by Sara Barry | Aug 13, 2014 | finding time, writing
Slow down . . . they’re only little for a short while.
Slow down . . . summer is winding down.
Slow down . . . it’ll all get done. Or not. Maybe it doesn’t need to.
Slow down. Breathe deep. Notice.
I’m good at getting things done, checking things off lists, moving forward through a plan. I’m not always so good at letting go of that list, sitting with the moment, just noticing, being, enjoying.
Monday, my big girl was away with her grandparents. It was just me and the little one. I was exhausted from a busy weekend—10K, wedding, lots of time in the car, driving to pick up the little one, sitting in traffic. I was overwhelmed by the week ahead of me—a proofreading project, tweaking a proposal with a client, the endless business to do list, prep for my new virtual writing group, never mind the writing I want to/should be doing. But the little one was home alone, so I took the morning off. We ran errands including picking out a patch to sew on her new backpack for school (she picked the same chic, fancy cat as her big sister) and a new water bottle for school. She held my hand in the parking lot, even though she usually likes to show me she can “be safe” now. She sat in the cart and talked to me about why we were getting things and “Mom, mom, mom, remember the time when . . .”
I worked during her rest, and then when she got up I didn’t try to write one more page or check one more note. We packed cheese and crackers, hummus and pita, and walked down to the playground.
“Slow down,” she reminded me. “I have little legs, remember?”
I pushed her on the swing—a big push!—and sat on the rough boards of the tiny climbing structure while she pretended to drive the ship north, then south. She held my hand again on the long way home. After dinner, she climbed into my lap, and I held her warm body that is getting so long, feet getting so big. My face rested against her head which for once doesn’t smell like old sweat. I held her close.
“I don’t like hugs, remember?” she told me.
“I forgot,” I said, squeezing her again.
“Mom, stop!” she demands, a half-fake frown on her face.
And I do. “But I like hugs, I tell her.” She throws her arms around my neck, locks them tight and gives me a dramatic kiss. My big girl is more likely to tell me she loves me, but the little one sustains me with her super hugs (and one arm hugs and two arm hugs . . . she’s created a whole series of styles).
Yesterday afternoon, we got in the car to pick up her big sister. We hadn’t been driving long when I heard the slow rhythmic suck of her thumb, and then looking back, I saw the red hair blown about her face, head drooping. We got there early, and she slept on, mouth open slightly.
On the way home, my girls called each other names and kicked at each other. There was much pouting and whining about wanting to see Roscoe right NOW! I could feel the overtiredness that would color our night.
As I brushed my big girl’s newly shoulder-length hair and felt her lean into me during stories, I kept thinking, “I’m glad you’re home.” And as I rocked her and assured her that she would have “alone time” tomorrow, but not now at bed time, I told her “I’m glad you’re home.” And I was, even as I took deep breaths to calm us both down, even as I willed her to settle into the sleep she needed.
Tomorrow, we have bags to unpack and things to show and stories to tell. She needs alone time and down time. We’re not going any where. We don’t have plans to do anything. And as I think ahead to Friday, Saturday, Sunday and the plans that jammed up against each other suddenly, I try to rearrange the pieces, figure out what we can skip or reschedule. We both need it.
Slow down.
Slow down.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Start with a phrase. Use slow down or a phrase that’s been rolling around in your head. Try repeating the phrase. What images or memories does it evoke? Or take the phrase slow down literally. Write about what you notice if you slow down.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Get another writing starter—Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Aug 6, 2014 | finding time, garden, writing
I worked in my garden this morning, just for an hour and a half. I cut zinnias and cosmos, a golden sunflower and coreopsis. I harvested the zucchini I had somehow missed. I tugged out weeds here an there. I picked the peas that seem to be starting again though I thought the plants were all dying back. I cut the last of the lettuce and pulled the plants.
Once I did pulled the lettuce, there was a little brown patch, dappled with sunlight coming through the branches of the maple that shades the very back of the garden. It was clear of green, clear of weeds. It was a tiny patch of possibility.
It’s getting late for planting. I’ve never gotten the hang of the fall planting thing. But there was a little bare patch, and I sprinkled it with lettuce and spinach seed. I sifted compost through my fingers to cover it—1/4 inch, ½ inch. I picked up the blue plastic watering can, the one with red duct tape holding on the nozzle, and wetted the soil. As I did in the spring, I’ll wait to see if they grow.
I keep thinking of that little clear space, two feet maybe, by one and a half. Possibility and breathing room. My garden is overgrown. My neighbor kindly reminded me that that was okay, as long as my plants were bigger than the weeds. She’s right. It seems to be working mostly, but still, I want to make space for those plants, keep them from getting lost. That patch is clear with space to grow. I think I need to clear more space around me inside and out, to make space for possibility, to make space to breathe and grow.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Start with an image that has stuck with you today or over time. One image lets us start small and tight. Show us the image—use your senses. Turn it around and look at another angle. Wonder about it. Is it impressive? Disturbing? Why does it stick with you?
