Lazy W Marie

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

Year One

Today’s weather is very much like the weather we had on this date last year, if maybe a touch colder. The sunshine is abundant and vibrating with energy. The wind is low, skies clear.

Today, Jessica and Alex celebrate their first wedding anniversary and, just as before, Love is winning.

Love wins…xoxoxo

After their first full year, a young couple could measure their marriage in bills paid and paychecks hard earned, in emergencies resolved, in how many friends they welcomed into their home to help them get back on their feet, in how many extended family crises they endured. They might look back over twelve months and remember strong grief for lost loved ones and fresh grief for hurting loved ones.

A young couple can cry a lot of tears in their first year, under the very best circumstances. In a global pandemic, with ancient, unrelenting storms still circling them, it can be an awful lot.

I think those and many more hardships are actually opportunities for growth and can be beautiful ways to measure your first year. But I vote for measuring and counting the outright joys, too.

A milestone year can be measured by how many road trips you’ve taken, how many spontaneous date nights your romance has sparked, how many fun parties you’ve thrown for your people! How many home cooked meals and nest feathering projects you’ve enjoyed, even the dozens of times you’ve lovingly taken your perfect pups to the park and to the groomer and (when necessary) to the vet. How many times did you buy delicious groceries together or rearrange the furniture, listen to music and sing and watch documentaries and discuss the world and politics? How many college classes and appointments and important meetings did you check off your list?

All the cozy bonfires you burned in your backyard firepit, they all count. All the many new traditions you cultivated, all on your own, for no one but yourselves, they definitely beef up the first year. Every time you lovingly participated in family events even when you weren’t quite up for it? Extra credit, babes. In a year, there are so many amors uttered, and plenty of movie nights and star gazing nights. They are all riches for your hearts.

Alone, these life details may feel small, but together they are good, solid building blocks for a happy, textured life. Three hundred and sixty five days worth of life well lived, of love exchanged and grown and realized.

A year is a nice long time to learn each other’s rhythms and habits, preferences and strengths, to begin to really galvanize and harmonize the cultures you have united. And these precious young people are just getting started.

Alex and Jessica, as you step across the calendar into January 17, 2022, into your second year as husband and wife, we wish you more time for each other, more opportunities to travel and more parties and fun. We wish you success at school and in business, fulfillment in every creative endeavor.

We also wish you all the strength and wisdom you will need for the inevitable challenges that are coming. You already know that the obstacle is the way; may you also begin to see that your dreams and visions are powerful forces. Craft your life, your marriage, own it, make it yours.

Wear the fur, eat the cake. Laugh as much as possible.

We love you so much.

Happy First Anniversary.

“Every love story is beautiful,
but ours is my favorite.”
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

getting centered before Thanksgiving

In our corner of the universe, everyone is a bit wound up about Thanksgiving. In good, happy ways, mostly, but also in covid ways. We have the exact same dilemma you have, which is how to gather safely and responsibly while preserving our mental health and holiday traditions as much as possible. We are wound up over how to stay connected when we are entering a season of necessary separation. You know, all of it. We are all in this.

It’s hard to make hard choices, and I know we are far from alone in this. It’s all valid, not imaginary, and occasionally makes me cry.

Somehow I woke up extra early Saturday morning and felt a new uprising of optimism and hope about it all. I woke up remembering the essence of giving thanks and of keeping traditions. Our outward expressions are not the whole story, after all. The root of it all is untouchable, no matter what else is happening. The root of it all is Love, and Love always resurfaces eventually. Love always wins, and it always makes good choices.

Today’s weather is a great illustration of this. We have cold, grey skies and thick clouds over the farm. It’s a dim atmosphere, not awful, but also not glorious. Until the sun busts through. All throughout the day this intense metallic light keeps making these surprise appearances, gilding and glittering the oak leaves and evergreens, illuminating the patchy grass and purple mums. It just enlivens everything, and without warning the gloom is forgotten. A few times today it was so surprising that I gasped and panicked over having wasted a pretty day indoors.

We are in charge of this stuff, friends. We literally rule over our perceptions and focus.

We can focus on the statistics and on what others are doing and become overwhelmed and sad (or angry); or we can acknowledge reality then focus on what health we are enjoying today, affirm good choices, and make the absolute most of what is available to us. We can do everything in our power to live out Love, even if it all looks very different than we are used to.

