Enjoying Archives - Page 7 of 23 - Enjoying the Small Things

Epilogue/Prologue

January 4, 2016 By Kelle

Happy New Year! I’m hoping your new year opened like a box of new crayons or a fresh jar of peanut butter…promising, with colorful sharp points and a delicious buttery swirl. (If not–no worries. Nobody tells you this but, psssttt….the broken crayons color just as good and the bottom of the peanut butter jar holds treasures too.)

The speed of which January arrives never fails to amaze me. In fact, I’ve enlisted Dash to demonstrate my feelings on December 1st – December 31 with a photo I’ve titled “Whee! That was fast” He was all in.

Thank you, Dash. That was beautiful. Now go play with some trucks, and I’ll be with you in a minute.

Our tree is still up and the mantle garland is twinkling away. Normally, I’m itching to get everything cleaned up and out of here come January 1st because wreaths and bottle brush trees feel like depressing clutter after the new year, but this year? I’m grabbing this whole thing by the reins and showing it who’s boss. Here’s how it goes now:

1. I’m in charge of my feelings. I say what’s cozy and what’s clutter, not the last person who told me she just cleaned her entire house and threw her tree out to the curb because “NEW BEGINNING” and definitely not that 99 cent plastic tree collecting dust. I can do what I want, I set the tone and that tree in the corner there is smiling at me. Besides, National Treasure is on T.V. and I don’t really feel like wrapping up ornaments tonight.

2. The twinkle lights stay. Somehow, some way. We’ll weave them into spring decor, summer decor, fall decor. But I need them. So they stay.

Now that that’s out of the way…we went on a trip. It’s become an annual thing now with our neighbors–our way of ringing/wringing–ringing in the new year together and wringing out every last drop of the holidays, plus Brett’s end-of-the-year time off. I look forward to it all year long. It’s short–three days–and it’s woven with lots of very unmagical realistic moments. But there’s something about it that’s really special. It’s both the epilogue trip of a closing year and the prolgue to a new one, and somewhere between leaning back to pass another fruit snack on the way up in 2015 and pulling that car seat strap back to nipple-height on the way home in 2016, I tie up the strings to a full year in my brain. This is it, man. These loose laces on scuffed shoes passed down from your sister, this cracker-littered van, that graying hair, those sun-kissed shoulders, the hands on that steering wheel–the ones that still make me feel safe and secure, that little footprint in the sand–filling twice the space it did two years ago, that attitude, that vocabulary, that look in your eyes that brings me to my knees, that cowlick in your hair–same as the day you were born, this aging skin, this feeling of your hand in mine, this head on my shoulder, these friends, this toast, this year, this trip, these plans, these memories, this shredded patience, this hope, this grateful heart, this perfect moment…this is it. Another year, and I’m so thankful to have lived it messily and fully.

We went to Orlando this year with our hotel reservations our only confirmed plans. Maybe we’ll check out Disney, maybe we’ll hit Universal, maybe we’ll go explore the city. We ended up never leaving our resort as it had a built-in water park, playground, restaurants…and everyone was happy.

One of my favorite vacation rites of passage? Mini cereal boxes. Every time I pack food for a trip, I splurge on the tiny cereal boxes. My kids think they are about the most precious things in the world.

Other big and small things enjoyed…

Gold & Sparkle.
Nella’s dress is a $12 women’s tank, and I added a tie-on Peter Pan collar that we already had. She puts that tank on now every day. Dash said “Happy New Year” to every person we encountered on the trip.

Hand holding.
The sight never gets old.

Lainey needing to carefully watch me go down the water slide three times before she decided she can do it too.

These face coasters that instantly up the fun factor.

Yahtzee.
One of my favorites.

Love captured.

Love turned down.
(He didn’t give her the kiss).

Backwards flip-flops in the wrong toes.
The stamp of childhood.

This mop of curls that I never know what to do with but love anyway.

My classy friend who complements my beer bottle with her champagne glass just right.

His smile during our “Hide from the dinosaur” game.

The decision to throw the bikes in the car last minute before we left.

A good hiding spot.

How many times our kids said “Again! Again!” to being thrown in the pool.
…and how many times our friends obliged.

My personal suncatcher.

Jumping on hotel beds.

Half-moon eyes…
…that turn into little love ladles when flipped upside down.

An almost six-year-old…
…whose celebration of birth is so perfectly timed following new years, new beginnings and big hopes.

Finding out yesterday that the kids don’t go back to school today like I thought.
We have two more days of vacation.

And there you have it. An epilogue, a prologue. Now it’s time to write the book.

Happy New Year!

Refueled by a Box of Leaves: The Midwest Has Arrived

October 20, 2015 By Kelle

The mail got delivered right to our door yesterday. It happens when there’s too much stuff to fit in the mailbox, or when there’s a package; so I knew when I heard the rumble of the mail truck in the driveway what it must mean. There’s a box! And there’s only one thing “There’s a box!” means when we’re three weeks deep into October. Okay, it could mean another book from Amazon, but not today.

Our leaves came–a box marking an eight year tradition now, a box filled with the colors and scents and textures of Michigan in the fall. I know these colors and textures well. I’ve memorized the vein configuration of a maple leaf, the rounded outline of an oak, the subtle serrated edge of an aspen. I draw them with sidewalk chalk in my driveway every fall, licking my finger and rubbing it into red chalk to blend bleed patterns into the yellow leaves.

