junk in the trunk

sometimes it's hard to know where The Teacher is going to pop up.  sometimes i go somewhere thinking The Teacher will be there and She's not.  most of the time this really bothers me.  like a junky, i get irritated and itchy because i was soooo ready to learn, to evolve, to grow, to open, to bloom.  but The Teacher wasn't there.  fuck it, i don't want to learn anyway.

and then She shows up in these moments so subtly that i'm not even sure if it is Her at first.  like, really?  in this drunken scrawl on the metal door of a bathroom stall?  this is where i transcend.  The Teacher picks her classroom.  even after years of experiencing this- i still am caught off guard easily.

She knows how to get my attention though.

this lesson starts with a car.  a 1990, not a 91, jetta that needs to be sold on the fly because people essentially didn't do what they said they would.  the car that was supposed to wind up in tucson sat in anacortes instead.  the owner sits in tucson excited to start a new job- fretful because she's got no wheels to get to the rez school where she'll oversee lost teeth, belly aches and give pills to children for all the reasons adults have for doing such a thing.  the important thing to know here- is that the car is not in "selling" condition.  none the less, we buy it.

we didn't really need a car, exactly.  we have a truck and a van- both with big old straws that suck up a lot of gasoline.  and both with more than 200k miles on 'em.  we have a plan for this jetta and it gives us some cushion if The Teacher decides to mess with that plan too.

first, we got to clean out the trunk.  and when i say "we" i really mean "me."  somehow everyone falls asleep before me one night and the trunk calls to me from the darkness of our driveway.  this trunk is completely packed, by the way.  when you open it you mostly see plastic garbage bags stuffed full with bits of fabric waving at you, rigid corners of forgotten bill envelopes, a seductive curve of a mug handle...and there's smell too.  trunks always have a smell.

i also should add that the owner feels really badly about this.  she offers to pay me to drive to the dump and just throw everything away- a chore i never could do for several reasons.  first, there's the mystery.  i love a good mystery.  ever since my first nancy drew book i've been hoping for this kind of opportunity.  second, there's the fact that i can't throw out anything that has a use.  for good or bad.  (except for legos left on the floor- i have no problem chucking out those feet killers). maybe you've already heard about the king size futon mattress i deconstructed on the back porch to avoid taking it to the dump?  well, it was extreme...far more so than pulling in one of those garbage bags into my living room at about 10 pm one night last week.

which is exactly what i did...

if i had known The Teacher was going to be there, stuffed between old work files, swimsuits and a barbie tin of glitter nail polish- i would have taken notes.  i would have slowed down into a meditative state and really paid attention to every moment.  but as it often is- i just thought i was doing a chore.  so i plodded forward, head down, hands busy.

it became very clear that i need a couple of bags to sort into.  there was the trash- into it went candy wrappers, napkins, and the like.  the paper recycling- the largest of the bags- where all the receipts, science class notes, birthday cards and more were deposited.   then there was the pile of cool stuff that i didn't want...or stuff i had no idea what it actually was- small black t-shirts, a dinner plate with a country apple painted on it, a handmade ceramic jar full of green pennies and 1 small agate, and this large black plastic thingy my son tells me is a paintball gun loader.  and the pile of stuff i thought was cool and wanted to keep- more about this later.

as i sorted through this stuff The Teacher began to circle the room, her eyebrow arched, leather shoes softly touching the ground in a steady rhythm of observation:

"see?" she said, "life gives everyone a lot of stuff to deal with."

"notice," she mentioned, "that sometimes things we care about get lost."

