All in a Week
the threads that make up our days
Monday, I fill in at my old job and marvel at how my students have grown in the four years I’ve known them. I have fun discussing social situations and appropriate responses with some of my neuro-diverse kids. One of the cards reads, “I tell the waitress at the restaurant that my dad tips big for girls who hustle” and my students have to rank the appropriateness of the statement. We all agree that it is a very uncomfortable thing to tell someone. I think about how I’m teaching my potty-training toddler that we don’t talk about what our poop looks like with other people. I think about how a lot of adults I know need to be taught the difference between Think or Say because I’m still shocked at the things that come out of peoples’ mouths.
We eat dinner with my parents and sip sparkling lemonade, topped with sliced strawberries and mint springs, out of mason jars. Lucia slurps her first sip out of my straw and makes a surprised, then delighted face. She contours her body in my arms to attempt to drink out of the straw again.
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Tuesday, I wake up to the sun shining on my face in the guestroom at my parents’ house. The girls play in the yard in the Little Tikes car of my childhood, while I drink a latte and read on the porch . Buying an espresso maker off Marketplace is yielding a profit of happiness.
I hit up a local state park with a friend and the kids play on the playground. There are so many birds: cardinals, Baltimore orioles, Eastern bluebirds, jays. Her son is walking away so I make a game out of pretending to drink out of his water bottle and he comes rushing back. She doles out a snack to my daughter. We nurse babies and discuss habits that are working for using our Val Marie Paper Co prayer journals each month. We make a commitment to Snap Chat each other a picture when we’ve filled out the sections for May.
Packing up the girls in my car, we rush the two hours back home to meet with an investor who has a vision to see our city revitalized. She drills us on local government, civic organizations, and dreams we want to see realized. She defends how I call where I grew up a village, because it turns out, she has lived in one too. I like people like this - gutsy, putting their money where their mouth is and putting their heart into their actions.
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Wednesday, I walk downstairs to a quiet toddler, turns out she’s cutting paper. Thankfully, all things she’s allowed to be cutting. “Mommy, look! I’m holding the scissors with my thumb in the little one and my fingers in the big one!” she proudly exclaims. She remembers the correction I’ve been trying to teach her, my occupational therapy heart is thrilled.
Five large baskets of laundry are taking over my laundry room/ pantry and our washing machine has picked impeccable timing to have water coming out both ends, “the flu!” I tell Luis. I schedule a laundry service to come pick-up, wash, dry, and fold 45 lbs. of laundry. One giant task off my plate.
After a flurry of texts back and forth, I text my friend Julia letting her know I can meet her to pick up her son and save her some time from dropping him off at my house. “I’ll leave the girls with Luis, and C can just use one of the girls’ car seats,” I tell her. Her little boy and I have sweet conversations in the car and back at my house, he plays with the girls outside and we enjoy the sunshine. When my friend comes to pick him up, she swings by my favorite local coffee shop. She laughs when she recalls how she mentioned my name and the baristas who know me customize a drink for me. At my house we chat, and she watches the girls while I run to Target for a few items.
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Thursday, we celebrate three years of our local mama group with pastel-colored balloons tied to our strollers and giant Costco cakes and iced coffee. The kids run around and we chat and mother and kiss boo-boos. We grab treats at the farmers market with a friend and when I get home, my pre-ordered copy of Still by Mary Jo Hoffman is waiting and I sit down and savor the natural elements arranged on the page.
That evening, I sit in a meeting with Ability Tree, an organization that partners with churches to help welcome families with special needs. They discuss the heart of the mission - adaptive discipleship. Isn’t this what we are called to? Adapt, love, and nurture people where they are? Show up?
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Friday, I make a cup of espresso and for some reason, it tastes horrible. I spit it back into my cup. I wash dishes and try to clear off my kitchen table. It’s not that I have a hard time cleaning up, it’s that there are always so many random items scattered around my house, like a time capsule dumped on the floor.
We go for a hike at a local lake with our Wild + Free group. I had forgotten how peaceful the lake is. The kids run to the pond, and crouched in a row at the edge they watch thousands of tiny tadpoles eat and swim. A snake wiggles through the water to the island.
