Mornings

This light is the best.

I drink coffee.

Pick up toys I should have had them put away the night before.

Fry eggs in a seasoned cast iron pan.

Sena is holed away writing.

Alamae and Arlo play together, then wander apart.

For a few moments, the chaos quiets.

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This Weekend We

It wasn't glamorous.

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Morning Light

The way it reflects off the Chesapeake in sorbet hues. Making silhouettes of the morning walkers across the neighbor's yard. Working its way south, through dirty windows. Catching bedheads and cluttered corners. Streaming through houseplants. Finally, dancing off the disco ball while the shadows are at their longest before gradually, gradually, shrinking, shrinking.

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Home Scenes

Normal looks like disheveled sofas and a boy with a bed head begging to watch more television much to his mother's embarrassment and dismay.

It looks like abandoned journals and water glasses, and  homeless chords snaking across water damaged free furniture.

Normal looks like sweaters at the ready for fluctuating temperatures inside a house that is almost always too hot or too cold according to my mother. It looks like chairs that are never pushed in and remnants of breakfast yet to be put away.

It looks like spilled toys, piles of overdue library books, and a vacuum always at the ready. Normal looks like baskets filled with diapers and forgotten apples, sun hats and plastic dinosaurs, but never a single wipe when you need one most.

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Crannies and Corners Two Years In

Last week marked two years in this house. On the day of our two year anniversary, Alamae James slept on the daybed and I had my niece Jettie in a sling on my chest as I tried to take pictures of this house as it is now.

Once I saw the pictures on the computer screen my eyes went straight to the Skylanders that lay abandoned on the ground, saw the pictures hanging askew.  I figured I would go back and take new pictures later, pictures that showed my house picked up and styled. For a week it hung in the back of my mind to do that. The problem is, however, that my house is never more picked up. It is never more styled. It is the backdrop for a life well lived. A large cast of characters, both major and minor, cross the threshold and are welcomed to eat at the dining room table I just inherited from my grandparents. They are invited to sink into the chairs given to us by our realtor just before moving in. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is pristine.

There are dozens of things that I want to change in my home at any given moment. Rugs I want to replace. Pieces of furniture I wish I could reupholster. Projects that needed finished. This house as an expression of me and my family has been an art project carried out with a very limited budget. And like most artistic pursuits, there are times when I am completely dissatisfied with the results and there are other times when I am thrilled.  The pendulum will likely continue to swing for years and years.  The house will grow and evolve with us. Bedrooms will be shuffled. New art hung. Broken things repaired. Quirky old things purchased.

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Quiet Days

Quiet days spent wandering around the air conditioned house with Alamae at my side. Remembering the boredom that comes with long days spent with just an infant for company. The sense that you will get things done but the inability to actually do them. Having just one is both easier and harder than I remember.

Yesterday we only left the house once. A quick trip to buy soft shell crabs because I find myself craving the sea in every way. I fried two up and brought one to my sister. We pulled apart their briny strangeness and licked our fingers. Then I walked back to my own house to spend more quiet hours interrupted by vinyls I forget to flip and more television than is ever my custom.

All day the dishwasher has needed to be unloaded. All day it has waited. It will keep waiting while I bounce Alamae on my knee as she drips cantaloupe juice down my leg.

***

Hours have passed since the dripping cantaloupe. Now I'm holding my niece as Tom paces with Alamae. These babies fill my hands and heart to capacity, but leave me restless, ready for big kids to return. Ready for the noise they bring. Ready for their help and for their altogether different set of needs.

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Spinning My Wheels

I can't tell you how many times I've collected those plastic building pieces from around the house in the past 48 hours, but whatever the number is, add a few more times that I have asked Sena or Gus to do the same thing.

And today I had big plans to get to the bottom of my laundry pile, but it's raining and I have become strict about line drying, so it will have to wait till tomorrow, though chances are, I will never see the bottom of that wicker basket full of dirty clothes. Never.

And my kitchen sink needs to cleaned and the floors need to be vacumed, and there are at least a dozen other such chores that are calling my name. But Alamae James just wants to bounce on my knees, so I sit here typing with one hand as she coos and drools. At least it affords me a moment to do one thing I want to do, find space for my thoughts. But meanwhile, the tasks pile up.

