by Sara Barry | Oct 15, 2014 | abundance, writing
“This is going to be the most beautiful basket ever!”
She pauses, watches me after saying this, and I agree that it will be a beautiful basket while wondering how long we will keep it, imagining it dropping seeds and dried flowers in whatever corner it inhabits.
She’s wearing a hooded, terry cloth giraffe dress that may actually be a nightgown or bathrobe. She pulled on the spotted leg warmers I gave her to stave off a meltdown over a lack of brown tights, telling me earnestly and without the “you’re so stupid tone” that I expect will come in a few years, “These are cows, Mom.”
Her face peeks out from the hood, like an elf, wisps of blond hair tangle around her cheeks.
I keep watching her, focusing in, trying to capture her face, long stripped of it’s baby fat, her cheeks smooth and clear, her chin pointed. Her eyes are bright with enthusiasm and mouth curved into a smile.
I trace that curve with my eyes, wonder if I could conjure that exact curve if she were swept away or if I would have to rely on pictures.
One night after Henry died. I stumbled downstairs in the dark, flipped through picture after picture. I had woken with an image of him white and swollen as the Michelin man, and I couldn’t pull up a picture of what he really looked like, so I turned to pictures until I could see him again in my head.
I can’t tell you if I am being present as I focus on K’s face, try to imprint it, or if I am being morbid.
I’m thinking about how quickly life can change (be swept away, lost) because I’m reading Rare Bird. Such a loss isn’t theoretical to me, and yet it is the book that has me thinking about what I could lose.
Henry almost died seven years ago this month, but when he pulled through, I assumed he would live. I assume now that my girls will too, even though I know that change from ordinary life to inconceivable can happen so quickly.
Instead of, if she died would I remember, I could ask, in twenty years when she’s grown will I be able to conjure up her face, the soft smooth skin, the narrow chin, the sweet curve of her mouth, not turned up quite enough to activate he dimples.
For either question, the answer is the same.
No.
I won’t get all the details. Even now, one day later, they are slipping from me. I see her mouth but not her long lashes, the color of her lips but not the exact shade of her cheeks.
I won’t remember her face perfectly. I may not remember this day at all. Or maybe someday, I’ll see a basket decorated with dried flower and natural debris, or she’ll say, “Remember that giraffe dress?” And I’ll see us. Even if I don’t remember the exact curve of her mouth, I’ll feel the enthusiasm from her smile. I’ll feel the smile curve up on my own face and the warm gold bathing us on a late fall day
Write
The first Write with Me Wednesday focused on a string of memories. Today, we focus on something we might forget, a little moment.
Take one moment from today.
What do you think you’ll remember? What details that you might forget can you capture now?
by Sara Barry | Oct 8, 2014 | milestones, what I love, writing
Supposedly rain on your wedding day is good luck.
We laughed and shrugged and gave up the idea of pictures in our garden. The jewel yellow and orange nasturtiums that spilled over the cake shone bright on that dim day. We weren’t worried about luck. We had love.
I questioned the idea of luck on our second anniversary when we sat in a crowded Thai restaurant within walking distance from the hospital where our son had been in the ICU for three weeks.
I questioned it on our third anniversary when grief continued to swirl between the two of us, locking our tongues, tripping up our words. As I sipped my water, I understood we were lucky to have gotten pregnant again, quickly and easily, but I had no confidence or trust.
Today as I contemplate the rain falling and remember how hard it came down nine years ago, how people were late because there was so much water on the roads and visibility was so limited, I don’t believe in luck.
But I hold the fullness that we have packed into these nine years
Three children born, one buried.
Months of hospital life and living hours apart.
Family illness, more funerals.
Buying a canoe; struggling to learn to paddle together.
Long afternoons of shushing and swaddling.
Years of not sleeping.
Stories read, made up, remembered, retold.
Chilis bubbling on the stove, chicken pot pies browning up in the oven. Finding our rhythm again in the kitchen.
