Where do we start?

If we want to end with the stars

Tommy wakes me first, then it is a scrambling to get everyone ready on time. He leaves early for a work training he will lead. The little girls have a game going while I get dressed. I brush my hair and recite some of the words I say everyday now, I belong, I sing the song of my belonging, is how it begins. It is a poem I wrote, or it feels better to say, one that got written and I was there.

I pack a lunch, hug a kid who’s off to the school bus, run to feed the bunny and let out the goats. We arrive almost on time for kindergarten drop off and then the littlest one and I head to Trader Joe’s to finish the week’s shopping.

It is so quiet in there I let her walk and help pick out the items we need. She joins in filling the bags at the checkout, her little hands working to keep the reusable bag open while putting in the loaves of bread.

At home, it is unpack the groceries and then breakfast for me, snacktime for her. The hit is the Irish soda bread from Trader Joe’s. I eat some with peanut butter.

“Where do we start?” I ask her, for the house calls to us. It is a disheveled beauty in need of some fixing up. I burn a stick of incense, which I generally do at the beginning of cleaning because nothing helps me shift gears more than smell.

Then up we go for laundry, and to clean the cat box. Down we go to work on the mud room, which has become more mud than room. After sweeping the floor, we work together to wash it with rags. She loves this; we hold up our dirty rags and make grand exclamations of amazement: “SOOOOO dirty!” We laugh.

She does some painting while I wash dishes, clean the counters, wash the stove top, run the dishwasher and then I sit on the floor with her. We make puzzles together while the rain drips outside.

Soon a friend stops by, a friend who has become a fellow weaver. She comes with weaving questions and it’s like having a meal together, so gratifying and nourishing to talk about colors and yarns and art.

I’m watching the clock, though, because I have a mentee during the little one’s naptime, so off goes my friend to spend some time in the weaving studio and down goes the toddler for a nap and I write an email in regards to the unfolding drama as class secretary. If you read this post you will know the beginning of the story. I will share the upheaval here soon.

Mentorship is not the best word for what I do, but spiritual counseling, spiritual support, pastoral care, those don’t really fit either. I’ve been thinking about words lately and how insufficient a single word really is; I’ve started putting many together. Sometimes that helps.

Right at the end of the mentorship session, the little one wakes, a child comes home from school and needs a ride somewhere, so snacks are packed and off we go, doing drop off and pick ups and once back home more eating and preparing for the evening’s concert where one child will perform a number of different pieces.

This child looks at my latest piece. She says, “Are trying to make this look like flowers from The Lorax?” (A Dr. Seuss book.)

What do you think? I took it as a compliment, this wild and free garden, yes it’s definitely a magical place, but more, the message of the Lorax seems just perfect for my sustainable art. (Go read it and tell me what you think!)

I start dinner—broccoli and kale with garlic, and a rice mix and then three kinds of chicken nuggets (ones with gluten breading, ones with gluten free breading, and vegetarian ones); this is a quick dinner because we have to leave early for the concert. It is two hours long. I think of all the school concerts I have been to over the years while I listen to the music. I don’t know exactly how it makes me feel, except I know I have “been many people” over those years, and I am glad to be who I am now,

glad to head home for my late night chores, not that I wouldn’t rather, most times, head to bed, or simply relax, but this liturgy of bunny and goats, goats and bunny means many things and one of them is:

I am outside when I wouldn’t otherwise be. I am under the stars, under the sky. I am smelling the air, I am marking the seasons, I am neither this thing or that, not someone failing or succeeding or trying or anything at all. I am someone walking under the stars. And this is how they looked tonight.

“Living more nearly to Nature is living farther from the world and its follies, but nearer to the world's people; it is to be of them, and for them, and especially for their improvement. We cannot see how impartially Nature gives of her riches to all, without loving all, and helping all; and if we cannot learn through Nature's laws the certainty of spiritual truths, we can at least learn to promote spiritual growth while we are together, and live in a trusting hope of a greater growth in the future.” Maria Mitchell

A good thought to sleep on.

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