"imagine," she whispered, "what it would be like to have stranger's hands on your forgotten things."

and that's what i did.  i imagined what it would be like if suddenly my trunk was open for all to examine.  if my junk, from closets, old suitcases, under the bed, beneath the house was all laid out for someone else to sort through.

what would that feel like?

what would they learn about me?

most of the things i pulled from the trunk confirmed my impressive of the owner of the car- who i had only ever met once before, and had talked to a handful of times on the phone since then.  she's passionate in a way that causes her to forget all else.  she is drawn to bold colors and watery sparkles like a bird from a desert.  she has good taste in music.  she loves her children.  she yearns for something and then goes to it. she reminds me of myself in many ways.

and she likes red shoes.

cuz missing shoes means someone hopping around, i think.  because pairs go together.  but i am so used, after the second hour of sorting, of finding only one shoe of each pair- i am not excited at first when i see the tip of red dansko clog.

i am shocked though.  it is candy apple red- with only a little scuffing on the toe, a wad of old grass clinging to the sole, the black piping bold.  i used to own these shoes.  i bought myself a pair so long ago i don't know when.  i remember the store and ordering them.  i bought them as a birthday present for myself and it was the most money i had spent on shoes in a very long time.  i don't think i have spend that much since.  i wore these shoes raw.  i loved everything about these clogs- and i could the strut my stuff in them like i never had a care in the world- until one day, i was over them.

one day, i pulled them out of my closet and they were too old, too worn, too used.  they flopped on my feet with their skin faded to a dark, dirty brownish red.  rather than seeing everywhere they had been- i just saw everywhere they would never take me.  so i got rid of them.

i do this.  i get rid of things i treasure.  most of the time i completely forget about them until i see a picture of them or stumble into a memory of their importance or until i find an exact replica in an old trunk.

i was excited.  i scrambled through the bag, casting aside fleece gloves, blue tank top, purple binder, searching for the mate.  you know what i was thinking? i hope they fit me.  i wanted a pair of red clogs.  i remember recently when getting dressed i yearned for a pair of red clogs-  my old clogs- and now here was a pair!  yes, a pair!

two red clogs and me.

i put them on and stood.  like cinderella, i so much wanting to be just like cinderella.  they are a size 39, euro.  and while this works good in some brands, in dansko i need a 40.  but i didn't want to believe it.  why would the universe put a beautiful pair of red clogs in the trunk of a car i bought for no damn good reason and then not have them fit me?

i walked around the house trying to calculate how long i could wear them before my left big toe would complain?  a few hours...maybe.  if i went to a movie- sure, of course- no one could see them, but i could do it.  wear them to work- never make it to my first break.  dancing?  nope- never happen.

as excited as i to find these clogs- i was now equally distraught.  because those red clogs reminded me so much about myself- and i wanted to be able to wear that knowledge around a bit longer.

then The Teacher, She smiles, and asks- the best teachers ask the best questions- "well, nancylee, whose clogs are these?"

i picture the gal who sold me this car.  no doubt she misses these clogs and what they remind her about herself.  maybe she doesn't even know they are missing.  maybe she's going to wear her long black skirt today and is hunting around for them as i type.  or maybe they aren't even her clogs at all but a girlfriend's or a lover's or her mother's or her daughter's.

but the point is- these are not my clogs.

and then The Teacher, walks real close to me so that i can smell her fragrance and know that she is so much more than a teacher- and she says with firm love, "you need to get your own clogs."

saturday is payday.

picture this

the thing about a blog without pictures is that you have to create one with words.  i envy picture blogs sometimes- a photo of child with chicken and a catchy caption.  how long does that take exactly?  especially if your phone takes pictures, with cool retro effects, and you just email off to your blog site as you wait at a red light somewhere between here and there.

and i love those blogs.

but this blog has more struggle to it- that's my way, i guess.  like now- i've been up since 3 am and even before that i didn't sleep well.  i went to bed by 9 with a stabbing pain in my back.  woke up at 11:34 because my left was suddenly weepy and stinging- only to find that my eldest was still awake, despite my very clear instruction to all that it was to be an early night.  and then at 2:48 the toddler waddles in the bedroom, determined to nurse me out of any chance of sleep.

whereas years before i would have sipped tea, read a book or written in a journal- i go to check me email, do a few quick errands via this wooden chair and the keyboard, and then decide to write in the blog.  a fairly egocentric affair, i feel at times.  what makes me think i've got anything worth while to say?  at least when you write in a journal you don't need to really say anything.  hell, you don't even ever have to read it again!

but since i'm here- and so are you.  i'm gonna do my bestest to make this worth our while.

