Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

advent 2021, choosing HOPE as a strategy

Earlier today I was about 2,000 words deep in an overly effusive essay about hope. This is the first week of Advent, after all, a few days meant to celebrate the virtue. I was excited to share some stories and ideas with you and just typed feverishly all morning.

Then I received some disturbing news wrapped in painful, stabbing words that sparked some deep anger, and my enthusiasm plummeted. I let myself “feel the feelings,” so to speak, until it felt like I was actually spiraling out of control in those emotions. I am struggling lately, as hard as that is to admit, and it doesn’t take very much for me to lose my balance.

One valuable lesson I have learned in this ongoing emotional rollercoaster is that when I sense my feet are on the banks of quicksand, when I feel that out of control kind of grief about to overtake me, it’s time to reach out to someone else. Not for salvation necessarily, but to be a help if possible. It’s good to reach out to someone beyond the situation at hand, pray for someone totally unrelated to my current crisis, and widen my view until my heart expands past this immediate pain and I regain some perspective. Our grandmother Ina Lynne was know for practicing a version of this, and she was one of the gentlest, strongest, most forward-thinking women I have ever known.

So I called my sister Angela, just to say hi and let her know I was still praying about something she had shared with us. I used my most stupid fake-chipper voice.

Can I pause here and say what a blessing it is to have siblings who are your friends and confidants?

We chatted only briefly before she asked about my girls, and my stupid chipper voice faltered. We have grown close enough now that I can no longer hide much of what’s going on inside me, and actually this is wonderful.

“This is not hopeless,” Ang said. I physically crumbled against the wall and started crying. She did not know I had been writing for the past three hours about hope.

“You have every reason to be hopeful,” she asserted, in a low, denim-velvet voice, both soothing and authoritative. She knows a thing or two about hopelessness, recovery, addiction, alienation, and more.

She also knows about healing and the power of community and HOPE. She works for an agency by that exact name, by the way, and their mission is to usher the least hopeful among us into new lives.

We spoke for a few more minutes about odds and likelihoods and statistics, about patterns and trauma all the many hardships inflicted on our kids over the years. But the real message between us was the power of Love and prayer and the reality that hope flourishes into actual, living-proof results. She got me to refocus on the future instead of wallowing in hate for the people who have hurt my girls. I hate that I need this redirection, but I do sometimes, and I am grateful when I get it.

We get to choose hope. We get to let it warm us and strengthen us while we endure the unknowns. Hope leads us into better choices and better habits and better outlooks. We expect more from ourselves and hold higher standards for each other when we side with hope and remember that despair is a shifting illusion.

Sure, we get to feel the fear, and the pain, and even the rage, and then we get to actively set our feet on solid ground and walk the much better path.

I am so thankful Ang picked up the phone while I was still on the brink of emotional quicksand. Part of the magic, as I am sure you already know, is that in reaching out toward someone else, chances are pretty good that the connection will lift you, too.

For my family, I choose hope. I choose to believe that healing is real and overcoming is what we were born to do. I choose to believe that Love transcends literally every hardship, and the fate others have chosen does not have to be ours.

“Hope is not a strategy.”
“You must not have been here long.”
XOXOXOXO

family thanksgiving 2021

Our family just polished off a luscious, eventful, soul-satisfying Thanksgiving week. We filled not just one day but one glorious week with fun and love.

Dunaway family Thanksgiving, 2021

We shared meals and indulged in local outings. We played games and told stories. We swapped jokes, cooked, cleaned, cooked and cleaned again, and “helped” Dad with crossword puzzles. We played with all the many family dogs and teased Gen mercilessly for not wanting to play any dogs. “He’s breathing on me! He’s breathing on me!” (She’s smart, but also weird, so we don’t let this go.)

Ang caught lots of teasing for, well, one unforgettable recipe typo which will go down in family legend. (She’s weird, but also smart, so this mistake was delightful.)

