Lazy W Marie

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

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an unexpected source of Christmas magic

This past weekend our family lost our very special Aunt Marion. My sweet Mom lost her big sister. Everyone lost a truly unique and delicious life force.

We had been saying goodbye slowly and in ever more difficult ways for several months, but this final goodbye is hitting me harder than I expected it to. I knew it was coming, but I had not yet allowed myself to feel it. Our friend Trey shared this with me, and it’s perfect:

“We cannot think our way out of grief. We must feel our way out of grief.” ~Angie Corbett-Kuiper

On the surface, a death in the family at Christmastime seems incredibly morbid. Incongruent. And surely at some moments it has felt that way. But this slow, hard, gentle, unrelenting process, this steady spiral toward Aunt Marion’s passing, has produced some light, too. And isn’t Christmas all about light? Much of it has been miraculous for her and miraculous for all of us touched by her life and death.

Speaking just for myself now, it all has softened my heart in ways I was not ready to even admit I was hardened. It actually does feel like a transformation, and for this I am so thankful. Imagine Scrooge on that first Christmas morning when he felt loosed and wild with Love.

There is other Christmas magic here. We have been tasting it over and over again, in unexpected ways, when we allow ourselves to.

Christmas magic in Cathy’s joy to see her blown plastic Nativity set arranged for the first time, complete with a little wooden stable Rex built for her. A childhood dream come true. All women are little girls, all men are little boys, and we all still have access to that exact joy from childhood. Let’s help each other tap into it more often.

Christmas magic to see three granddaughters surround their Grandma in her grief, taking her to breakfast, sitting with her in the hospital, cuddling, helping with Hospice doctor conversations. Tending, loving gently, and just learning by feel the ways of being a family in these moments. How else do we learn it except by being part of it?

Christmas magic just walking around Chickasha, drenched in sparkling lights and the fragrance of hot cocoa and the patchwork of funny sweaters, hearing everyone’s favorite carols and hymns.

Christmas magic in quick and easy phone calls between our siblings group, just navigating the details, trying to be more useful than cumbersome to Mom and Dad.

Undeniable magic and poetry in six months of sobriety on the day of her passing, and all the connectedness in that story. We see magic in reconnecting with distnat family, too.

Christmas magic in Harrah’s small town parade, saying “Merry Christmas!!” to a few hundred strangers and neighbors, seeing all the kids excited for candy and the Batmobile and garland and inflatable reindeer. Surprising the adults with candy, too! So many warm smiles and hugs. So much genuine human warmth. Just the act of wishing someone, eye to eye, a Merry Christmas felt incredible. We were casting spells.

Our dear friend Mer has been playing Mrs. Claus at a weekend event in Oklaoma City. She shared that even the adults need some Christmas magic, and it has filled her heart to help provide it. I fully agree. The old adage is true, about lighting candles: You cannot spread a flame and lose your own. It just spreads.

So now, this week, all full up on this abundant Christmas magic, we are flowing mindfully between a variety of preparations. Preparing for Aunt Marion’s funeral service, then preparing for the holiday. And back again. Preparing in whatever ways we can imagine to just be available for Mom and Dad, staying engaged with traditions, staying engaged with our work and with each other. Finding gifts that will thrill our loved ones, then absorbing an old memory of some beautiful thing Aunt Marion did for one of us, sharing the ache that she won’t ever get to do that again. We bake and make lists and read the Gospel of Luke, then we reflect on the choices that stole our family member and reflect even longer on her great beauty and all her many jaw dropping accomplishments.

In between? There are lights and there is music. And C.S. Lewis and cinnamon. Between the preparations, which all are just Love in action, is space and breath for magic.

Everywhere we look we see new expressions of Christmas magic, new life even in this time of death and grief. That is the miracle. I hope you can experience it, too.

We love you, Aunt Marion.
XOXO

heart of the home

We had another plumbing emergency last week.

Around 7:30 Wednesday evening, Handsome wandered into the pantry to get some animals crackers for Klaus and discovered standing water and dripping wet shelves. A water pipe behind the kitchen pantry wall, and actually behind the built in cabinets surrounding the refrigerator, which makes it much worse, busted and leaked water all over our well stocked dry goods, cast iron skillet collection, large countertop appliances being stored there. All over the walls, all over the floor.

