by Sara Barry | Aug 20, 2014 | parenting, summer, writing
It is not a great photo. I snapped it a few seconds too late, I see the tops of heads, red hair and blond flowing toward the lush, green grass as they bend at the waist. It’s not a great picture, but I know that they are mid-bow.
“We’re doing a show! Come watch! Are you coming? The show’s starting.”
This summer was the summer of shows. There have been music shows and dancing shows, hula hoop shows and acrobatic shows (like the one they’ve just wrapped up in the picture that involved the crocodile see saw). The dancing shows usually have costumes: the purple and teal fairy costume or the polka dot tulle dress or the shell pink ballerina skirt leotard from the dress up box. The music shows feature instruments—always a drum—and self-written songs. I’ve watched them march and arabesque, twirl and leap, inside and out, morning or night.
They announce each other—“And now the most amazing dancer ever”—in deep, dramatic stage voices, and tell each other what to do in not so quiet stage whispers, “Now you come in. Now. Dance!”
And before I’m invited to watch the show, I hear the rehearsals, which sometimes turn into squabbles as they each fight for their own vision.
I remember watching our neighbors do shows just a couple of years ago. They’d want my girls to be in the them, and sometimes my girls were up for it. Even when they were, at one or two or three didn’t take direction so well. They crawled off stage or wouldn’t say lines or wanted to play instead. Now, this summer, my girls are directing. This summer, they’re the stars.
Your Turn
Write with Me:
Choose a picture and tell your story. Draw from your memory or your imagination.
Share It:
Share your writing in the comments, add a link to your blog, or email me at sarabarrywrites@gmail.com.
Get more ideas for using your photos for writing—Summer Stories in 5 Minutes.
by Sara Barry | Aug 18, 2014 | finding time, writing
I’m not a morning person, but I kinda want to be, and I’m thinking being a morning person might be something like being a runner, something I never was before kids either.
Having a baby, having to get up in the still black, maybe gray, pre-dawn, taught me the joy of a quiet, sleeping house and the light that shifts and changes into day. Believe me, I still wanted my sleep (often still do). I chafed at the admonishment that if you were really a write you’d just get up an hour before everyone in your family and write.
I was staying up until 11 PM or later to get my work done (not because I’d procrastinated, but because that’s when the kids were asleep and I could do it). I was up once, twice, countless times a night. I didn’t know if my wake up for the day call would come at 6 AM or 4:55. I was exhausted, and somebody telling me that I should get up an hour earlier than my ever-shifting wake up time made me want to scream.
But now, I have a little bit of scheduled work time in the day and can usually get my work done then. Now, most nights are interrupted. Now, wake up time is usually around 6:30 or 7. Now, it seems almost possible that I could get up early, be a morning person.
I’m taking part in the Rise and Shine Challenge from Abundant Mama. I had run through all the challenges—Brian’s need for sleep, the little one’s routine of snuggling with me when she first gets up, our close rooms and thin walls, my dread of getting up early only to have one or both kids get up early, my struggles to get to bed on time—and the lure of a little time to myself to start the day. Today was the first day of the challenge.
5:45 “Mom. Mom. Moooom!” I rolled over and groaned. Maybe she’d go back to sleep. I heard the creak of the bed and then the sound of little feet. “Mom, I peed.”
I sighed. Deeply. “OK, go down and get some dry undies.” I rolled slowly out of bed, went and checked her. Fortunately that was dry. I got her cleaned up, into dry pjs, and back into bed. Part of me wanted to crawl back under the warm covers, but the cold floor and the chilly air, the lights, and my own suddenly insistent bladder had me wide awake. With the challenge on my mind, I decided to look at this early wake up as an opportunity. (How I managed this positive thinking before 6 AM, without coffee, I’m not sure.)
I grabbed my glasses and a sweatshirt and snuck down the stairs to the sound of rhythmic thumb sucking that suggested I might just manage to pull this off without company. Within minutes the coffee pot was hiss-dripping and I had a notebook and pen at the kitchen table.
About half an hour later, I heard, “Mom. Mom, Mooom!” again. I went back upstairs, and this time I did crawl back into bed for a little snuggle before we started our day together. I was still tired, but energized too, and calm, and ready to go. Today worked well. The little one went back to sleep, and I got a solid chunk of time for some writing. I know there will be days I get up early only to have little feet follow me. It’s one of my reasons for not getting up. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
I’m not sure I’m a morning person yet, but I’m working on it.
What’s your time of day? Why?
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 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.
It is not a great photo. I snapped it a few seconds too late, I see the tops of heads, red hair and blond flowing toward the lush, green grass as they bend at the waist. It’s not a great picture, but I know that they are mid-bow.