We drew names for Christmas gifting, dove into an early round of the Saran Wrap game since we won’t all be together in December, big thanks to Ang for spontaneously gathering those supplies late the evening before our big feast. And we compared notes on how we will spend the coming winter months.

Thanks to Ang, we played the Saran Wrap game early this year!
He wastes nothing, especially if it can be fashioned into something majestic.

Gen, in town from Los Angeles for the first time since the winter holidays of 2019, ran six miles with me at the lake, and we were amazed by our ability to keep up a truly lively conversation while maintaining a pretty smooth pace.

Smiling’s our favorite!! (Me with Gen)

Philip made a decadent chocolate-peanutbutter cheesecake from scratch, and his patience was tested by his older sisters’ chaotic, well, everything. Kenzie taught us a Tik-Tok dance, we might soon be famous. There was a chopsticks prank, and there were tiny chalkboard easels for displaying our thankfulness.

Hundreds of unforgettable moments filled the hours, and several long strands of warm, binding affection encircled the days. We all needed this Thanksgiving Week, probably more than we realized. If last year we held our breath and muddled through, clinging to the bones of tradition, then this year we enjoyed the greatest exhale and then laughed until we felt it in every cell. We luxuriated in the best Thanksgiving has to offer.

The glory of a well executed family holiday is not any one person’s doing, but rather the result of every member’s best effort. Cooking, arranging, engineering games, tending to traditions and details, spearheading city events, amassing extra furniture, telling the best stories, laughing uncontrollably, dancing, listening, leading, following. Being the best looking and also the firstborn (brushes off shoulder).

Every ingredient matters. We rely on each person bring his or her A Game, then we all enjoy the alchemy of our vivid personalities blending into something greater then just the sum of our parts. To me this illustrates part of the magic of family. God gave us this beautiful lifelong gift. By design, it seems, we live more fully as a group when each person steps fully into his or her gifts.

Our parents make everything better,
and they work so hard to keep everyone connected.
The older I get, the more I am amazed by what an accomplishment this is.

That said, at the end of the day, we owe an extra debt to Mom and Dad. Their forty-eight years of pressing traditions into their kids’ hearts has yielded an insatiable appetite for more of everything. Why else would we be drawn so irresistibly to home base, to the same foods, the same seasonal activities, the same faces? I love it all. I am so thankful for this nourishing rhythm. So thankful for my small, young family of origin that has grown and matured into my very favorite group of adults and new children.

Of course we missed Joe (my middle brother) and Halee and their two handsome boys, who are living their U.S. Navy chapter in Spain, but they are happy and thriving. We enjoyed some Facetime screams and giggles with them as we feasted. They happened to be in Barcelona that day!

And we missed Dante (our first nephew) and his bride Deaven, who travelled to spend thanksgiving with her family in California. We had some Facetime laughs with Dante, too, and made sure he knew he was missing the most fun here with us.

Always, for so many holiday seasons over the years, we missed Jocelyn. We are hurting for her and for Jessica, as grief is complex and has a way of intensifying around holidays. Yet even in this, I can give thanks, because the dense, soft warmth of family absorbs so much pain. The safe, circular walls of family keep the worst of the world’s darkness at bay. We can help the girls when they let us, and we always pray and stay ready when they retreat tp privacy.

Can you even imagine the party we are going to have when every single family member is here with us?

This weekend, Gen is back in Los Angeles. Each of our local households has retreated for a bit of rest and maybe holiday cleanup, Christmas gift shopping, and decorating. We’re enjoying a few quiet autumn days before December gains its own glittering momentum.

When I say my heart is full, I mean I feel both short of breath from it all and deeply slowed and rested. Like the simplest things are all we need.

And how wonderful that such a magical week can land me right back on the threshold of my amazing normal life.

Thank you for stopping here. And thank you to everyone who left such loving notes on recent posts. I hope your Thanksgiving was everything you needed it to be, and if not, I hope you know how to step into the next chapter wisely and lovingly. As we begin to observe some Advent weeks, please consider checking in here for some inspiration. I have some good things brewing!