We get hooked on the habits and details, sometimes, and forget that our habits and details are born of deeper, more meaningful values and truths. Repeating traditions is just a way of conjuring up good feelings, and that can be done in myriad ways. We are infinitely creative creatures, capable of making magic. Holiday magic. Even in pandemic.

For me, the trick will be allowing this holiday season to be exactly what it is, really digging in and enjoying it all, without comparing it to huge, glorious holidays past or even more liberated holidays in the future. Definitely let’s agree to not compare our Thanksgiving to anyone else’s. This year more than ever, that’s just a fruitless endeavor. We are all making complex choices with fluctuating resources and energy levels. So, no comparing. xoxo

I intend to celebrate the generations of Love and effort invested in us so far, everything beautiful in each of our families that has led up to this year. I will make silent promises to reinvest that Love and effort into others, every chance we get, both now and going forward.

Let’s also remember that some of the best traditions are sparked from weird, necessary moments of impulse and invention. Let’s all be open to what new beauty might come this Great Pause.

Okay. Happy Thanksgiving Week, friends. Whatever you are planning, may it be all you need and more. May lots and lots of golden-silver autumn sunlight hammer apart your gloom. May the essence of every family tradition be findable, the effort behind every good thing repeatable in new ways. And most of all, may you and your family stay safe and healthy.

Please Wear a Mask
XOXOXOXO

turkey palooza love letter to my family

In our family, every person counts. We are a big, rambunctious crowd, and while from the outside it may seem that anyone could get lost in us, we always feel the absence of any one member.

In our family, we tease each other mercilessly, sometimes bordering on meanness, but we love each other fiercely and will defend each other to outsiders with everything we have. Sincere efforts are appreciated, too, and applauded. We love doing things for and with each other.

In our family, we value fun and silliness. Greatly. We laugh loudly and a lot. And at everything. Over and over and over again. We play games chance we get.

In our family, kids are precious. And the adults are also kids.

In our family we weep with each other. And although we no longer attend church together, we all feel and benefit from each other’s prayers.

We all crave deeper and continuing connection with each other. We are gently competitive, but we mostly help each other. Everyone contributes. Even the Whos in Whoville have nothing on our family’s sense of teamwork. You know what we should do? Go on Family Feud or maybe The Greatest Race or something.

For us, there is no such thing as a black sheep, because we all take turns being the odd man out, ha. At some time, each of us has wandered from the fold, and we always come back. This gives us hope for our babes who are hurting. We have learned that each of us has an ongoing need for grace and mercy. We all have said and done things to hurt each other, we all have been forgiven, we all want everybody else to stay close immediately and from now on, ok? There are no outsiders in our family. We are all of us, together, even when we are far flung. Every person is worth waiting for.  

(Come home, Joc. We miss you. We need you. We are here for anything you need.)

We love each other. We love each other’s babies and puppies. We feel at home in each other’s homes. It feels like childhood after a few hours or especially a few days together in a shared, confined space.

In our family, we eat really well. We are, I like to think, health conscious hedonists. Giving us home cooked food with whole milk and eating dinner at the table for 90% of our meals, Mom and Dad raised lots of very enthusiastic cooks! This Thanksgiving, two of their adult grandchildren some cooking for the feast, and we were so proud.

We care about beauty and lushness, but we are not too fancy.

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We value lots of traditions, if they serve our communal joy, and we won’t be shamed out of it. We don’t mind test driving new traditions either! The Saran Wrap game is only a few years old for us, but it’s not going anywhere. We also love to share memories and figure out which details we retain differently. (If you think we didn’t have a pet ferret, though, you’re wrong.)

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In our family we work hard and expect accountability. For example, when a projects falls flat, Dad might say, “What did you think would happen when you did that?” And this question doesn’t sting; it only points us back to the process.

We nap hard. We dance, draw,  create, play music, imagine, climb trees, study, clean, and work. Hard. Really hard. All of it.

Our family takes lots and lots of photos! Of everything. We do this because we are amazed by how quickly time passes. We want some documentation of all this life happening. But we also hate for our own photos to be posted to Face book without permission. Ask Genny about having cheeks full of banana at the 5K.

For our family, the two people who started everything as bright eyed, glossy faced teenagers are now our matriarch and patriarch, and for all of our juvenile complaining and petulance in the past, now… none of us know what we would do without them.

