by Sara Barry | Jul 8, 2015 | garden, noticing, summer, writing
It was quiet, except for the exuberant calls of birds I can’t name. I sipped my
coffee, tried to settle back into a writing rhythm after a busy week way. It lasted about 20 minutes before a little face peeked over the railing.
“Hi, Mom! Morning story!”
My little girl’s red head nestled against me as she snuggled in, smiling behind the thumb in her mouth. I smiled back and started reading the Ladybug magazine she had handed me. When the last story mentioned morning glories, I suggested we go see if ours were blooming.
She dropped blankie. I picked up my coffee mug, and we stepped out into the dew-wet grass. We walked up the hill together, hand-in-hand. I showed her the vine climbing the red pole and the faded flower from two days ago. I pointed out the twists that would soon open their faces and throats to the sun.
Not impressed, she called “I’m going on the trapeze bar” as she ran down that path between the gardens. I pulled some weeds, surveyed the mess, sipped my coffee. I stopped to watch the bees hovering over the poppies and buzz-loving the cilantro gone to flower.
Then I followed her back to the house to make breakfast to eat on the porch. This is what I want from summer.
We have a list of things we want to do—a visit to Story Land, a camping trip—and little things to do spur of the moment some day—local hiking, the swimming hole, soft serve ice cream. I want to do these things, many of them things that make summer summer, but more than that I want the feel of yesterday morning when we moved slow and let the morning unfold, reading, snuggling, pulling weeds in our pjs.
***
Today my kids were turning themselves into superheros with masks and play silks and capes from the dress up box. My nails were black; my feet speckled with dirt. I wasn’t worried about the next thing on my list or what was for lunch or catching up after vacation.
As I rounded the corner with a wheelbarrow full of weeds, the bright blue trumpet of a morning glory stopped me. The sun was trying to burn through the haze leaving a gray, hot stickiness. My garden was so overrun with weeds I didn’t know where to start. And this one flower stopped me, reminded me.
Summer
Part of me still expects summer to be the wide-open stretch of time it was when I was a kid, though it’s been years and years since I’ve had a summer off. But I still try to find pockets of lazy, unscheduled time.
What does summer mean to you? What does the reality of summer look like. Tell me about your summer morning and something that made you stop and notice today.
by Sara Barry | Apr 15, 2015 | finding time, what we need, writing
I need to move slow today. I wanted to run, but my body said, walk.
And I listened.
I’m not always good at that. Even today. It told me to lie down, take a nap, but I pushed on, sitting in front of my screen try to get the words out. Not so productive.
I’m good at to do lists and getting things done. I’m good at what I have to do, but not always at what I need.
Eight years ago at this time, I was listening. During my first pregnancy, I really listened to my body. I rested when I was tired. I walked when that felt good, went to yoga, ate lots of protein because that’s what I craved. I cut back on sweets only because for the first time in my life chocolate had not appeal. I’d like to be able to listen—and respond—like that again.
Sometimes those to do lists get in the way or the should do things. Sometimes I think I’m too busy (and slowly remember how not to be). Some days I manage to listen.
I need to be outside. I need to smell the earth and see the bits of green—garlic, spinach, lettuce—poking their heads up to the sunshine. I need to move—walk, work—and then be still.
What do you need today?
Share what you need in comments—and take care of yourself.
Make time and space for what you love and what you need. We’ll use writing as a tool to notice, nourish, and nurture.
Registration for Grow ends Saturday.
Please join me!
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?
by Sara Barry | Oct 16, 2014 | abundance, parenting, writing
I notice K, toes tangled in the mosquito netting, her face veiled and obscured by its wrinkles. I’m watching her kick, as she usually does, trying to get the netting off. She hasn’t yet reached out and grabbed it and pulled, no, not yet, but she will. I only put it over her because she was asleep and wouldn’t know, wouldn’t fuss with it. That and I had been bit by three mosquitoes already and had swatted away others.
Ah, now, she has pulled it away. Her face clear, her toes still entangled. She smiles back at me, her two teeth showing and then hiding again. She looks up at the filtered sunlight through the pear tree at the leaves that shimmer in a whisper of a breeze. Nine months.
Nine months in just eight days. So adept with her hands, so adapt at sitting and moving. I see what her brother never did, probably couldn’t have done had he reached nine months. I flit between this, this seeing my girl, really seeing my girl just for what she is, who she is, and seeing in my girl what her brother was, what he was not, what he will never be. I see gratitude and longing. Delight and regret.
I see health in chunky cheeks and legs, strong limbs, fat little paws. I watch her wonder. She’s watching her foot, feeling the texture of the netting, wiggling the toes. She is serious and then that smiles lights up her face again, her dimples pop.
I will stop writing, put this down, away for now. I’ll pull the netting off her foot before she gets frustrated. I’ll pick her up and get another smile. I’ll bring her inside and make some lunch, because she is on the verge of hunger though she doesn’t know it yet, but it will come upon her suddenly and it doesn’t do to make her wait for lunch.
I wrote this several years ago as an exercise when my big girl was a baby. I had forgotten about this day, this quiet moment with her, but it came back to me clearly when I stumbled up on the file.
What did you slow down and notice today?
coffee, tried to settle back into a writing rhythm after a busy week way. It lasted about 20 minutes before a little face peeked over the railing.
Part of me still expects summer to be the wide-open stretch of time it was when I was a kid, though it’s been years and years since I’ve had a summer off. But I still try to find pockets of lazy, unscheduled time.