First tastes of ice cream and family outings in that green canoe.
Dancing—crazy made up swing at our wedding and dancing later with our girls on dark winter evenings in the living room.
Today the storm has passed; the sun is shining, the sky a deep blue. We’ve walked nine years together, sunshine and storm. Nine years, and despite all the statistics thrown at us in the hospital, we’re still dancing, still cooking, still writing our story together. Nine full years, not luck, but life.
Write and Share
Share your own story of good times and bad. Does one overpower? Or do both parts hold their own?
by Sara Barry | Oct 1, 2014 | fall, parenting, summer, writing
Dear Summer,
I’m done with you.
My fridge is full of squash mac and cheese and stock to make soup. My summer clothes are in the attic. And even if you entice me with beach-warm days, I’ve already packed up the bathing suits and dusted off sand for the last time.
Really, I’m ready for a change. But if you insist on coming back for a while, here’s what I’ll do:
I’ll wear my layering t-shirts with my hiking or running shorts since they’re always in my drawer.
I’ll work in the garden and pick some more green beans. I’ll notice that there are more pumpkins than I thought and that the vines have climbed up the bean teepee.
I’ll grill meat for dinner and eat at the picnic table.
I’ll let the kids stay up late (just on the weekends, they’re back to school, you know) running around outside with their friends. I’ll listen to their squeals and shrieks as they toss balls and play tag in the growing darkness. I’ll look up when they shout that they’ve seen a bat. And I’ll smile at their glee over being out so late, playing out after dark.
When we go back in, I’ll look at the clock and remember that you are just visiting. It’s dark, but not really so late after all.
So summer, you’re time’s about up. I knew you’d be back. You have trouble leaving each year. Do I ever really welcome you back enthusiastically—or is it a grudging embrace?
Really you can go now. We’re going to pick apples and drink cider. We’re piling up wood and waiting to wear new fall clothes. I’ve got that soup to make, but I need a cool day. I know you were only half-heartedly here this year, but still I’m ready to move on.
Come see me next June, okay? I’ll look forward to your growing light and the lettuce you coax from the garden. I’ll be ready for the sundresses and the swimming hole. I’ll toss out my routines for your unstructured days. But new we’re settling into those routines, getting ready for cozy. We’ll see you next year.
Love,
Sara
Write with Me:
It’s the start of a new month, one firmly footed in fall here. We just wrapped up some summery weather that I never quite expect, despite living here my whole life.
What does the change of seasons look like where you are? How do you feel about the change? Write about it—journal, write a letter, describe a summer-fall day.
Share:
Share your writing—and this prompt—with a friend.
Comment:
Am I crazy to usher out fall or a you ready for a change too?
I savor that fall-summer night I had out in the dark with my kids, even as I wait for fall to come in earnest. I noticed the gathering dusk and the way the reds and yellows glowed for a bit before the light went. I remember too how their faces glowed with excitement.
Are you ready to focus on these kinds of details in your life? Ready to slow down and capture them? Join me for Abundance a month-long, online writing retreat that begins October 15.
Click here to learn more.
by Sara Barry | Sep 24, 2014 | fall, grief, writing
Last night we had a frost warning, so I picked all the ripe tomatoes and the red peppers and two small firm purple globes of eggplant.
I filled up a colander with lettuce and green beans. I happened upon the last cucumbers of the season and cut some anemic basil.
I filled a take out quart container with flowers: mini crimson dahlias and creamy pink sedum and burgundy and ivory mums. I tucked a spring of sage in there and a couple of red-violet cosmos.
After the kids were in bed and I had tired out the puppy, I put on a headlamp and ran out into the chill that made me believe frost might come. I pulled back the sheets I had spread over the pepper plants and picked half a dozen green ones for good measure.
This is what September should be. Crisp apples. A flurry of garden gleanings. Trying to figure out how to preserve it all.
Six years ago my tomatoes sat forgotten in my garden. Lettuce was abandoned. Did I even plant beans or peppers or broccoli or kale?