It is, unfortunately, a familiar sight. We have expereinced this a handful of times now, in different parts of the house, so we knew exactly what to do and jumped right to it, with maybe some snarling and groaning and WHY WHY WHY thrown in for good measure. Are you familiar with the scientific study which found that some gentle cursing helps alleviate physical pain? I think this also applies to plumbing emergencies.

My cute guy provided all the brain power for discerning the needed repairs, then he swiftly and patiently made those repairs. Cleanup and reordering the kitchen is my responsibility, which I am always happy to shoulder. That night the kitchen was sucked dry of standing water, and all the broken sheetrock was removed. The fridge was even wheeled back into place only after the floor there got rubbed to (almost) true white. But, truly exhausted, we surrendered at that point and went to bed with the shockingly voluminous contents of our tightly packed pantry strewn all over the dining room table and limited countertop space in the kitchen. It was a wild sight. Like a small grocery store had exploded in a very small space.

The next morning when I stepped into the cold, blue-black kitchen for coffee, it was all still waiting to be reordered. Piles and stacks of kitchen contents, all shadowy and chaotic and, in some places, still damp. The pantry mostly empty, yawning and awkward and asking me if, while we’re at it, should we paint?

(No. We should not paint.)

I actually kind of love jobs like this. I love rehabbing overgrown gardens, and I love a good, vicious decluttering job. In fact my early November task list was already headlined by “audit and deep clean kitchen,” in order to be ready for Thanksgiving. This was perfect timing. (Hey please nobody tell my husband I was glad it happened. Thanks.)

Okay here is the real story:

During those first hours that next morning, when the kitchen was repaired but in utter disarray, I could not focus on much else. I did all the basic farm chores first thing, but the state of the kitchen was preoccupying me. Although neither of us needed a full meal yet, nor were we expecting any guests, it was unsettling. I can tolerate lots of things undone, but not an unmade bed and certainly not an insane kitchen.

The kitchen is the heart of the home, after all, and when your heart is our of order or in disrepair, or even when it is not clean and refreshed, all other systems are at risk. Nothing else feels quite calm and safe to me when the kitchen is wonky.

So I spent several hours getting it just right. And it was great. Better in a dozen ways than before the mess, even. Every surface got scubbed. Every ingredient got inventoried and replaced to fresh new food bins. Every applaince got a once over and a tidy new spot. I refolded the ten thousand kitchen towels we have apparently accumulated, and I made long overdue decisions about mismatched napkin sets. By the time Handsome was headed home, I could cook dinner like I was playing in a new playground. And I relished the sensation of openness it all created inside me.

Now that our small, cozy kitchen is back in order, clean and shining and restocked, I feel equally compelled to make sure my heart is in order. As much as I want to feed our family a gorgeous Thanksgiving feast in less than three weeks, and then host many fun little Christmas parties after that, I mostly want to be healthy and soft and strong, reordered in my bones and in my soul, to serve my loved ones a good emotional feast, too.

I have gotten it wrong plenty over the years. In ways I did not mean to, in ways I was not aware of at the time, because I was focused on the wrong details. The wrong themes in general. I have been in phases where I focused more on table settings than repairing relationships. I have focused more on the dessert table than on speaking sweetly, or thinking sweetly. I have sometimes focused more on making sure we cook enough for everyone to have leftovers than on making sure we have an abundance of quality time with each other.

None of these hostessing priorities are bad, but they are not the most precious things. When I get them out of order, people feel it.

((My Mom always gets it right…xoxoxo))

Something cool God is showing me is that it does not have to be one or the other.

We actually can offer each other both a beautiful table and a feast for connection. We can deepen and enrich relationships while we plan and cook and share traditional foods. We can enjoy the dessert table and pretty centerpieces and we can speak sweetly.

It is all available. It is all part of the best feast.

How wonderful that time and grace have afforded us year after to year to improve. How magical that our family contiues to gather, however many people we add to this lucky roster, however busy our separate lives are, however much grief or stress we are feeling. We gather. And we need a good kitchen and lots of good hearts.

A kitchen that has been cleaned and organized, well stocked and prepared, can feed an army beautifully. A heart that has been filled with truth and good messages, that makes an effort to scrub out bitterness and ego, a heart that is full of the best gifts, can then share the best gifts while serving the best food.

