our family stone

I have an argument happening in my heart right now. Should I stay or should I go now? If I don't there will be trouble.....and if I stay there will be double....... I always thought that was a stupid song anyway.
I wish I could scoop up all of my family and people I love and carry them to a beautiful place where we walk out our front step everyday and gasp at the beautiful surrounding that lay before us. I could walk across the street to all my sisters and brothers homes and soak up the entire day talking and doing nothing. Peace fills my heart when I think about that picture. My family is freakishly close. Most of us 7 siblings converse on almost a daily occurrence. And 3 of them actually live in the same household together, that just sounds weird. But it's true and its home to me. My favorite movie in the entire world is The Family Stone. It is the perfect picture of my family, the closeness and protectiveness you can feel throughout the entire movie. I love how they shoot the scene up in the attic bedroom, and the roof is angled in on them. They have to duck to stand in 60 percent of the room. But that feeling of closeness is the whole movie itself, and it reminds me of the feeling my family gives me. Listening to one of our conversations has to be very confusing. At least all of us girls for the most part can finish each other's sentences and so we often don't finish what we are saying and just say....do you know what I mean. And we all nod our head, Yea I know what you mean. We have actually been singled out because of how close we are. Come on people we speak the same french fried retard language for goodness sake. Do you really want to be part of our little bond. And the truth is yes, they do. A lot of my friends love spending time with all of us girls together. They say it's so fun to see you all get a long so well and there is such a warm feeling when you are all together. They say that we make them feel like they are part of the bond we share.
But, for me its a curse, don't worry sisters.....a good one. The magnetic force that this invisible bond created from years of protecting and caring for one another won't let me leave. I so badly want to live in a part of this beautiful country that doesn't have sub zero temperatures for two months out of the year. Minnesota is beautiful come Spring, Summer, and Fall. Even parts of the winter are breath taking here. But the cold snaps have gotten to my very last nerve. I get this confidence and audacity about me every year at this time and I curse this part of the country I am forced to live in. I threaten to leave and ask almost every day, or at least every time I have to venture outside of my little warm box of a home. "Why do people live here, I don't get it". Come summer and fall I will ask why people wouldn't live here. But it isn't the country that keeps me here. It's my family that keeps me here. A lesson was given to me when my parent's died. They could have cared less about all the material things that they had or had not accumulated in their lifetime. It was having this family that mattered to them most at the end of their days. People to love and loved them back. People who cared enough to surround them now at their worst and comfort them until they met their Father. The truth is I know my family would never leave me. And even though I don't get to see some of them as much as I would like to. Living a couple of states away would make it that much worse. Or maybe I could just scoop you all up and show you another view that would take all of your breath's away.

Perfection

The snow is falling at the perfect pace today. It looks as though you have just blown the biggest dandelion fluff. It slowly moves about it's way and travels to where the wind takes it. Twirling madly the second a swift, hard wind blows, then settles so softly on the windshield. For a second you can see the intricate design of the flake, and all it's rigid edges in harmonious design. And then it gives into the warmth of its surroundings and disappears as a tear down the glass. How in the world can something so beautiful be created so far up in the sky and still land with grace. Maybe it's god's way of reminding us to take time and notice the perfection that exists around us. Like the design of a leaf. Every year the tree will produce hundreds maybe even thousands of the same leaf, perfect in design for it's existence. As a child I would examine the leaf closely and notice all the cells matched up together. I would hold up the leaf into the sunlight and trace the haphazard edges of the veins with my eyes. And then as though I couldn't help myself I would carefully deconstruct the leaf until it was in pieces strewn about the ground. My hands stained from the green blood that drained from the leaf. Ironic that I would destroy something that was vital to my existence as a human being. I read a passage in the bible about how He created all the trees and seed to bear fruit and grain to supply the whole list creatures he designed. Then he created man to rule over all of the creature and tree and grain. Maybe I felt like it was my god given right to destroy such a beautiful and perfect creation. Or maybe I was 8 years old and I couldn't comprehend such a thought, twenty years later I think about it all the time. But for today I will sit inside my warm cozy house and watch the snow fall at a perfect pace. Weaving it's way through the roots of the tree that grow up to the sky. And wonder how in God's name something so beautiful can fall all the way down from what seams like heaven, only to be destroyed by the warmth of my skin. And revel in it's perfection.

