Posts from the “Mama Sap” Category

Until One Day…

Posted on February 15, 2016

It was 10am and the girls were camped out at the dining room table which was scattered with arts supplies and notebooks. A fire roared in the wood stove, while a heat-drunk cat sprawled decadently nearby, paws akimbo. I glanced through the window at the outdoor thermometer, it read -8°. Avery and Briar were both in fleece footie pajamas, a post-holiday impulse buy spurred by years of longing from my long-torsoed Ave. When I was packing two nights before I called Finley into the laundry room, “Honey, I can’t find your footie pjs. Do you know where they are?” “No,” she said. “Well, if you don’t help me find them, then I can’t bring them with us to Vermont.” “Ok,” she shrugged. “I don’t want you…

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A Song We Travel By Heart

Posted on October 18, 2015

Music is always playing in the car when Sean drives. If we go for a long trip he creates playlists, if we’re running errands it’s the radio, and if we’re going somewhere for work he plays NPR. Music is something he considers at home, on the road, and even at the office. I enjoy music, but it’s nothing that I ever plan. When I’m driving it takes less than a block for one of the girls to ask me to turn on the radio. It makes me smile because I know it’s a part of Sean manifested in their souls. Music is always with them, either from a speaker or from their own lips. For me the constant is light, seeking out shades that help bulbs cast warm…

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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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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 nowthen 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.