For the past two days I have scurried around my house picking up and folding and wiping, and yet, nothing looks different, and it likely won't for quite some time. I stop what I'm doing to help Gus with math problems or read a chapter of one of his books with him. Sena wants to do the next video in our 30 day yoga challenge. Arlo would give his left hand for me to just turn on the television.

I do my best to live my life as well as I am able. But some days are mundane and frustrating, and I force myself to try to think bright thoughts, grateful thoughts, as a bit of sadness sits right behind my eyes. On Tuesday I went to work at my new part time job with the intention of finding beauty in each and every person I saw. It was harder work than I had imagined. I woke up Wednesday exshausted from it. Still, I did my best to trudge on through my shift, even when I wanted to scream, "Don't you assholes know I'm trying to be positive over here?" I kept offering up smiles, finding plenty returned.

I wish every day was camping trips and rafts on the bay. I wish every day was strawberry picking and nature journaling and picnicing and friends visiting. Some days are those things. Some days aren't.

These are all the days.

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Inspired to be Kind (Look at my Clean House)

I love my house. It certainly isn't perfect, but perfect things are too boring to bother loving anyway. As much as I love going away, I love coming home. Coming home to my house this time was even sweeter than usual because while I was gone, my friend Carrie drove all the way from Pennsylvania (two hours each way) to clean my house. It was beautiful. As soon as I walked in, I could smell the clean. I can't even begin to express how amazing the gift was. All day Sunday, I was able to enjoy the beautiful weather and being back instead of stressing about dirty floors and scummy sinks. The gesture sort of blew my mind, and made me realize how rarely I  do things for other people these days. I do a lot for my kids, and I try to do things for my family, but I am definitely getting more than I receive.

It's easy to blame it on four kids, but I don't want to. I want to be a person who finds ways to be more thoughtful and caring. At this stage in my life I probably can't sacrifice 10 hours straight to any particular endeavor like Carrie did, but I can sure as heck do better than I have been. So now I'm on a mission to try to brainstorm ways to be more giving. It feels so good to know that you are loved and cared for. I want to make sure that my people know how much they mean to me. Money is almost in as short of supply as time these days, so I need to be creative, but I'm up for the challenge (I hope). 

As a means of immortalizing Carrie's hard work, I went around taking pictures because a house this clean doesn't last long.

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Making Home

I grew up in a pristine home, kept by a mother who never seemed to tire of cleaning, and who never required any of her six kids to do chores aside from setting the table and unloading the dishwasher.

My mother never seemed to resent Saturday morning cleaning sessions. In fact, I never even remember seeing her clean, although I also never saw her sit. Our house being in a constant state of near perfection was just a given. I only remember one time ever being fussed at your making a mess. My sisters and I happened to discover that you could squeeze pomegranate seeds at each other and wage beautiful, pink warfare. As it happened, my mom's newly hung antique lace curtains became the most tragic casualty.

My own house and attitude towards housecleaning are almost 180 degrees from my mother's. My house always needs a minimum of four solid hours of deep cleaning, even after I've spent four hours deep cleaning. I force my children and husband to help me vacuum and wipe off baseboards and deposit things into the appropriate location. And I resent almost every minute I'm doing it. I just want to be reading a book, watching a movie, taking a walk, or engaged in pretty much any other activity that isn't cleaning.

I try to remind myself that my house doesn't need to be perfect. I read books that assure me in their very titles that "A perfectly kept house is the sign of a misspent life. " I start a blog series on the beauty of other people's messes, but despite my best efforts, I just can't come to peace with the dusty corners or the act of dusting.

I have a "source" who told me that after having been invited in to several old money, New England houses, that she discovered that these people, the paragons of class and culture, had boarder line dirty houses.  I think it's like the house keeping equivalent of French women's hair; when things are incredibly beautiful and tasteful, grooming is superfluous.

I don't think that I am supposed to admit this, but I have always sort of wanted to pass myself off as some sort of bourgeois bohemian, although I'm pretty certain that the fact that Tom and I both work actual jobs and receive actual paychecks forever precludes us from being such. Regardless, in my bobo fantasies, my untidy house is charming and whimsical, not simply a testament to lackadaisical nature.

I'm not certain that I will ever come to accept my mediocre house cleaning skills. I hope to one day feel confident enough in my home making skills that I no longer care. Meanwhile, I will blame my mother for this problem because I'm pretty certain that is how to deal with most problems in life.

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