when i woke up at 3 am- my brain is not a happy place- that's why i'm awake.  in that fuzzy space my head does this fucked up mind trip where all is wrong.  it's like eeyore, without his tail, his house blown down, on his birthday with no thistles to eat....times five thousand.  the list i start to make could be titled "why everything i have ever done was a clausal mistake."  it is ridiculous.  but at 3 am, laying in bed with sore back and weepy eye ("well, maybe if you took better care of yourself...." says my brain) it's hard to pull myself out of it.  until i just pull myself out of bed.

the bad mood lingers- i critiqued everything i see.  it's grouchy.  if it were a color it would be puke green.  it is were a smell it would be puke green.  but it's in my head- and harder to get rid of than puke- of any color.

until...

there's this tiny laugh somewhere between my ears.  it's kinda like the laugh of yoda or the dalai lama (as if those are two separate entities).  i ignore this giggle at first.  i throw some puke green thoughts at it.  this makes it laugh even harder.  the chuckles turn the green less pukey.  i shrug, roll my eyes- like a teenager determined to be pissed long after i even remember what the hell made me so angry.

this causes more laughing.  i cringe.  more laughing. i smile.  more laughing.  until this laughter says to me: none of that matters.  i try a few more...what about THIS green puke thought?

nope.  doesn't matter. giggle.

how about when this smelly funked out shit happened?

sorry.  irrelevant.  snort.

ummm, ok- well, remember how i still haven't done XYZ?

(wheezing sound of breathless laughter with subtle thuds of fist banging on wooden floor).

and then, my tail is back on, my house is rebuilt, i'm singing happy birthday to myself, and a patch of thistles sprouts at my feet.  because it doesn't really matter that i have no idea where find clean clothes to wear to work tomorrow, or that my son stayed up too late and will be a lumpy mess of complaints when  i wake him up, or that i didn't drink enough water yesterday, or that i forgot to pay the dentist....again, or that i don't know how to properly train a parakeet.

all that matters is that i am here.  whatever "i" means anyway.  all that matters is that i am still on this journey.  that i am awake is a gift a thousand people didn't open this morning.  all that matters is that i can feel puke green or zesty orange or beige.  i can feel beige, damnit.  that's something to celebrate...in a beige sort of way.

all that really matters is that i can hear that laugh.  over all the other noise- i can still hear the giggle of redemption- some call it amazing grace.

and even though there are a lot of great photos in the world, on blogs, tucked inside greeting cards, tattooed over the scars of battles fought and lost or won or never taken on-  there's no way i could have shown you that laugh without these words.

Crossing the Road

On the evening of my 37th birthday, after eating grilled salmon in the backyard- not in the least bit worried about the thistles and the morning glory- the family decided to go for a walk.  Well, Seren rode his bike- a light blue, lower rider style- complete with those low swooping gorilla handlebars, and I pushed Cyrus in his stroller.

Our route is predictable- an L shaped street, about 1/4 mile each length and the back again.  This road dissects two much busier county roads and is dotted with homes on large lots along with an organic farm, raspberry and potato fields, and a horse ranch.  The sky stretches huge over the green plants- this big sky- one of the gifts of living in farm land.  When we go to the forest Seren disappears into the fern and moss- and will later express heartfelt desire to live in the trees.  I get that.  But the open sky is hard to leave behind.

We walk westward- into the setting sun.  It is the first hot summer evening of the year- and no one is outside.  Or maybe there are outside elsewhere, but it is uncommonly quite on our walk.  There are no dogs on leashes, moms with strollers, people in pairs- just the four of us, chatting or not, as we settle into that fine feeling of contentment.

Seren is up ahead- and has rounded the corner of the L- now headed south.  There used to be two old horses in that field.  One blind- the other sway back and skiddish, but I haven't seen them in a while.  Maybe they've moved on.  The new horse stables have been built by the mysterious millionaires who buy up land like they are starting a compound.  Maybe they are.  We look at the stables from our living room window- the horses small wild animals dancing about the grass.  They are young and strong- one has a white crescent moon on his forehead and he is not skiddish at all.