We grab lunch with a friend and Jael pretends to breastfeed her baby, patting and singing to the doll. An employee surprises me to use her discount for a carrot cake I buy to surprise Luis with.
At home, Lucia sleeps - turning 10 months is hard work and she is every bit of an exploratory, impish, darling child. Jael and I sit on the porch and draw. We watch a video on how tadpoles turn into frogs. We love to create side-by-side and I want her to remember those naptime sessions more than living in a very clean home.
We jubilate the college graduation of a friend and spend our evening talking and laughing. Lucia emphatically chases water bottles to try to chug water.
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Saturday, I detour a few blocks around a church that’s physically collapsing in our neighborhood. I reflect on the irony as I think about the conversations I keep having this week with people about navigating church hurt, emotionally healthy spirituality, and healing. The Church has never been about the physical building. As a collective, She is still breathing and the Word of God is still healing, but oof, there has been some heart collateral in the process.
I sit at my favorite local café and write and eavesdrop on conversations - a sweet daddy-daughter donut date, a young married couple quietly chatting, older men debating conspiracy theories. I email doula clients, as I anticipate some sweet babies later in the year. I text Luis multiple times to add time to my meter as I try to wrap up loose ends that still don’t get wrapped up.
That afternoon, we brave the rain to head downtown to Taco Fest. As I’m standing in line at a food truck, rain dripping down my face, a man rushes over to give me an umbrella, “For the baby!” he says gesturing to Lucia in the carrier on my stomach. I gratefully smile and share the wealth with a girl in line next to me. We chat under the umbrella until my order number is called out and I lug our food over to Luis and Jael. Now under the protection of a roof, I search the sidewalk for the man and give him the umbrella back. After asking if I’m sure I don’t need it still several times, he finally nods and retrieves it from my hand. We fill our bellies and cover our faces with Elote (Mexican Street Corn) and tacos while serenaded by a mariachi band.
I’m getting the girls ready for bed when our neighbor Mike calls, “Can I give some of my birthday cake to the little girl?” They run a few pieces up to our home, and then we all snuggle in for the night.
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Make room for all of you
It is.
Twisty page-turner rampage
Quandaries
Into the woods
I was more than just a body
I realized
I was something sacred
To build muscle,
strengthen bones
and protect the heart.
Made to last.
From where will help come?
Often just need
Prayer
Retreat
Give life texture
outdoors
respect your rhythms
garden party
sacred spaces
nurturing.
Bliss?“Truth, beauty, and wisdom must be intentionally passed down. Rich souls do not exist by accident.” - Sally Clarkson
I want a rich soul, and I want to foster rich souls. These days are spent chasing truth, beauty, and wisdom, yet are not without pain. Quite a few tragic events have happened in our personal community and local community this week, impacting close friends and leaving my heart reeling with grief and why’s that may never be answered on this side of heaven.
Some days it’s all I can muster to work on keeping my heart tender. I just finished the book “Courageously Soft: Daring to Keep a Soft Heart in a Tough World” by Charaia Rush (highly recommend, by the way.) On an Instagram post, Rush writes -
The truth many of us don’t want to hear is that the soft life we long for is on the other side of the things we are avoiding.
The demons we don’t want to face.
The forgiveness we are withholding that is causing us to wither.
The healing we know will hurt more than the thing that hurt us,
Soft is on the other side of that.
I hope you refuse to let society and these apps lead you toward a life in the shadows of softness.
I hope you fight for a tenderness that cannot be curated.
I’ve been creating time for beauty throughout our days - tiny bouquets of wildflowers, collaging, drawing, writing. I’m chasing truth and wisdom in what I read and speak and pray. I’m overwhelmed by the exquisiteness of the tapestry being woven. Threads of kindness, the gift of knowing and being known, prayer, healing, celebration, laughter, and grief, all added to the loom of life.
Here’s to trusting the Weaver’s hand, as I’m woven one thread at a time.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” - Ephesians 2:10
this is just wonderful. true snapshots of delightfulness.
This is so insightful and uplifting Elizabeth!