by Sara Barry | Apr 8, 2015 | parenting, spring, writing
“Can we go out an play in the puddles?”
“Not today. Too cold.” It was gray all day and grew rawer as the day went on. Our wood stove is cranking out heat again after a few days off. And I know my kids and our neighbors didn’t just want to splash in puddles in their rain boots, they wanted to run and romp and roll in them. They wanted to dump murky water over each others’ heads and need an outdoor shower before they could come in the house.
They did that—with our okay—last year. We okayed it because the spring sunshine made it hard to head home and get ready for bed and there was a little wine left from dinner and they were so excited about it.
I okayed it because I remembered my mom saying yes, some 30+ years before on vacation in New Hampshire. I remembered the sheer joy of jumping and splashing and lolling in the mud, the soft-grittiness of it. I smiled thinking about lying down in the puddle like it was a tub. I remember laughing and dripping in my teal terry cloth romper (forever stiff with dirt after that), my favorite outfit that summer.
Today was too late, too cold, but one day last spring I said, “Yes.”
“Remember when mom let us roll around in that big mud puddle?” My sister and I both do.
My little one asks me for stories about me when I was little every day on the way to school. I always begin, “Once upon a time, when I was a little girl . . . ” stalling, trying to come up with a story I haven’t told her. She doesn’t care though, as long as it’s not too short, so I tell her about the mud puddle and the time we went camping and I woke up in my own bed. I tell her about the time I went missing but was in my garden the whole time and about my sister’s rabbit that peed on me and the time the neighbor’s horse charged at my dad while he was getting our new bikes out of the car.
I wonder what stories she and her sister will remember and retell.
What memory has stuck with you since you were a child? What family stories do you retell?
Share your stories in comments or with somebody in your family.
Take some time to write today—and join me for a month of writing with Grow. We’ll connect with those stories that have stuck with you and the moments right now that you want to stick. You don’t have to say yes to puddle jumping, but say yes to some creative time and support for you.
by Sara Barry | Apr 1, 2015 | grow, spring, writing
I’m a saver. As a kid, I had stickers with my name on them that I rarely used because maybe there would be a better use for them down the line.
To this day, I still have notepads that say “A Big note from Sara” that I got when I was maybe 10. Saved. Then not really of interest. It’s become scrap paper.
I bought this journal in the spring of 1993 when I was studying in Italy. It’s still empty.
When I bought it, I was in the middle of another journal, so I set it aside to use later. Except when I finished that journal, I didn’t pick up the pretty marbled one.
Saving it.
Over the years I intended to use it as a travel journal or fill it up with quotes I love. Didn’t happen.
Since I bought that journal, I’ve filled up steno pads and spiral bound blank books, composition notebooks and clearance rack journals. I wasn’t quite ready to use that book. It seemed too pretty, too expectant.
That marbled book from Italy is up next. I’ll launch it with a carefully chosen pen and neat writing, and then I’ll hop into bed some night grab the crappy ballpoint that doesn’t really flow. I’ll scrawl out my frustrations and scribble out the wrong word. And it will be okay, because those words—mundane or wise, well or ill chosen—matter.
I have years of words journals and notebooks. There are places where I tried to hard or was too tired or couldn’t quite find the words I wanted. Within all that are the stories that make up my life, the moments that crushed me or held me afloat. Within the pages of my notebooks and journals there are patterns that show the parts of me that stay steady and the slow, incremental changes over time.
Do you have a journal that you aren’t using? Start filling it up.
Sit for 15 minutes and write about what you see right in front of you or daydream about what you’d do with a day all to yourself or list places you want to visit. Make a grocery list to prove to yourself those blank pages aren’t sacred. And then start filling them up with your ideas and observations and memories and dreams. Your words and ideas are worthy.
If you’re looking for some inspiration to fill up that journal or want some encouragement getting those words out on paper, join me for Grow, an online writing retreat, this April.
We’ll write regularly, make space for things you love, take time to really notice the world around and within us, and build deeper connections.
Come write, come grow with me!
by Sara Barry | Mar 25, 2015 | garden, grow, noticing, spring, writing
Today while I waited for the bus, I saw this:
Doesn’t look like much does it?
But it’s my garden.
A little more melt and the rhubarb will start unfurling while we watch. A little more snow retreating and I’ll sprinkle spinach seeds and look for hints of cilantro in the herb section. Overly optimistic? Maybe. Yeah, a little.
But closer to the house, on the sunny side, the ground is truly bare. The mounds where the hops grow, the ever weedy flower bed that runs along the playroom, the patch of daily lilies by the back door—clear of snow.
Today while I waited for the bus, after I spied that tiny patch of garden ground, I picked up the kids’ rake, which had loitered by the back door all winter, and started raking out brown leaves and dead debris by the back door.
Then I squatted in my winter coat and tugged dead grass from the border. My fingers wiggled into the cold damp earth and came out muddy and chilled. I only poked for a few minutes, but when I went in they smelled like dirt. Ah, spring.
Snow still covers most of my yard and almost all of my garden. Yet I yearn to get out there and start planting. Today I scratched in the dirt.
Call it desperation.
Or hope.
I have my seeds. I’m ready to plant them. I’m ready to grow.
What are you yearning to do? What baby steps are you taking?