My cousin sends me this box every year. She’s streamlined the process now for the most efficient delivery of the very best leaves, figuring out how to fit more leaves in a smaller box, when to find the best colors and how to preserve them so they arrive unchanged. She drives all over Houghton Lake, hand-picking the most vivid colors, texting me pictures along the way, and then vacuum-packs and seals them for delivery.

They couldn’t have come on a better day. Rotavirus has taken its toll on our home–its current victim, Lainey; and I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed with little to give. I escaped for a little writing last night and had to laugh when I opened my laptop to find it was dead, looked at my phone to see 1% battery left and climbed in the car to an “empty tank” light.

So I read–input instead of output. Another chapter in Sally Mann’s Hold Still and then a return to my favorite, Writing Down the Bones, where I flipped through to find the highlighted passages and read them again. They went down like warm cider.

These leaves though? The kids look forward to them every year, and there are eight years of pictures to show how much they enjoy them.

Nobody enjoys them more than me, though.

(We saved some for Lainey for when she feels better–although they might be brown and dry by then, poor baby.)

It’s a new day. I filled my gas tank last night, charged my phone, plugged in my laptop. Chicken soup simmers from the stove, and from the back window, if I look hard, I can see a flattened pile of leaves in the woods, a little duller now but still–a reminder of home and the fact that when our reserves are low, they’ll always be replenished. Filled by a text from a friend, a highlighted passage in a tattered old book, a smile, a hot cider topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, a new song recommendation, a sunset, a sunrise, a box placed at your doorstep from a mail carrier who pulls right up in your driveway, a crimson-tipped oak, a gold speckled maple. I know these colors and textures well.

Our box-‘o-leaves tradition preserved: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.

Enjoying the Small Things

October 8, 2015 By Kelle

Sometimes I have things brewing inside me that shout “Write me down, write me down,” and they spill out, without even thinking, as soon as I make time to put fingers to keys.
But sometimes I sit down and put the fingers to keys before the voices shout “write me down, write me down.” And in those moments, I always think of Howard Thurman’s quote: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

My favorite thing that makes me come alive is the everyday fuel. The shift of the weather? The pumpkin display outside the grocery store? The way Nella and Dash hold hands together in the parking lot walk into preschool? It makes me come alive.

“Writing is like breathing,” I tell Lainey. “You can’t hold your breath . Feelings are too big and too wonderful to hold inside. So you have to breathe them into the world. Write them down. Say them out loud.”

I find papers everywhere now. Taped to walls. Stacked on dressers. Tucked in notebooks. Feelings that are too big and wonderful to hold inside. “Halloween is coming!” and “Sisters are Special” and “Cute Puppies” with drawings. These papers are more important to me than her spelling lists, the math test, the number of books she’s read. These are what make her come alive right now, the greatest gift she can give the world.

The big things that make us come alive are the tiles that will change the world. But the small things that make us come alive are the grout that holds the tile in place. We need the grocery store pumpkin displays and weather shifts. The pajama hugs and syrup puddles on Saturday morning waffle heaps are where the big ideas run to quench their thirst.

Which is why I’m enjoying….

The fake snake that has started a war of pranks.
I opened the silverware drawer this morning to get a spoon for my coffee and about lost my mind. So it’s not the snake I’m enjoying–it’s the “Gotcha” cheers that erupt when an attempted prank has proved successful.

Dog-Kid Bonds.
“Tell me the honest truth,” a friend considering a dog recently asked me, “is it worth it?” Yes. It’s worth it. Waking up to find our dogs curled in bed next to our kids? It’s so totally worth it. I will not tell you about the dried poop I found in my closet the other day.

Halloween Decorations.
We didn’t celebrate Halloween for many years when I was a kid for religious reasons. So now I go a bit overboard in some quest to bring light and fun to spiders and crows and bats and witches. We’re winning. There is beauty and interest and fun and story behind just about everything in life if you make it what you want it to be. We want it to be something that makes us come alive. So we spin webs in our windows and play “Monster Mash” in our kitchen while we dance and laugh and practice our witch cackle.

Preparation for Leaves.
We pretend these itty bitty non-deciduous leaves are signs of fall.

And then a text came yesterday from my cousin Joann in Michigan: “Looking at weather forecast. I think I’ll gather and mail your box of leaves next week.”

Sundays.
Quiet play. Made-up Shopkin games. Imagination. Attempted naps that turn into movies and popcorn in bed. Replenishing laziness. All-day jammies.

Coming home from date night to find signs of babysitters who draw rainbows and throw glitter in your driveway.
Instant raise.

Kinda Cousins.
I always dreamed that I would raise kids with my brother and sister–that my kids’ weekends would look just like my childhood ones–cousins, cousins, cousins–sleeping together in living room forts, zip-lining between backyard trees, reenacting Olympic events with trampoline injuries and handmade gold medals while the aunts traded clothes and made cookies . It didn’t happen that way because…well, life and 1400 miles. But we create our own reality, and I’ll be damned, I want my kids to have those memories. So we found our “cousins.” Friends who are family. And I love that when I pick my kids up from school, the teachers say, “just your kids today or Ivy too?”

Queen Latte.
This dog will do anything for the kids–a cloak & throne a better deal than some of the others they’ve proposed to her.

Family Night.
As posted on Instagram last week: “Went for family dinner tonight and started falling apart because nobody was as happy as I was. The story I told myself was that I was the only one in our family who cares about togetherness and a good time. Turns out my inner bitch is an amazing storyteller. Also she’s conceited. She consumed the first third of dinner until I kicked her out and rolled with everyone’s mood. Had way more fun when I let go.”

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.” ~Mary Oliver (from “The Summer Day”)

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