“Thanksgiving was never meant
to be shut up in a single day.”
~Robert Caspar Lintner
XOXOXO

forty eight years and still going strong xoxo

Please join me in congratulating our parents on their forty-eighth wedding anniversary!!

((Mom, baby me, and Dad, circa 1974.))

Forty eight years. All easy, mostly uneventful, and never scary or sad.

Ha! I am kidding of course, but the best part of that joke is that somehow they do make it seem easy; and despite all the very real life storms they have weathered together, they are still here all these years later looking fresh and happy and very much in love. Mom and Dad give all married couples, young and old, an encouraging glimpse at not just longevity, but also deep and abiding love and joy. It is quite a thing to behold.

Because, couples can stay together just to say they did, or they can grow together and thrive in new and ever expanding ways. They can face trials side by side and make memories left and right, out of thin air. In a good marriage you can laugh mightily and cry honestly. You can raise a family, build and rebuild and furnish and remodel a home. You might travel less than you deserve to and work harder than you should have to, but eventually the balance is restored. You endure and celebrate and eat well together, week after week, year after year, for nearly five decades. And still have steam in your marital engine.

I truly believe that Love begets Love, in the same way that dreams beget more dreams. Life begets life. God offered us this mechanism for building powerful momentum in our lives. This must be why Mom and Dad are not just here at this milestone but, more importantly, lively and energized at it. Still refreshing the home they started on 41st street so many years ago. Getting their passports to travel the world. Always showing up for their grandkids, in every imaginable way, really in all the ways they showed up for the five of us kids, all of our childhoods and still today. We don’t deserve them.

((Mom and Dad with our entire family, missing only three of the grand kids. Baby Connor was asleep and my two girls were back in Oklahoma. We all traveled to Virginia to celebrate my brother’s change of command in the Navy.))

Our friend Mickey once paid our family perhaps the highest compliment he could. He said, “You come from a long line of effort,” referring to my family and our parents and all the love that flows through us. Though I had never thought of it in quite those words, I agree with him. We might not come from a long line of extreme wealth or pedigree or any other worldly measure, but man. We are totally saturated and fortified by effort. I think that of all the inheritance a family could receive, this must be the best. Effort and the truest forms of Love and acceptance, no mater our mistakes.

Handmade everything. Meals from scratch. Family nights and date nights made up of fun and silliness more than material possessions. Healthy habits that were way ahead of their time. A family business built from the ground up, one that sustained hundreds of young families over the decades. Innumerable traditions that, though often simple, have stood the test of time. We all carry into our own adult lives dozens (maybe hundreds) of yearly traditions that Mom and Dad instilled in us. I love that. I love it so much, to feel my childhood so vividly now, in my daily life, and in the seasonal rhythms.

((At my parents’ 40th anniversary party. Amore! xoxo))

Mom and Dad, thank you for building such an Empire of Love and Effort for all of us, for our spouses and children and friends. You continue to exemplify humor in the face of stress, tenderness in the presence of grief, steadfast commitment always, and this steady drip of ease and affection no matter how hard you are working. We are all so lucky to have your marriage as our bedrock. Your choice to start a life together forty eight years ago has flourished into a powerful sense of Home for so many people, and we all appreciate it.

My wish for you on this very special anniversary is layered: Lots of romantic meals, just the two of you. Plenty of family game nights. One very big and memorable trip to Spain soon. All of your home projects finished and thrilling you to pieces. And ongoing health and vitality so you can enjoy the fruits of so much labor.

Thank you for taking good care of yourselves and each other, so we can enjoy you all these years and into the future. Thank you for building the life you have, so we can see how it is done. Thank you for being our Mom and Dad, no mater what. Happiest anniversary.

XOXOXOXO

springtime in october

Hello again, and happy almost Halloween, 2021! A lot has happened at the farm since last I wrote here, and I know a lot has happened in your world, too.

