by Sara Barry | Oct 4, 2014 | fall, finding time, Uncategorized, writing
Get up early. Notice the way the red leaves glow in the gray morning. Drink good coffee. Write.
Read with your kids. Let them loll on on your lap. Make raisin toast with cinnamon (or sour dough with peanut butter if one of them is picky.)
Run in the rain. Say “good morning” to the other crazy hardy soul you pass. Realize it’s a friend you never see. Say “Oh, hi it’s you!” Go home. Clear your glasses. Take a long, hot shower.
Find a package in your mailbox. Dream of garlic scape pesto next spring. Wonder when to plant your garlic. Remember you still need to dig potatoes and pull carrots. Look out at the rain. Wait.
Go to brunch at a friend’s house. Eat, drink more coffee, have a conversation while your kids are running around the house.
Stop at the library. Pick up the next book in the Fairy Realm series for bedtime. Check out a garden book for inspiration.
Back home, smile at the flowers all over the house, the ones that this and coming rain inspired you to cut yesterday—cosmos and zinnias and mums and sedum.
Eat bacon. On a burger. With home brewed beer.
Add a side of spicy oven fries cooked in some of the bacon fat. Notice that nobody complains about dinner tonight.
Wait til the kids are in bed. Eat apple crisp for a late dessert. Wonder if your pears are ripe enough to make this. Wonder if you have time to make it for breakfast in the morning.
Put on PJs snuggle under covers. Love that it is cool enough to snuggle under covers. Sleep. Get ready to get up early, notice the light, drink coffee, and write.
How are you creating energy, connecting with family and friends, finding beauty, or nourishing yourself this weekend?
by Sara Barry | Sep 22, 2014 | fall, finding time, Uncategorized, writing
It’s the last day of summer, but I’ve already embraced fall.
We’re digging potatoes, stacking wood, crunching apples.
My garden is still putting out kale and chard, beans and herbs, zinnias and cosmos.
I sauté deep green kale and pair it with bright orange squash. I simmer big pots of soup and chili, bake pork and apple pie, fill up the freezer.
I notice the beauty, the color, how much we have.
I invite you to notice the beauty and fullness in your life, harvest your own ideas, preserve your memories, and savor your own abundance. I invite you to make time to think, space to write.

The school bus rumbles down our street, squeals to a stop, bright yellow against a deep blue sky. Watching my big girl climb the high steps I remember holding her—then holding her back—as we watched our friends get on the bus, back when the bus was a break in a long morning.
I collect that memory, sit with it, gather the details, write it.
***
Saturday orange-red globes and dusky cherry tomatoes spilled over my friends counter. I set down a bag of peppers, chunky fir green poblanos, narrow yellow bananas, mid-green bells. We chopped and simmered, moving easily around each other in the comfort of old friends.
It is the last of our summer canning. Apple sauce yes, but that’s fall. Green tomatoes maybe as frost threatens. I’ve step out at night with the dog and smelled the cold already. When I get out of bed for my early morning writing, I pull on a sweater, slide into slippers.
Sunday was sticky and warm days are in the forecast for this week—summer hanging on, but the crispness of the days before, the days to come, it energizes me. I’m running more regularly and settling back into a better writing routine after a lack of summer schedule.
I am more motivated to do. But I take time still to sit outside writing, watching, reading, letting go of the weeds in the garden, letting go of my lists.

Later when my girls are in bed . . .
Tomorrow morning before they are up . . .
In the car after preschool drop off before I start work . . .
I’ll write.
I’ll describe this late summer day, the quiet in the house, the steady buzz of bees in the carpet of alyssum around the kale. I’ll shake off a morning meltdown or shift back my to my own kindergarten days, little snippets—red shoes, a yellow record, a batik project outside. I’ll start with the sensory details of making salsa and see where it takes me.
Take the time to write, to explore your ideas and memories, tap into creativity.

It’s Monday. Lunches to pack, school drop off, call with a client, meet the bus.
It’s Monday, and I’m taking time to write, creating a pocket of calm, holding space for myself.
I’m noticing my world in all its messy glory.
I’m capturing bits of today and harvesting memories, palpable, and sometimes as elusive as the potatoes I need to finish digging up.
I’m preserving the moments in words, filling notebooks as I fill my canning cabinet.
And I’m slowing down, savoring it all—even the chaos of a Monday morning.
You can too.
Take time for yourself. Notice your world. Write it. Join me and embrace your own abundance.
by Sara Barry | Sep 3, 2014 | Uncategorized
The room is loud as we go in: bright, tight parent voices, a faucet running, a brief wail. The entry way is a maze of bodies and backpacks. We wait as other kids find their, as yet unfamiliar, cubbies and parents crouch beside them, phones out to take iconic first-day of school pictures.
I fumble in my canvas bag for my camera, squeeze the plastic tab and slide it along the nylon cord opening the camera bag. No cell phone, and my camera seems oddly out of place. It doesn’t matter, because my girl is turning her face away with a frown, her butt-length blond hair falling over her face despite the plum colored sequined headband.
“OK,” I give up on the picture. “Let’s wash hands.”
She hops up the gray wooden steps at the side of the sink, turns on the water, rubs with soap, rinses. She pushes me out of the way as I reach to hand her a paper towel.
Laurie welcomes her to the room. She points out the sand table, and even as I wonder if K will choose to play with coarse sand and brightly colored tools and cups I point out the mound of giant Legos on the next table. I see “The Kissing Hand” in the book rack behind the primary color alphabet rug, a book we’ve been reading at bedtime all week.
Teachers sway through the crowd, bending to say a welcome or offer an activity. Parents hover and hug and wonder when to leave.
I’m behind Kathleen, surveying the room over her head, as we hover between entryway and the room proper. Her hand—so soft, so small—slides into mine as we enter the room, uncertain at first, and then insistent, tugging as she sees where she wants to go. I wend through waist-high people following her lead.
Kathleen pulls a puzzle—multicolored hot air balloons—off a shelf, plops down on the low-pile rug, and dumps it out. She starts trying pieces and I try to refrain from putting my hands on them to shift them, refrain from telling her where they go. But one of my hands, large next to hers, nails short, slips the first piece into place as she starts to pull it away. Then she gets it and the rest of the picture comes together quickly.
Without a word to me, she puts the puzzle back on the shelf and pulls down another. “I guess I’ll go now. Dad will be here in a little while to pick you up. I love you.” She keeps working on her puzzle, as I hug her, her hair silky, the tulle layers on her skirt scratchy. I’m not even sure she said bye, this girl of mine who wouldn’t let me leave the house for a run or to work for two hours without a hug and a kiss.
I make my way back through the little people exploring this new place, back to the entryway where the crowd has thinned, the cubbies filled mostly with backpacks and sweatshirts. I pause for a moment, glance back, and then step out of the room, up the stairs, out into the bright September sun.
When I get back in my car, it’s quiet. Three hours to wait and wonder what happened during the rest of the first day of school.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
I wrote yesterday about the first day of kindergarten, but poking around in my files, I found this description of the first day of preschool. What a change for my daughter.
Did you send one of your kids off to school recently? Do you remember one of your first days in particular? Describe that experience.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
And if you’re ready for a mini-back to school for yourself, join me in September for this free online class. Sign up now.
