Friday, April 3, 2009

Thinking




Where to even start?

There is a lot I could write about/catch up on. Still, I liked "going dark" for a week. Sometimes blogging just makes my life noisy. Definitely fun. Sometimes inspiring. Oft times static. Clutter.

My mom and sister were here this week. They left this morning. The only thing I hate about them coming is them leaving. We have yet to experience a tear-free parting. Sappety sap sap sap.

I love my mom. Big and deep. One of my favorite things about her is that she is not a noisy person and she does not have a noisy life. She is quiet. Purposeful. Kind. Simple. Her make-up bag is a Ziploc. Inside? Four things: Vaseline lip balm, a box of dental floss, Maybelline mascara (pink with a green lid), and a tube of Revlon lip stick. That's all it takes. And she's radiant. More beautiful after almost half a century than she's ever been.

Her simplicity is more beautiful to me now than it's ever been. I'm crusading for more simplicity in my life (our lives). More of nature. More of stillness. More presence. More of each other. Less distraction. Less frenetic. Less artificiality - in food and self. (A semi-related aside: Why is authenticity tricky? Am I the only one who finds it slippery, hard to pin down? Shouldn't it be the most natural thing in the world to just know myself, and be that girl, all the time?)

I've been flirting with Thoreau and Emerson, hefting my anthology of English lit off the nightstand, reading a few excerpts. Letting it sit long enough to collect a thin blanket of dust. Picking it up again...

And thinking about what I really want out of the experience of this life. A garden. A big (really big) back yard. Children who know how to work with their hands and their minds. Chickens - my dad called this week and told me they gathered seventeen eggs from their coop on Sunday. Quiet evenings. Family games of Kick The Can and Andy I Over. A connection to the earth and to our food. Reading my grandpa Pearson's personal narrative to my tweens as a bedtime story (it is so charming and funny).
Is this naive nostalgia? Am I longing for something that barely existed three decades ago? That only exists in reveries and hyperspace now?


If I can't have chickens, can I at least be close to my mother?





I would like that very much.

11 comments:

  1. you've done it again, emily, i'm teary and wishing i could live the life you've so eloquently discribed. thanks again - it's a refreshing uplift!

    ReplyDelete
  2. beautiful. my parents were visiting us this week too, and I found myself wishing many of the same things. and admiring them for many of the same things. and most especially wishing I could live closer to them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. living close to my mom is something I CHERISH!

    Perhaps someday your wish will come true. Until then it definitely sounds like you are making the most of her visits.

    xo

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've been having very similar feelings. Thanks for putting them into words.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful post Em. I too wish I lived near my mom. Maybe someday. I think we could all do with more presence in our lives. And your mom and sis look so great!

    And loved the sun glare in that first picture! Really lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  6. i love you, em. thank you for your kind words. ps with your photo shop, couldn't you have done something about all those neck rolls? lauzy.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love your mom too! when I grow up I hope to be more like her!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The question of being one's true self is one that I ponder at times. Am I really my true self with my family? How deeply am I known by them or my friends? Or do I put up walls of protection that do not allow others inside? Simplifying is one way to allow for those relationships to grow--quality time in productive, unifying pursuits. It is daunting to me, to say the least.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have tears in my eyes Em, you are so wonderful, and I just love you. Your mom and my mom and their ziploc bags, that is too funny, they must have known each other. :) Thanks for sharing your spirit with us.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Wonderful post emily. You have such beautiful thoughts and such a beautiful way of putting them.
    Your mom sounds wonderful. Hope you guys can live near each other sometime and you can have chickens.
    I feel there is too much artificial stuff in my life as well. I can't wait till it's warm and food will seem like it's grown here (even if it's not). I need more of nature too. Like some good hikes in the mountains with friends...

    ReplyDelete