lives around the corner and I should really see him more than I do.

9. Organize our next camping trip— lock in a date and turn it into a group affair.

10. Date night with Joel. Go out somewhere. Drink wine. Laugh.

Join me if you feel like it. Tell me what’s on your list. Keep it small though. Don’t out-superwoman me. You know I get tired easy.

And now, without further ado, I bring you my recent little moments of love. Glimpses of God, right in front of me.

She points to her helmet on a daily basis, and when we have the time, we bundle the bikes into the car and go to the place we always go when we want to do something a little bit special. The place where we’re sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, wastin’ time. This bay has a bike path right along the water’s edge and a kick-arse playground Ella loves. (Sorry for swearing but it’s really, really good.) We buy hot chips, too, since that’s our tradition. God is everywhere in this place.

Have you met my new bike? Red Tenters, most amazing bicycle ever to have existed. Most amazing bicycle ever to have existed, Red Tenters.

All day long is mum mum mum mum mum and I think how strange it is that someone can say something so small and yet it fills up something as huge as my heart.

She’s a slide fanatic. Can’t get enough. Awesome playground by the bay. Three slides. And one’s a double slide.

Those weird bouncy things though? Not so fanatical about them.

Shakespeare wrote that the earth has music for those who listen. So I’m listening hard. I’m trying to listen really, really hard.

Monday Bucket List, here I come. Join me, if you want. Tell me what’s on yours.

Have a happy evening friends. See you back here soon.

The Red Tent

A Woman's Retreat