In our family we celebrate each other’s successes. We ask a lot about the future, and we love talking to each other about our plans, whatever they may be, big or small. We encourage each other. We have learned to not dwell too long in the past, except to celebrate it and hopefully laugh. We have learned that every single one of us needs some forward momentum. Some encouragement and a push here and there. Also some grace and compassion, all of which we happily provide for each other.

In our family, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of a lot, with no signs of it ever not being a lot. But we love it. Our two sweet members who married into all of this A-Lot-Ness  probably feel it the most. BW and Halee are often a bit wide-eyed by the end of a good reunion, but we trust that they too value the whirling dervish that is our family.

We all need a nap now. And a bit of quiet, maybe some Febreeze for the house and a few raw veggies for our bellies. But truly we just love the happy chaos so much. We love the intense texture and noise and wild flavor of us all together, because as messy as it is, as overwhelming as it can be, as much as the togetherness may stretch each other’s boundaries, this is where each of us originated.  This is the very real and powerful nucleus of Love and Intention and Effort from which all five of us sprouted and grew. How wonderful that we all have grown in such different directions and still “come home” to celebrate so often.

Come home. Touch base. Home base.

“Safe!”
(unless you are playing Wago)
XOXOXOXO

i love people who… (thanksgiving edition)

I love people who set the table with formal precision, using place cards and evenly spaced forks and multiple wine glasses. This makes their guests feel fancy and loved.

I also love people who buy colorful harvest-themed paper plates and serve the meal on TV trays to save that dishes-washing time for extra cuddling later. This makes their guests feel relaxed and loved.

I love people who fold linen napkins into amazing designs and also people who spin stacks of paper napkins into silly little spiral towers.

I love people who get a thrill from cooking the entire meal alone, to serve their loved ones in one grand gesture.

And I love people who divvy up the menu, throwing caution to the wind, and eat everything anybody brings.

I love people who make reservations at restaurants and spend every spare minute talking face to face with their people then tip their waitstaff generously as a holiday gift.

Folks who order full traditional meals from boutique grocers? Love those folks.

I once worked at the bank with a woman who had been so poor as a young, single Mom that for Thanksgiving one year all she could afford was a Spam and canned vegetables. She added what she could to the Spam, served it, and counted her blessings. I think of her every single year while I am planning and cooking way too much food. I love her and her story.

I love people who buy a stack of frozen pie crusts on sale in August then thaw them in November and fill them with canned fruit fillings, and I obviously love people who spend hours mixing their own fats and flours to get the perfect flaky crusts then fill them with peeled fruits they probably grew at home.

I love people who fall asleep watching the Thanksgiving Day parade, and I love people who go on nature hikes while the turkey roasts.

I love people who insist on playing football during the Thanksgiving party, or watching it on television, and I love people who write complicated toasts for their people no matter how botched they end up every yea (me)r.

Some families are good at discussing hot button political topics over stuffing and pumpkin pie. Others wisely eschew this minefield and get really familiar with each other’s day to day life instead. I love it all. (Have you seen the SNL skit yet where they use the new Adele song to dissuade an explosive family fight?)

I love people who deep fry their turkeys just as much as I love those who roast it the same way every year, using Grandma’s pan and secret method. I love people who brine the bird and people who brown bag it.

I love the canned-cranberry-jelly citizens out there in Thanksgiving Land, and I love my grandmother’s raw citrus-cranberry relish and all who love that along with me.

Some people search out every traditional family recipe they can find, and others reach for a more global, cosmopolitan vibe for the Turkey Day menu. Still others (like the Snapp family we know and love) opt for their own unique tradition of steaks and baked potatoes. I love all of these people. Maybe especially the Snapps.

My friend Carmel was the Indian to my Pilgrim way back in 6th grade, for a church pageant. I still wear this apron. xoxo
My friend Carmel was the Indian to my Pilgrim way back in 6th grade, for a church pageant. I still wear this apron. xoxo

The different ways that people celebrate this pretty cool holiday are just delightful. I so enjoy looking around and noticing that, for all our homogenization and structure (and retail saturation), we can be a pretty imaginative and various culture. We are good at honoring our roots while growing our wings. And that is beautiful.

This Thanksgiving, enjoy your details, whatever they may be. Celebrate your traditions and your quirks. Love your people harder than ever. That’s my advice. And give some thanks, actively. It matters.

Very Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours
from The Lazy W, Oklahoma
XOXOXOXO