a photograph

I know this seems like just a sunset, one like I've shared many times on my blog before, but when I look at it I see woman with similar passions, and yet still quite different. I see woman who started off as strangers and quickly became friends. I feel the overwhelming sense that I've been patiently waiting for them, that we were always meant to meet. I hear conversions that easily flowed from one subject to the next as if we have known each other a long time. I remember trespassing, or so we thought, to get a better view. I hear unabandoned laughter and recall publicly falling, on my bum, in an attempt to get the shot. I recall stocking up at the convenient shop with chocolate and other goodies, and eventually getting that steak we spoke about on the first day.


Sometimes that night is such a blur, it was only last week, and yet, it seems so far away, but then I see this photograph and it easily brings me back to those moments. And I realize, there is no need to mourn the loss of that evening, we will have it again. Hopefully sooner than later.

I miss you!

Memories -- what a gift.

52 photo project | week 06 | memory

It doesn't take long these days with social media around to get the word out, unfortunately it was not good news this time. I found out today my older brother's friend died yesterday in a plane crash. Knowing too well the loss that my high school friend is now experiencing for her brother has brought some very tender feelings back to my heart.

When my brother died there was a part of me that longed to go back in time when life was effortless and my world simple. When I didn't know the pain of loss and how it could devastate you. When I didn't have to think or concern myself with what came next I could just walked outside my door and a world was waiting to be created.

Sigh.



Those were the days, the carefree summers nights playing games with the neighborhood kids, our annual fourth of july swimming and fireworks with my cousins, riding horses in Star Valley, fishing, jumping in Lake Powell to cool off, playing star wars with my brother, sleeping in my doorway to feel the swamp cooler breeze, playing house in my tree house, walking to the dairy to get ice-cream, summer chores, sleepovers....etc. etc.

I can never go back to those innocent years and simpler times (honestly I don't want to), but I am grateful those memories have stayed with me long after other ones have faded because it's those carefree moments of running through the grass barefoot without a care in the world that have become a source of comfort and a continual reminder to me to let go, to not fear, to live with abandon--and heaven knows I need reminders.

I know life is fragile, and while I think we should continually keep our eyes focus on the now, our happy memories can be a source of peace and play a part in helping keep us on our desired course and live the life we always dreamed we would as a child. When you're a child anything is possible, why should we forget that now that we've long grown out of our childhood?

We shouldn't.

xo

her comfort

around here most things change, but some still stay the same.



Her kitty, her comfort as I use to call it, is now gray and ragged, no longer fluffy pink as it once was. It's felt a lot of love from the arms of this little one.

I took this photo above a couple weekends ago and didn't realize how similar it was to the photo I took of her on her 3rd birthday until I uploaded it. She was taking a nap and I needed to wake her up, we were heading somewhere too unimportant to remember. I didn't want to disturb her, not only because she looked so peaceful, but you know how it is to wake a sleeping child. So i sat on her floor, my studio now, and watched her for what seemed like a good while--her deep breaths the only sound, the heat of the room dampening her hair, her slight turned down frown.

It was hard to imagine then as I watched that I would one day be where I am, where we are. A gray ragged kitty, a little girl trying to be a big girl making a life for herself out in the world.

Perhaps I should have had one or two more children to put distance between now and then so the weight of growing out of stages could fall on a different time, but if I'm being completely honest with myself it's not more children I want, it's more time. The time comes, as it always does, when you want the days to slow down and the moment to stay a little longer. When you'd give anything to carrying them around the house like you use to. When all you want is to hear them come to the side of your bed and wake you from your slumber just to be with you.

It happened last night. It hadn't happened in so long, a night time visit that she sacred me to death--I wasn't expecting her. As she worked up a good cry about how she couldn't be in her bed and her sisters wouldn't let her in theirs, I knew I was needed. So I walked her to her room as I'd done so many times before, laid with her til her breathing got deeper and slowed down considerably, and then with a kiss on the head, I slipped out as if I'd never been there.