While my kitchen is almost ready for Thanksgiving, my heart could used some attention, and I am so grateful for the time and appetite to do it!

“I cleansed the mirror of my heart,
now it reflects the moon.”
~Renseki

we better just keep going

There is a sensation that reads somehow as both expansive and contractive. I am sure you know it, too. It’s the breathing in and breathing out of Life Itslef, the simple, sacred rhythm of just being.

We feel the coexistence of both joy and sorrow. We grow big and strong but make terrible mistakes. We have brand new, beautiful experiences that stretch us then some that humble us. We add to, subtract from, and constantly edit and polish ourselves and our lives so that, no matter how many patterns and routines we follow, no matter how many seasons we witness, nothing is ever exactly the same, not quite.

And it feels like it is happening all at once.

And all of this is exactly as it should be.

We are given this rich, lush, fascinating world meant to be explored and loved. We are given all these many, varied people, near and far, meant to be known and loved deeply. We are given animals and gardens to care for, work worth doing, communities worth building, experiemnts worth trying, and goals worth chasing, in order to… Well, I won’t pretend to know the exact purposes, but I do know without a doubt that it’s all an extravagant gift.

I am telling you this because it hit me right when I needed it most. I have been feeling like too many things in my life have been starved of the attention and energy they need, yet I am all the way depleted. Not much extra to give, you know? When I pulled back to see what’s been happening, I was so happy to remember that I just set different goals for a while. The chaos I have been feeling is the natural result of a life densely packed wth all the best things, and it’s okay. I know that it’s within my power to reorder things when the time comes.

With this deep breath of contenment in my body, I see no other way forward except to just keep going. Continue on in the mild chaos. Continue doing the work we find important and satisfying. Nurture the friendships we treausre. Chase the goals that make our mouths water, respecting the process regardless of the outcome. Cultivate the best things we can find in community. Make sure we are doing everything we can to construct a history we are proud and happy to reflect on later.

It will feel off balance plenty. It will feel weird often. But it will also feel victorious and hilarious and awe-inspiring! I’ll take it, all of it, thankyouverymuch, and all of it at once if the Universe continues to see fit to send it that way.

Keep on going, friends! We all need the particular flavors of chaos, disruption, and beauty you are creating.

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar; you only have as many days as you make use of.”
~Charles Richards
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm, straddling seasons

Hey friends, hello! How goes your passage of time? The clocks here, and the calendars, still refuse to slow down. We often catch ourselves looking up with bewildered expressions, asking each other what day it is, what year, and again for good measure, are you sure it’s already Thursday? Already September?

That cannot be right.

Thankfully the days and weeks are packed with work well executed and memories well crafted. We are buoyed by extravagant laughter and nourished by even more extravagant food. So, if time seems to be accelerating, at least we can feel sure that we have redeemed it all for the best treasures. I do think we have.

((hydrangeas fading into their autumnal glory))

Here are a few headlines, in classic Friday 5 at the Farm style:

ONE: Handsome’s birthday week was rock solid and glittering and, worth remembering forever, covered with a lavish mountain of hypoallergenic foam and sprinkled with disco lights. We first celebrated with our hilarious neighbors who donned shark and mermaid costumes just to make him laugh, then at his office with the Pubic Utilities Division (forever in our hearts), at a gala downtown (we sat alone at a table for twleve but had great fun together), in Bricktown with a small group of fun seeking friends (only one bone was broken), at the farm with even more friends (barn movie and FOAM), and daily, just the three of us, in as many small, sweet ways as we could manage. We even indulged in a double date night with Jess and Alex. Handsome reported feeling very loved and celebrated, which makes my heart happy. He is the engine that keeps so much in this world running and moving forward, and he certainly tends to give more than he receives. So at least at his birthday, I love seeing him spoiled rotten!

TWO: The middle seasons have begun their long, slow ceremony of changing guard. Summer is folding up her threadbare and wrinkled flag solemnly, advancing one measured step at a time toward Autumn, who yawns and rolls her shoulders, blinking without an agenda. She is ready but in no hurry. Autumn will steal no glory from Summer, because she knows that once we settle into her embrace we will not look back. We’re all a little tired. Still, the landscape still boasts more saturated color than muted. Flowers are still blooming. Tomatoes, basil, and eggplants are still offering us their final promises. And our air conditioner is still keeping the house cool and fresh, for a few more days at least. This is the in-between, the bridge, the weeks in Oklahoma when anything could happen and often does. I intend to absorb and enjoy the details as they come.