May be an image of 2 people

We remark so often these days on the paradoxical grinding whirlwind of time, how it seems to both hover on a moment or a task and also spin wildly, too fast, all at once. How the days and weeks and months are accumulating and dissolving into memory like no year we have ever experienced before. It’s easy to guess why life feels this way right now, after the (forgive me) unprecedented chapters we have all survived. We taste life so fully now, all of us, and we like it. We cannot get enough of it. We are gluttons for living and living fully.

I am awake alone, writing this in an ultra quiet house at three in the morning, windows open with mild air seeping in, not even a trace breeze. I am enjoying the luxury of perfect coffee hot and strong in my grateful mouth and belly and my brain firing with new thoughts. The night sounds are muted, and my heart is grateful for a happy farm, for safe, well fed animals and for all these gardens that are not just thriving in autumn but refreshed, colorful, very much alive and ready for something miraculous to happen.

Everything happening is miraculous.

We are living a season of springtime in the midst of autumn. Not just this spectacular weather, but also a renewing of body, mind, and spirit. However quickly time seems to be passing, it is passing with great meaning and accomplishment. Time and energy seem to rush and flow through us like the cold Thompson River in Estes Park, powerful and cleansing, life giving. It feels incredible, this renewal. The fruits of our ongoing labor feel incredible, too. From one corner of life to another, we see goodness and give thanks for it constantly.

May be an image of 2 people, people standing and indoor

I continue to swell with pride for my husband’s professional life; how his personal evolution is bringing everything he touches along for the exciting ride. Every week we build and improve the farm, sometimes making huge changes and sometimes just tightening things up, suiting them just to our liking and hopefully the animals’, too. Our multi-generational family time is warm and glittering, an ongoing gift that truly is a dream come true. Mom and Dad are so much fun. Jessica and Alex and their sweet pups are limitless sources of joy! We are surrounded by siblings and nieces and nephews and friends who might as well be family. Every week we gather to celebrate something big and wonderful, and I love it all.

May be an image of 1 person, standing and outdoors

When Jocelyn rejoins us for the second time in this crazy life, she will have such a powerful nest to enjoy. We miss her like crazy, but in a happy, expectant way right now, not a grieving way. Like the way I felt just before she was born. This time, though, I’ll wait for it to happen naturally. She is worth every single minute of waiting. The party is going strong, showing no signs of slowing down, and she can join in anytime she is ready.

May be an image of outdoors

I have lost track of all the answered prayers. I walk the farm and meditate intentionally every day, and I try to journal enough to keep up with it all, but the avalanche of goodness is more than I can keep up with. Sometimes it literally makes me giddy, delirious with gratitude. I hope that the condition of my heart and the effort to acknowledge it here an there is enough of a thank you. Thank You.

More soon, but before I signoff, a great journal prompt:

“How much overlap is there between
what you say is important to you
and how you spent your attention
over the last month?”
~James Clear (author of Atomic Habits)
XOXOXO

life lately, as we approach the end of july 2021

Well, my summertime blogging streak did not last long, ha! But I am happy to be back at my keyboard, brimming with good feelings and stories worth sharing and enough words to match.

Since last we spoke, Handsome and I celebrated twenty years of marriage, all wrapped up in a solid month of celebrations, farm visitors, staycation weeks, and some projects sprinkled in, just for good measure. We reunited with a few beloved friends, sparked a couple of new friendships, and spent lots of time (and money) eating restaurant food. We also celebrated our youngest niece’s birthday. How is Kenzie fourteen already??

The farm is, as I type this, still unreasonably green and lush for late July. The year’s extravagant rainfall and mostly below average temperatures have really shown us how much wants to grow here, given the right conditions.