Time is a funny thing. It doesn't really wait until we're ready or ask if we want to move on it just goes--constantly. All we can really do is go with it and hope what they remember aren't the times we weren't at our best and got impatient with them, but the moments together where we laid with them, held them, comforted them like an old gray ragged kitty that they've always been able to count on.

reminders

Rock walls, REI, climbing gyms, carabiners, chalk, even the mountains all remind me of my brother Alan. He was a big climber and I associate him with spending as much time dangling from a rock as he did on the ground. I remember his equipment strewed about the house and his hands always having a white tint to them. So when my little Tess wanted to try the climbing wall in Park City last Monday it tugged at my heart a bit. As I stood watching her get higher and higher searching for the best places to put her hands and feet (I tried to coach her when she needed it) I couldn't help but think of going climbing for the first time with my brother and having him share with me something he loved.



As I continued to watch and help Tess it wasn't until a father of another boy waiting came over to watch her and said, "she's really good" that it hit me, maybe she's inherited the skills from Alan. There are moments when my younger brother, my nieces and nephew, and even my own children do something, have a certain look that reminds me so perfectly of him. It's hard to see someone pass and you would think even harder to have reminders all over the place (it was), but now I see them as tender mercies. It's like there are little pieces of him still with us. Gifts from above to help keep the memories alive.

It's been 17 years today. Time has healed, but it hasn't taken away. I can still see him so clearly. I can still hear his goofy laugh. I can still feel the last hug he gave me as we stood up to leave church Sunday afternoon and said, "love you guys" referring to me and my sister. I'm grateful for that...to heal and not lose. Grateful when I see him in those I love. Grateful to know how precious life is. Grateful to understand how meaningful I want mine to be. After all, I only get this one life, this one chance...I want so desperately to make it count.

tell me a story

Lately the girls have been asking questions about when they were little. You know, question like, "Tell me what I was like when I was little?" Once Adam or I finished telling one of them a story someone else would chime in wanting to hear stories about them. They laugh and laugh with and at each other at the stuff they use to do. With so many inquiries from them and not wanting to disappoint, I started looking through photos as a way to jog my memory. I don't know what it is about taking pictures, but I can remember exactly where I was and the circumstances of when I took it (too bad I don't remember the date).


[I took this with my first ever digital camera I got for Christmas in 2001. Oh my if you could see this old Sony camera now. I don't even know what happened to it. The photos were 640x480 pixels 72dpi (super small printing 1.5"x2") and it wrote the pictures onto a 3.5" floppy disc. It's crazy to think of now, but I loved having it.]

When I saw this photo of Bella and Tess I was immediately reminded of what we used to do during the day. Bella was a very calm little girl (luckily, because she was not a calm baby) and she was always satisfied by sitting and reading with me. It worked out marvelously when Tess came along because, as you can imagine, I was sitting a lot with a newborn. So Bella and I would read, and we wouldn't just read anything, we read No Matter What by Debi Gliori. It was one of her favorite books at the time so we read it over and over again. Now, if you know Bella then it's no surprise she had the book memorized after the third time through (she is still like that) and there was absolutely no way I could skip a part or miss a page. So after Tess was feed and happy Bella would sit next to her on my bed and read to her.

After remember and sharing this story with my girls I thought, I really should buy this book again (after so many times through it got ruined). A few weeks went by and I sort of forgot about it until I was at the library yesterday with Megan. It just occurred to me to look for the book and I was lucky enough to find a copy. So I brought it home to surprise my girls. When I originally told the story to Bella she didn't remember the book, but when she saw it again it brought back all her memories (of the story, not of reading it to Tess).



So this morning when I woke up, later than usual, I found the three of them cozy on the chair listening while Bella read them the story. It was a sweet sight for me to see and one I always hoped I would find since 2002 when I watched Bella reading to her sister for the very first time.