THREE: I remain deeply thankful for a farm full of healthy animals. Chanta and Dusty are thriving in their fatness and rippling muscles, good teeth and less troublesome hooves. The cows are enjoying their preordained romance, to the extreme most days, and have you heard that Scarlett has been sleeping in the wild coreopsis? Most mornings, if I do not hear her mooing early for breakfast, she is still asleep in that especially tall, thick patch of yellow flowers on the west side of the big barn. I will admit that we have not collected a fresh egg in over a month, but that might be due to the flock being free range and definitely prone to laying in strange places, like open vehicles and soft hay bales. I recently discovered a clutch of fifteen eggs in a deep hollow below some Mexican sunflowers. Tricky girls. Mike Meyers remains the reigning champ of happy splashes.

FOUR: Speaking of gardens, whew! For someone who talks about this a lot, I sure do not seem to have any idea what I am doing, ha! That extra long stretch of 100-plus weeks with no rain was challenging, but still so much survived. Our water pressure troubles have been resolved, and I am back to watering on a cautious rotation. We have more cooling on the forecast, too, which will bring tangible relief. Now the name of the game is taking stock of what is still full of good energy and then babying those plants with every trick in the book. Any blank space that comes from removing weeds and spent plants will be given the chance to host broccoli, spinach, lettuces, carrots, kale, pansies, and a few more fall treasures. For the next several weeks I will be busy with the school gardens too, so available time to play outside might be limited this season. We shall see. Really, everything is fine. Not the lush and productive garden she was in July, but still beautiful.

FIVE: I have been a glutton for great reading and listening lately. Recently, I finished off another Abraham Verghese novel, this time Cutting for Stone. His writing is one of the most mesmerizing and thirst quenching reading experiences you can give yourself. Please choose a title, any title, and let me know how much you love it. I also finished The Stand finally, after many decades of wondering if it was for me It is!! Oh man it is. Stephen King is a crowd favorite character writer for good reason. I had forgotten. Also loving some good marathoning podcasts lately, but maybe I’ll save that for an upcoming running update.

Okay, friends, listen. As if to underscore how quickly time passes, let me admit that I wrote this “Friday 5” post exactly 8 days ago, intending to share it with you last Friday. Since then, we have enjoyed refreshing cool weather and more hot weather. I found the energy to run sixteen miles, most of it with my dear friend Sheila, the longest run I have tackled in a while. Jess and I had an incredible garden clean up day at her house then another spontaneous day of baking something extraordinary, here at the farm. We are all working and playing and loving each other left and right, even with an unexpected handful of sick days for my husband. Life is good. Life is beautiful in every way. I really that the days are so full we have to consciously stop and look aroudn to see what we are doing.

Happiest Friday ever to you.
XOXOXO

late summer beauty and reminders

By mid August I often feel confused about what my job is, about what is priority in the gardens and with the animals, about how it all relates to the outside world, and, crucially, what to do with my hair. I suspect this slightly unmoored feeling is generally owed to a stack of conflicting energies: Most of the world is hot with Back to School Fever, while the pool is still blue and I could eat at least four more watermelons. Also, our family is in a dense Happy Birthday season, with parties and special days left and right, while many members are enduring some damaging and deeply worrisome crises. We try to prop each other up and stay engaged with reality; and we work to celebrate and keep things moving, too, like always. Joy and grief and work and play, all at once. The delicious, brackish water we know so well.

Things are shifting, I can feel it. The same way things shift toward the end of winter, when we get a glimpse of change but then it all buckles down again to remind us we are not in control. An early thaw then a late freeze, that trick. At mid August we might get a glimpse of more serious color in the landscape, tighter, cloudier skies and just barely less daylight after supper, but we are still firmly gripped by summer. Our cars are still ovens for the commute home, and tomato vines refuse to produce new flowers until nighttime temperatures relax. We know that October is there waiting for us, just like April always follows closely after Februrary, but the weeks between could mean anything. So the moment matters greatly. How we spend it, how we feel about it, how we infuse it with meaning.

I feel all at once stifled and ready for change but also panicked, regretful and sad for the season soon ending.

