The Seventh Day

By The Red Tent, May 1, 2013

And on the seventh day God rested, didn’t he? Yep, I hear you, God. Us too. We’ve been laying low because the Mother Teresaing (yes, it’s a verb) has used me all up. In a good way, of course. It filled me up and used me up….if those things can happen at the one time. The thing is, I get tired easy. And even when I get tired, I come home and I keep loving because, well, things tend to go a bit pear-shaped without a mama’s love around, don’t they? Lucky for me, I haven’t had to get dressed too much lately and a box of chalk on our front driveway while I read books nearby has sufficed for good enough mothering and a happy child.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for writing in and telling me you were moved by the last post. I’m glad you were. I keep imagining what the world would feel like if, just for one day, every single person went around being kind like that. When I think about the concept of heaven and try to get my head around what that might even be, I keep coming back to what happened on Sunday. That it’s not a place, heaven. That there is nothing “there” like all our favourite things and people. It would be life, exactly here right now as it is, although everybody’s first and foremost goal would be to love on one another well. It would be like Sunday times a few billion. Seven billion, in fact. Isn’t that about how many people live on this planet? Can you imagine that?

Also, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, wordpress was being a little screwy when I published the last post, so if it never got emailed to you, and you have no idea what happened on Sunday, click here to find out.

Right now, I’m back to finding goodness in the small things. Horizontally, if possible.

 

 

 

 

We took a trip to the country this past week, and since one should always make the most of out any situation, we donned our best country boots like it was our job.

 

 

We went to visit a friend’s old, old family ranch (it was just a house, really, but ranch sounds much more thrilling) which nobody had lived in for years. Some parts of the property were so wild we had to actually cut our way through it to make a track for our car. This, I’m certain, made the boys feel extremely manly. They also had to pull a tree off the path by rigging up some gadgets to the car and they nearly wet themselves with excitement. MacGyver meets Bear Grylls.

 

 

“How do you feel about living in a tepee out the back of this place?” Joel asked sometime throughout the day. These kind of questions don’t faze me anymore. Not like they used to. The response is always no. I don’t even listen half the time. Whatever he asks, I just say no. I’ve become accustomed to Joel’s elaborate ideas and next great dream, and I know they are usually short-lived. But he persisted with the tepee thing, and as we walked past flowers and swam in the creek and lit a campfire to sit by, I thought that I could really get used to this life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe the tepee thing might be like the buying beer for the gardener thing. Joel tells me that you can get really fancy tepees with wooden floors and everything. Just for a little stint in our lives, when babies are little and we aren’t tied to anything solid, maybe I might be starting to think, why not? Living in the country has always been one of my greatest dreams. All that bread bakin’ and apron wearin’ and veggie pickin’ and fresh air breathin’ and droppin’ all the g’s off words can get my heart a little racy. I’ve always longed to bake pie in great old ovens wearing pretty floral aprons with a big pregnant belly while happy children run at my feet and their daddy is outside chopping wood for the fire. It’s not a romanticized image of life at all. Not one little bit. We’ll have no problems when we move to the country. Life will be easy breezy. Picture perfect.

 

 

 

 

Back to reality though, which is right here, right now, and over the past few days I’ve been really soaking in the way other people love my girl. I love watching their faces as they look at her. I love feeling their joy over the small things she does. Did you hear that? She said Sasha! Did you see her face? She loves the chickens! I love watching their love. It’s like they get it. All mamas think their baby is the most precious of all. All mama’s friends and family agree. And my village? They get it. They genuinely feel she is the most precious child ever to have graced this earth. That she is just out of this world. That she is like pure light.

 

 

 

It warms my Mama heart. It makes me happy in a way I find difficult to describe.

 

 

 

Ella, if you read this one day, listen to me. You are loved so incredibly fiercely. By me, of course. And your dad. But swarms of people stand just beyond our front door, sometimes barraging it down just so they can get to you. They love you terribly. You make them happy in a way nothing else does. You make their day, simply by being next to them, just as you are, just as you come, and I feel so drop-to-my-knees grateful to be your mum.