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Time Melts

Posted on September 16, 2015

        Since that perfect September day I have come to know how time can melt and freeze over and over again. I’ve held it in my hand, a shimmering form icy and wondrous. I’ve felt it rushing through my fingers, rivulets coursing in countless directions. I can neither slow it nor predict its pace. Mostly, I try to accept its rhythm, trusting that each shift reveals more of who she is and the pattern of where she’s been and how she has been never leave my soul.         Happy Birthday sweetest Briar.

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Categories: Random

The Distance Up Close

Posted on September 14, 2015

The ground beneath me is moving in ways that surprise me. It’s like I have one contact in and one out; some things are in perfect focus while others force me to squint and rub my eye. The hardest thing is knowing when it’s meant to be blurry. Am I crying? Where is the bird’s eye view I’ve come to expect? I long to have my response be smooth and natural, but it’s more like a violent lurch and stumble. When I manage to back off I worry that it’s motivated more by fatigue and irritability than genuine awareness that I ought to give the girls space. Then when I stay close it nags at me that I’m creating an unnatural tether that keeps them from moving toward new things. The first day back to…

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Categories: Mama Sap

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Sun Beams & Ballads

Posted on August 26, 2015

I love the transition into fall, always have. The gentle tug, much like a torn muscle or broken skin that gets tight as it’s healing and then eventually loosens up a bit, keeps me awake emotionally. I’ve always known the tug was time, something I’ve feared as being scarce and unpredictable. I am calmly resigned to its weight.

This season is feeling noticeably different to me. As I experience the generous moments of time slowing, allowing me to freeze the frames, I am more struck by where we are and for how brief a moment.

I may be rambling, but I’m grateful for it—for all of the sticky yet slippery emotions of now, then and almost here and remember when. Grief and celebration as a weight on my chest is not so much a fear of time, but a deep gratitude for all the time that I have had.

Categories: Mama Sap

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Camp: A Reinvention

Posted on August 5, 2015

Early this spring I saw a flyer for a STEM camp called Camp Invention. The description invited kids from kindergarten through 6th grade to participate. My heart leapt thinking that it would be something that the girls could do together, maybe the last opportunity of its kind. I signed them up and stuck the flyer on the fridge. When camp finally rolled around the edges of our patchwork schedule were frayed and worn. The Sunday before camp I hastily read the list of things to bring. Each girl needed one take apart item, which needed to be an electronic device that was not a cell phone or a camera. They also needed a bag of things for up-cycling. I banged around the house and…

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Categories: Random

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Discovering Gratitude

Posted on July 16, 2015

The coffee canister has been empty for days. As important as coffee is to us in the morning, neither of us has made an attempt to refill the container. Over the winter I inadvertently bought a bag of decaf; it’s been in the freezer ever since. Tuesday we had a big meeting and I sprinkled enough from the decaf bag to make two cups of coffee. Sean looked at the coffee maker with confusion, not understanding why the machine chirped it was done so soon. “I only had enough for two cups,” I said to explain. He nodded and went about pouring a cup. It felt less cruel to let him drink decaf believing it was loaded, than to ruin the cup by revealing its true…

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Categories: Random