I’m looking forward to the growing season, and to Grow, my online writing retreat for spring. Come plant your ideas and see them bloom. I’d love to write with you.
by Sara Barry | Mar 18, 2015 | spring, writing
I love letters. I have a big box of them in my attic from my parents and grandparents, sisters and friends.
I remember the excitement of finding a personally addressed envelope in my mailbox at college and the joy of finding one in the perpetually locked mailbox at my apartment in Italy where we had to fish them out with a wire coat hanger. They came in thin red and blue edged air mail envelopes and business sized envelopes and homemade envelopes folded from magazine pages.
I don’t get many letters these days. I don’t write that many either. But recently, I’ve been reading letters for research, and it reminded me how much I love letters, how different they are from Facebook posts or even usually email. So I wrote a letter about the weather and memories and what I’m reading and dreams.
I wrote to a friend who shared some writing with me last fall during my Abundance retreat. I love what I learned about the texture of her days from that shared writing. I want to know and share that texture.
I want to know how you feel when you look at your brand new baby or at your big one who’s starting to drive. I want to know what the piles of snow (or the flowers starting to bloom) look like outside your window. I want to know I’m not alone (you aren’t either).
I want to swap the old stories and remember who we were (are we still those people?). I want to share new ones and see who we are now and what our lives look like—not the holiday card round up, but the day to day life.
As I wrote my letter, the sky was winter white. When I went out, I was excited to wear shoes instead of boots and surprised that I didn’t need a coat. As I drove home, though, snow spit and swirled. It’s a confused time of year.
That energy I talked about last week is flowing, but sometimes I can’t figure out the direction. But tonight for a moment, I didn’t need a direction. For a moment
, both my girls snuggled in beside me, clean and in jammies, and I read to them from Farmer Boy, a book I read over and over all through my childhood. They were cranky, we were running late for bed, but for that moment we were still and shared that story.
Write a Letter. Share a piece of your story. Take few minutes to write a letter to a friend. Share something about your life, your day to day, your dreams.
What’s going on in your life today?
You don’t have to write me a letter, but share in comments a moment or detail that stuck with you today.
And if you love connecting through writing and are ready to capture more of your story—the day to day, the big stuff—I’d love to have you join me in April for the Grow retreat.
by Sara Barry | Feb 25, 2015 | garden, winter, writing
It’s the time of year when temps in the 30s feel gentle and you walk out in just a fleece
and smile at the sun and your neighbors.
It’s the time of year when the dripdripdrip of icicles in the sun is a joyful song
when the seeds and cups of dirt on the table at preschool look like hope.
It’s the time of year when my garden looks like this:
And I dream of this:
and start saving milk jugs for this:
It’s the time of year when I reread The Long Winter
and get grateful for piles of wood and deliveries of oil to keep us warm instead of twisted hay to keep us from freezing to death
and for a well stocked fridge and freezer instead of rationed potatoes and hand-ground wheat.
It’s the time of year when even my kids are sick of snow
but they’ll still shriek and whoop their way down the sledding hill.
It’s the time of year when I look forward to eating lots of pancakes
and hope the sap will be running so that moist, sweet steam will fill the air while we eat.
It’s the time of year when everything seems barren,
but you hear the birds singing, loud and clear through the cold air.
It’s the time of year when you are almost in despair,
but you look out the window just before supper and notice that it’s still light.
It’s the time of year when the light and melting
the maple syrup and the seeds
and the dreams of green
get you through
as you wait for more sunshine,
more warm
and mud.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
I’ve used this prompt last summer. I’m not recycling because I’m lazy, but because I’ve been thinking about this time of year, because I’m ready for change and it looks so far off.
Whether you tried this one before or not, grab a pen and finish this sentence:
It’s the time of year when . . .
What are the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this time of year? What’s happening in this season, in your life right now?
Share It:
In the comments, tell me about about this time of year where you are or add a link to your blog where you write about this time of year.
by Sara Barry | Feb 18, 2015 | noticing, Uncategorized, writing
This morning we had waffles with blueberry-maple syrup for breakfast, and even as I added more wood to the fire and looked out over the more than knee-deep snow, I remembered the bright sunshine on my back and the rhythmic work of this day. One of the reasons I love canning is pulling out a little summer in the dead-cold of winter. What canning captures in a jar, writing can capture on the page if we really connect to our senses and our experience.
To get that kind of detail on the page, we need to start by really paying attention in the moment.
Last night I was reading a mindfulness activity from this book. In this simple activity you ask kids to pretend they are Martians seeing something from Earth for the first time. Hand them a familiar object, and remind them that they have never seen it before. Ask them to look, touch, smell, listen, and taste and describe their experience.
The example uses raisins and kids taste them, feel them, even listen to them. They really notice them for the first time in their lives. Are there things you see, eat, hear every day without really noticing?
I could tell you I looked out over the white snow, and yesterday in the blinding sunlight it looked that way. It’s white mostly, but yellow where the dog peed and a little dingy and speckled where the snowblower flung it early this week. It’s scattered with debris from trees and footprints that become violet-gray hollows as the light shifts. But sometimes I need to stop, look close, forget “snow is white” to notice that.
It’s new to you
Try this mindfulness exercise yourself. You can use any object: raisins, your morning coffee, a dirty sock from the floor, a handful of snow. Imagine you’ve never seen it before.
Forget what you know or how you feel about this object, and simply observe it. After experiencing the the object fully and without judgment, write about it if you choose.
What did you notice?