We are flush with tomatoes, marigolds, blackberries, tomatillos, zinnias, herbs, roses, hydrangeas, and more. Soon, we will have okra and squash in abundance. Until a few weeks ago, the easement along the front edge of our property was bursting with tall prairie grass and wave upon wave of bright yellow wildflowers. Call them weeds I you want to, but I love them. The front field, where we have the winding meditation path, also boasts these beautiful natural features along with some blue wildflowers and a smattering of hot pink cosmos and rusty colored amaranth. I am smitten by the textures, depth, and variety. We recently invested in a brand new zero-turn mower with a generously sized deck, so Handsome can more easily maintain the paths out there. If you visit us, please take a few minutes to wander! I promise you there are good vibes in the quiet where Chunk-hi used to play, and you might see the flattened hiding spots where the deer sleep.

Speaking of good vibes, we are still buzzing with romance and gratitude from our big anniversary party. We filled the house and south lawn with a few dozen friends and family to renew our vows with happy witnesses, eat some decadent cake, and dance ourselves into blissful exhaustion. It was a much anticipated event that was twice nearly ruined by weather, but at the last minute, on the second reschedule, everything came together and everyone had a great time.

We still feel so cushioned and energized by everyone’s love and support. Good marriages don’t happen in a vacuum, after all; we feel lucky to be integrated into such a healthy community. Twenty years! Twenty years of adventure, ups and downs, terrifying moments with our kids, heartbreak with extended family, evolving friendships, paradigm shifts, incredible career trajectory, romance and tradition-curating, and of course this little farm experiment of ours. Two decades of absolute amazement that we still get to live with each other, still get to build the exact kind of life we want and enjoy the daily process of loving each other. It all feels way too short and fast.

The same weekend that we celebrated twenty years, Jess and Alex celebrated six months! Already these gorgeous young kids have made memories and tackled life curveballs together, working hard and loving their pups along the way. We are so proud and happy.

Are you reading anything worth sharing? In the morning minutes while I drink coffee and wait for daybreak, I am still working through Ask and It Is Given as well as a perpetual devotional by Bob Goff and a new book about the connection between gardening and mental health. More on that third book, soon. The rest of the day and evening, when I manage to claim some time to sit and read, I have sworn myself to only fiction. It’s a way for me to capitalize on summertime freedom, ha. Recently, a Tana French book blew me away: The Witch Elm. Everyone who likes this author says to also read her Dublin murder squad series, which I intend to do. This week I am reading Silent Corner by Dean Koontz. He is one of my all time favorite writers. Like a good, lose-yourself-worthy palate cleanser.

Last month, Jessica read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and I read it a second time to discuss with her. Ten years later, with so much about life that is vastly different now, was a wholly different experience. Hearing my adult daughter’s remarks was unforgettable.

She was a baby the first time, recently gone from us, and my world was spinning and bottomless. Now she is “home,” and I understand so much more about the hell she and her sister endured in those years. I wonder what will have changed ten years from now, if we were to read the book again, what healing can have happened. Will Jocelyn be whole and home and fully returned to us, a second time? (She is okay now, but we are not completely okay without her.) Will we have grandchildren? Will my husband be talking about retirement or consulting work? Will I have published five or six or ninety books? Will someone have found the safe cure for squash bugs and grasshoppers, and will our kitchen walls be opened yet?

One more update to share before I close this up and see where I can move the needle around the farm today: We have been invited to participate in the 2021 Oklahoma Master Gardeners’ Garden tour! So on the last day of September, a tour bus (or two?) filled with talented, passionate local gardeners will spill out into the driveway of our farm, and we will welcome them for a little exploration. Lots of changed here since the same five years ago, and I know that August and September will bring rapid changes in the vegetable garden and flower beds, but overall I excited to share our space and reconnect with the gardening community. I had pulled away from volunteering when our life could not bear so many hours away, but gosh I have missed the people.

Pat, one of my sweet, smart class mentors,
and Elizabeth, a mind blowing multi-talented woman!

Keep dreaming up what you want, friends. Remember that it is a different act of faith that dreaming against what you don’t want. Keep visualizing the fruit of hope and work and Love in vivid detail, and walk steadily toward every big and small thing that brings you joy and satisfies you. It is good work, the business of keeping your flames fanned and lively.

“You gotta imagine what’s never been.”
~Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Lives of Bees