I feel the loss of aggressive sunshine and limited clothing as well as excitement for autumn plans and traditions.

I feel the stunning passage of time as well as deep gratitude for the health of our animals and closeness of friends and family.

I feel like a failure for all the things I did not accomplish in my garden this year but this overwhelming amazement for what happens out there with very little intervention from me. I also feel childlike joy over the garden our girl has grown at her own home. There is nothing like watching that adventure take root.

I feel so happy for all the peace and stability our home has provided all summer long, for people and visiting pups and resident four leggeds alike; and simultanously I hope we travel a bit more in coming years. I hope we rediscover how to play and pause work and worry. I hope our calendar next year includes lots of time off for my husband.

I feel safe and loved and clear eyed about the future but also empty in the way that only a missing loved one can make you feel. It’s always hard to acknowledge that another season, and soon another year, has passed with out her. I have mostly learned to stop setting timelines on God, but occassionally the length of this hard season takes my breath away.

I feel like I spend so much of my waking hours on cemented daily routines, and while they serve us really well, when time feels suddenly precious I crave to break it up.

And so I find my paperback journal and write Senses Inventories, gluing the details of my moments to paper. I make lists of clear, specific blessings and prayers recently answered. I let it all build a crackling, electric awareness of and confidence in the beauty of my life. Life right now, life as the exact and unique gift that has been given. It’s a transformative exercise. It wakes me up and helps me shed the heavier feelings of this in-between season.

And I take lots of extra walks around the farm, with little expectation to be productive. Just looking and absorbing and remembering that this beautiful, imperfect, chaotic little rectangle of Oklahoma is our home. It is a childhood dream come to life, the details of which I barely have shared with anyone over the years, and it is okay for me to accept and enjoy it. In fact, I really should.

I try to see the gardens from new angles and internalize the shapes and colors for what they are according to Creation, not for how they measure against a list of jobs or design advice on some website. I try to rest in the long series of miracles that must happen just in the process of one tiny cosmos seed becoming this five foot tall, ethereal, glossy, fernlike, mysterious widlflower. Also, does anyone else get tranfixed by the word “cosmos” being used both for this pefect flower and for outer space, for all of creation?

When I feel like I have been sleepwalking through routines, I slow down and let Klaus lead the way without rushing him, instead of expecting him to keep up behind me. I pay attention to what he sees and what makes him smile, remembering his first puppy summers and how much he loves this farm, his home. His kindgom. How much all the animals trust him.

I take deep breaths and inhale the basil and manage to laugh at how I always expect the cute little bed shapes I plan in April to stay tidy and petite all the way through August.

I spend more play time with the horses and let them come to me, which they always do. I hug them and wait for them to them let go first, as the saying goes, accepting their massive necks on my shoulder and not fearing for my toes near their hooves. I give thanks for their health a thousand times per day and smell them and feed them extra apples and carrots and kiss them excessiveley when they accept fly spray. I listen to their complicated whinnying language and do my best to whinny back correctly. I look into Dusty’s eyes especially and wonder if he remembers her, if they talk to each other. I look into Chanta’s eyes and tell him thank you for being so gentle with children and small animals.

To stop time, I do my best to pause and text my frends when they cross my mind. We are all busy. Everyone. But my gosh life is rich because of our friends! I hope they feel how treasured they are.

I try to apply thought to details that connect my past to Jessica’s future, like morning glories. LIke so many plants and recipes and books and rituals. I remember her as a toddler so easily, like my mother surely remembers me. And the strands just grow and grow.

I make note of the many pleasures and comforts of living in a small town near other small towns with easy access to big cities, when the mood strikes. It’s common enough to moan about the inconveniences, but I always crave to get home as fast as I can. It’s my paradise. I know it all is such a lavish gift. I know that each animal is a once-in-a-lifetime friendship with a real soul and that their trust is no accident. So I try to hold their gaze as ling as they offer it.

It’s blazing hot now, and windy, and my feet are very tired and my hair needs a miracle and I have packed the next few weeks with about 27% more than it can easily bear. But it’s all perfect. Life is beyond good. I can actively will the clock to slow down just enough to catch my breath, and I can trade the moments and days for glittering jewels, while they are still up for grabs.

To put a dent in time, do things that time can’t take away.
XOXOXOXO