Instead of working in my kitchen of an ever earlier darkening evening, I was sitting in a hospital that always seemed bright. I was waiting.
At that point I wasn’t waiting to see if my son’s life would be preserved. No, I was simply waiting to be released, to get back to our regularly scheduled life.
The one with tomatoes sitting on the counter waiting to be turned into sauce.
The one where I was tired because my baby woke in the night to eat.
The one where portable oxygen tanks weren’t needed.
And yes, the one where I was scheduling appointments with PT and OT and speech, follow ups with the cardiologist, and check ups with the ENT and ophthalmologist, because I had accepted that those were parts of our new normal.
The hospital visit wasn’t part of the plan any more than the Down syndrome or the NICU stay had been. We had been settling in to our new, post-surgery normal. And then a cold. Okay, a cold is normal.
An ambulance. No.
A ventilator. No.
Another ambulance. NO.
The hospital.
After a week, we didn’t really know what was wrong, and there was no sign that we would head back to our life any time soon.
On these bright September days when summer and fall are struggling for dominance and the school bus’s twice a day arrival is part of the way we tell time, part of me walks those halls again. I’m wearing a temporary name badge and avoiding the people who look too familiar with the place. We’re just here for a quick visit after all. We’re going home to visit the farm and let our five-year-old neighbor hold Henry. We have tomatoes to pick and buses to wave to and baby group to go to. We have a life to live. Or so I think.
On these bright September days, even in the midst of all the winding down, I feel the hope of all that is to come.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
I wrote this last September. I started out looking at the pile of garden gleanings filling my table and counters. I didn’t know where I was going to go with it. I just followed and kept writing.
Today start by looking around you.
What do you see? Your dog, the toys the kids didn’t put away, a framed photograph from years ago, the butternut squash you were thinking of cooking . . .
Start with one thing you see. Describe it. React to it.
See where it leads you.
Share:
What prompted your writing today? Where did it take you? Tell us in the comments (even if it was a dead end).
by Sara Barry | Sep 17, 2014 | writing
I love the smell of the ocean on a cool, misty day.
I love chocolate alone and with raspberries and with coffee.
I love running and the energy and dreaming that go along with it.
I love the change of seasons, especially summer to fall.
I love the ping of a canning jar sealing and opening one of those jars in the cold of winter, slathering hot toast with golden peach or dusky blueberry jam, tasting summer.
I love getting together with my sisters and laughing until we pee our pants.
I love spending the day reading in front of a fire.
I love libraries and all the information and stories and what I might find that they hold.
I love the hush in the mornings covered with fresh fallen snow.
I love a clean, tidy space with everything where it belongs (though I don’t like the process of getting there).
I love blank books and school/office supplies—even when I don’t need them.
I love neighbors who offer up dinner when I can’t figure out what to make one more time. I love neighbors who let me use their dining room as my office. I love neighbors who take time to look at my girls’ art even when they are besieged as they get out of their car at the end of the day. I love neighbors who say, “We should be having a cocktail” as we watch the kids run around together.
I love having a little market in town for eggs and milk and sausage and a bakery just the other way for bread.
I love cooking (though not so much What’s for dinner?)
I love cooking with friends when wine and stories and laughter flow freely as we chop veggies and dissect our lives.
I love a book I can’t put down. And one I have to slow down and savor. I could use one of either right about now. (Suggestions?)
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Write What You Love started yesterday, and our first writing activity was to make a love list. Join in for this activity.
Write I love at the top of the page or at the beginning of each line and keep listing things you love. Be general and all over the map or focus in on one thing and get specific about it.
Share It:
Share what you love in the comments or post your own love list on your blog.
She’s wearing a hooded, terry cloth giraffe dress that may actually be a nightgown or bathrobe. She pulled on the spotted leg warmers I gave her to stave off a meltdown over a lack of brown tights, telling me earnestly and without the “you’re so stupid tone” that I expect will come in a few years, “These are cows, Mom.”