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Ready to keep writing? Try Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jul 30, 2014 | canning, garden, summer, writing
It’s the time of year when fruit flies are destined to take over the universe—or at least your kitchen. It’s the time of year when you keep cooking and canning and freezing trying to stay ahead of those fruit flies. It’s the time of year when your compost bucket fills up every day, more than once.
It’s the time of year when long green veggies pile up in your kitchen. You Google “zucchini recipes” and that poem by Marge Piercy. You’re not handing them out to anybody who walks by. Not quite yet.
It’s the time of year when peach juice drips down your chin and blueberries stain your fingers purple. Your arms are crisscrossed with scratches from raspberry brambles, but you don’t care.
It’s the time of year when lawn mowers rumble through dinner time and the evening insects are quieter as darkness settles. It’s the time of year when you should be cursing the heat and humidity, but tonight it feels like fall. Not yet. Not yet.
It’s the time of year when you want to sit outside and do nothing, but the garden calls and the squash and the beans and the cucumbers on the counter call. It’s the time of year when you stir pots in steamy kitchens (and love it) and wait for that tiny ping that makes you smile each time.
It’s the time of year when years ago you were waiting for your baby’s surgery, waiting to start the life you expected (almost), and you wonder now if that old anxiety is in you still. You know it’s there still in December, but in July, when you were scared but still hopeful? You don’t know. So you do what you did that year. You chop the summer fruit and cook it down and put it in jars. You did it that year because you needed something “normal” to hold on to. You do it now because it’s that time of year.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
It’s the time of year when . . . How does that sentence end for you? What are the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this time of year? What’s happening in this season, in your life right now? Let it be loose and rough, but keep writing and see what comes up.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog where you write about this time of year, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com. I’d love to hear this time of year is like for you.
Ready to keep writing? Try Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jul 23, 2014 | grief, parenting, summer, writing
I used Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day,” as inspiration today. The last lines alone would make a good starting point:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
But, my mind caught on some of her other words, and I wrote this:
Do I know how to pay attention any more? Yesterday, I stopped, hands poised over keyboard, falling into relax, when a whirring caught my eye. A humming bird hovered and darted among my neighbors red bee balm. I could have glanced up, kept writing, kept filling the page, checking things off my list. But I sat. I watched. It’s good to look up sometimes, or down at the ants trundling through the grass, carrying crumb nearly bigger than they are. One of the activities K added to our list of things to do when bored was watch birds up in the sky. I should sit and do this with her sometimes. I should slow down on our walks, really notice, but so often I am trying to get somewhere or get some exercise or I need to be back by a certain time. What I wanted most from this summer was the laziness, the time to fall down in the grass, to pay attention.
“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?” We are in a season of life and growth. I went out this morning, barefoot, to check on the garden. My feet swept through the dewy grass, so wet I could have had a long drink. I need to pull the peas. For even in this time of growing, they are done. The cosmos are almost taller than me and starting to flower. The sunflowers tower over me. The zinnias are just starting to reveal their brilliant pinks and oranges. Ah, the chard I thought wasn’t going to grow is taking off. I need to pick turnips again. I flick a few tiny seedlike eggs off the bottom of a squash leaf (squash bugs, something that doesn’t die too soon). Zucchini to pick later perhaps. Is the lettuce bin full in the fridge or should I pick some more? It too will soon be done. I should plant more.
We plant seeds knowing plants will eventually die, some after just one season. Even things we expect to live long don’t always. A neighbor gave us a peach tree for a wedding gift. Three years later as we were floundering together through grief, struggling each day to communicate with each other, tongues and brains numbed with sadness, both lost in our own dark worlds, the tree began to fail. The leaves yellowed and began to fall in the summer. I was too tired for a while to figure out what was wrong with it. Every day, I looked at our wedding tree and told myself it was not symbolic. I finally found the hole by the base of the tree where something had burrowed in, turning the trunk to mush. We scraped it out and hoped. The tree died. Six years later, we are still here. It was not symbolic. It was a just tree, dying too soon. That little boy of mine did that too.
His death, so many people would tell you, was supposed to help get my priorities straight, help me figure out just what to do with my wild, precious life, but I’m stuck like most of us in the mundane most days—folding laundry, making lunch, paying bills, getting to swimming lessons on time. I try to stop and notice, to really pay attention to the vivid faces of the zinnias in my garden and the fresh green smell of the cilantro I accidentally pull with the weeds. I try to really focus on K’s earnest face as she tells me about the fairies who came to her fairy house. I brush a wisp of blond hair away from her eyes, feel the excitement trembling through her. The moss is soft and damp underneath me as we sit in the green shade. K squats low, showing me how to make the house more inviting, more private so fairies will like them. Part of me zooms in on her small fingers poking, pointing, but part of me is poised to do, not the important things of this life, but the weeding and the work that keeps telling me it needs to get done, calling louder than the fairies or the birds or the rest of this summer day.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Read Oliver’s poem or choose another poem to inspire you. Then start writing. Maybe you’ll mirror the subject or the theme of the poem, or maybe a particular word or phrase will evoke a memor or spark an idea. Take 15 minutes or so and just keep writing see where the poem takes you.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com. I’d love to hear what you came up with.