Dreams

I put my baby girl down to sleep tonight and of course my heart fell out of my chest and rolled across the room. The beauty of a sleeping child would take the breath out of anyone. But this one is different, she is mine and the pressure on my chest is that much greater. I wonder what she dreams about, I love it when she tries to share her dreams with me. A little smile every now in then, even a little coo. Sometimes she tries to tell me about what she is seeing, although the words are muttled you can sense the emotion by her expression and tone. I love it. As I rock in the chair and look out into the dim light creeping into her bedroom from the hall, I start to drift in thought. Did my parents hold me like this and wonder what I was dreaming about? I wish I could ask them these things and enjoy their response. I can picture their smiles while they share memories of when we were babies and small children.
And then my thoughts travel to my parents, and I wonder what they dreamed about. When they were my age and just starting their own family, what did they want? Did they have as many goals and dreams as I do? I wish I could ask them these things. Once again I feel the pressure in my chest and I look back to see my heart still on the floor. I feel so far away from my memories of my parents and I am scared I will one day all together forget them. I feel like I never knew the people they really were. I was so young and immature when they were passing away that I never took the time to let them tell me their story. My whole life it was about me and my brothers and sisters. I guess we thought we would have the time later in life. Or maybe it wouldn't have ever been important to us to hear our parents story. I wish I had it now.
I had a patient that wrote her life story, it only took 50 pages that she typed up. But the picture it painted in your head was so beautiful. Along the way she would dot the pages with pictures on family and places she had been. In the end you felt like you knew this person as though she were a part of your life.
I get this ache and anxiety about me when I think about leaving my family before I have told my story. I want my daughter to know who I am. When she reads my entries in the journal I started writing her when I found out I was pregnant, I want her to feel the love pouring out onto the pages. Will she know that I could have stayed up for days without sleep because I wanted to make sure she was sleeping ok.
In time I will tell her all about it when I comb through the journals with her while on a special mother and daughter trip. And I will always hope I get to watch her walk down the aisle, kiss her true love, and start a new beginning. But just in case.....I will keep writing. In her journal and in mine and I will tell her my dreams, my fears, successes and failures. So she won't have to wish she had asked those questions when I was here.

Saturday is almost done

I have had a fever for some time and it's fueled by a stirring I can not explain set deep inside my soul. I want to do something, small and big. I want to do everything, but can not find the focus or motivation to make it occur. The thoughts creep in and overwhelm me at my best. I may burst or I may sit and allow it to take over myself. It's a fifty fifty chance, but it will consume my entire day. I left the person I wanted to be back at the starting line a long time ago. I got so busy I forgot to make sure she was right beside me. I took off in a mad dash to make the next set of years pass as quickly as possible. And the realization that I had totally lost myself hit me. I had let ten years pass by while I was stuck in survival mode. I had too many happy and sad moments in those ten years that I never cherished or made important enough to stick in my memory. And here I am starting my blog when Saturday is almost over. I need to go back to the starting line and pick up the transparent image of that girl stuck in park. I need to look at her and tell her that she can do it. She can find the path and finish the race. And I will remind her to take in everything as if it would be her last chance to feel any emotion. I will tell her to take as long as possible along the way; to focus her heart and leave her head out of the moment. I am so excited to meet her again. And it's the perfect timing. Because there is a little girl just over the height of my knee with beautiful brown bouncing waves of hair and those Barbara Streisand blue eyes my daddy loved so much that needs her momma to teach her the right way to dance through life. One day at a time.....I will see you Sunday morning my love.