Want another quick writing activity? Download Summer Stories in Five Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jul 16, 2014 | summer, writing
I remember spending every day at the beach as a kid. We got there early to get a parking spot and our usual beach spot—up against the granite wall for shade in the afternoon, right under the Scout Hall—and stayed until late afternoon. I remember on really hot days staying for dinner, walking across the street to Jimmy’s for steamed hot dogs and maybe a treat of frozen candy bar or sticky, sweet Swedish fish.
I remember squeezing six kids and two moms in the car, spreading a towel across the seats so we wouldn’t burn our legs in the afternoon. We argued about window seats and being squished. We cranked down the windows and sang—Air Supply and Barry Manilow, chorus songs and Girl Scout songs—whether or not the radio worked. We peeled off each other when we got home and raced to be the first to rinse off with the sun-warmed hose.
I remember the introduction of sunscreen instead of suntan lotion and the high SPF of 8. I remember cotton t-shirts wet and heavy and towels spread over the backs of our legs when we were lying down to eat lunch. I remember painful red sunburns and itching and peeling and the medicinal smell of Solarcaine.
I remember tuna sandwiches packed in the orange topped Lil’ Oscar getting gritty with sand, washed down with fruit punch in paper cups doled out of the spouted red drink cooler. I remember waiting half an hour after eating before going in the water. I remember reading or my mom reading to me during that wait, my towel pulled up close to her chair.
I remember racing into the bone-achingly cold water, diving under, surfacing. I remember somersault contests in the water and floating on my back rocked gently by the waves. I remember playing truth or dare in the hot, dry sand, and making dribble castles in the soft, wet sand. I remember trying to “beat the waves” with my cousins using driftwood and rocks and kelp to strengthen our sand castles against the incoming tide.
I’ve taught my kids about dribble castles and still dive into the water quickly. They still eat sandy lunches, though their drinks come out of pouches. We arrive in our own car with them buckled into car seat and slathered with sunscreen. We don’t arrive in a gaggle of six kids but soon they are with one, for usually their cousins are there and maybe my cousins’ kids.
I didn’t know how lucky I was growing up at the beach every day, living with the sound and the smell of the sea seeping into me. For my kids, it’s a novelty, something to look forward to, a vacation. They love it, perhaps, as much as I do, but I wonder if in the same way. The beach was in some way, home, a place I knew well, where I spent a lot of time, where my mom made even the waiting a special time. And the ocean got under my skin, into my blood—the heavy but invigorating salt air, the crash and hiss of the waves, the constancy and changingness. I love were we live now, but I miss the ocean, and in the summer, I long to give my kids the beach as an everyday experience. Or maybe I just long for the days when I could run in and out of the water or laze around or complain about being bored while somebody else handed out lunches and spread the towels and read me stories.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Start your own list beginning I remember. Your list can be related or random. If one idea demands to be explored, follow it. Take 10–15 minutes, and see what you remember. Use this as a warm up or keep your list around for later inspiration.
Share It:
- Share in the comments or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com. I’d love to hear what you came up with.
- Read the list to your kids (if appropriate)—mine love hearing stories about me as a kid.
- Send your list to somebody who shared in your memories.
If you had fun with this, you might want to download Summer Stories in Five Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Jun 17, 2014 | good enough gardening, writing
I’m on the porch watching a butterfly and bumble bee dancing through the rhododendron. My knees (and shins and feet) are still dirty from the garden. The garden that I thought would never get planted is a sea of green, the peas and greens and broccoli lost among the weeds. I look at all those weeds and think of the laundry piled up and the bags still to unpack from my weekend trip and the make up work that got sidelined as I focused on my dad’s health and my mom’s retirement party, and I’m overwhelmed.
My kids are exhausted and volatile from staying up too late the past two weekends for family events. My big girl is at the end of preschool. I don’t know if this transition is more momentous for me than her. And they are out of sorts, not quite getting the seriousness of the situation with my dad, but sense my stress and distracted attention.
So I look at that weeding that needs to get done and the laundry piles and the bags to be unpacked. I look at all the items that got shifted from my to-do list to my do-later list. I’ve barely written the past weeks, and I didn’t run at all last week, even though I know these two things help keep me balanced.
I don’t even know where to start, so I start small: two loads of laundry in the morning, one bag unpacked and tucked away, the quick emails and check ins for work just so I can cross multiple items off the list. Then I went for a run because my body needed it and my mind needed it. I came back with less time to get things done, but more focused, less overwhelmed.
I look at the garden again and decide I’ll start with the peas because they need it most. I work my way through one row and start the next, while my big girl cuts lettuce for a salad. Every time I look up at all the weeds to pull (and the flowers to deadhead and the green beans to plant and . . . ) I take deep breathe and refocus on the row I’m working on. I take a sip of my ice coffee and savor the shade as I dump the weed bucket. I take a break to push my garden helper on the swing, and when her TV show is on, I sit on the porch and watch the butterflies and the bees and take a minute to write, because we both need a little down time. It will all get done—one row, one bag, one load at a time—or I’ll figure out that some of it doesn’t need to get done at all.
Take a minute to write, Just Write.