When we round the curve, Seren's bike is propped on the drunken cedar fence, held together by rusty barbed wire and he is crouched down staring at the asphalt- chasing frogs.  His eyes are lit with wonder- a glow I will never grow tired of seeing.  His sneakers can't carry him fast enough to us where he reveals his delicate treasure in cupped hands- the smallest frog (or maybe a toad), smaller than a nickle with a tiny tail still poking out of his backside. 

As we scan the road- they are everywhere.  Each baby wildly chaotically hoping and hopping in a chorus to cross the road- from one thick of grass to another.  The gray bodies of a few fallen frogs lay and bake in the sun while a murder of crows call from the trees overhead.  So we hunch to pick up frogs and deliver them safely to the over side- some we just shoo a bit.  I laugh at the bliss of being a frog crossing guard- and am thankful no cars come traveling along- for there is no frog-free space to drive through.  In a minute though- they are all safely hidden in tall grass- and you can hear them rustling through the leaves- toward some pond I have never seen.

It's trite to say the best presents don't come with a bow. But I'll say it anyways.  Because when you get to see an exodus like and be the first, and maybe only, human to hold a frog- and to watch your boys give small kisses on their heads before they lay them gently down- something clicks in your heart.  Something clicked in mine- more than just the beauty of nature- it was the reassurance that we all need help, we all can give help, and we all can witness.  Everyday we can witness.

--
blessings,
nancylee

"seems like everywhere i go, the more i see the less i know..." michael franti

reptilians

that last deep breath a person takes before they rise out of bed- as they stretch out their belly, backs and pull their minds out of dreams.  i hear this sound through the yellow walls.  i hear this sound atop the scurrying of kitten paws and underneath the bird song.

it is a sound that warns of interaction.

too soon.

too late in life i realize that my mind requires long stretches of silence.  my heart needs deep feeling.  my fingers ache for stormy messes of art projects left on the kitchen table for 3 days.  forget eating.  certainly forget cleaning away the paper scraps for some one's milk cup or coffee mug.   just create without any end in sight.

i adapted and coped my way through life because, well, that's what you do.  expect for folks who don't do this.  the reptile people who amaze and frighten me- how they plan their life, how they know themselves essentially and are able to guard and create a life that serves them.

i suppose these reptile folks were born like this- knowing their scale and knowing that digging into the cool sand at noon was the only way to stand the heat.  but maybe not.  maybe they learned this.  maybe they stayed out in the high sun and watched their body wither to the point of dry cracking twigs- and then they whispered, their throats parched, oh shit.  oh shit- this is me.  i cannot do this again.

so they listened to that.  the went deeply and learned and listened and carved out a life around those needs.  the body needs, the soul needs.  the recognized the parts of them that they could not change- and then changed their behavior, the surroundings to protect- or even to nurture- those strong, stubborn parts.

yeah, so i clearly missed that phase of self-awareness.

i went from classroom to classroom listening to people tell me all kinds of things about the world, the brain, the words, the colors.  my mind was awash in Information.  i mostly stayed safe.  i mostly followed the rules.  i mostly was numb.

(of course, there were moments when i was none of these things- but right now i am fully living in shadow of this memory.  bare with me.)

***

now i straddle a life of bursting, bustling boys.  they never stop.  they wake up and begin to talk to me.  expect contemplation- or at least eye contact from their mother.  from the homebase.  from me. 

it is a hard, painful place to be.  this place of clinging to a lifeline- the quiet space on the porch where i can sit in the sun and be cat-like where thoughts swim through my mind, inspiring me- and being pulled out of that space by sometime so precious as my own children.

there's a metaphor somewhere here.  something about gardens and hummingbirds and unexpected rain storms.  but i haven't been able to sort it out yet.  my mind doesn't have the depth for metaphors right now.  right now my mind is wondering if i can finish this post before someone wants orange juice or for me to wipe their butt.  but i want to know the metaphor!  i want to to write it down here.  i'm struggling to find it, damn it.

i struggle.  i earn.  i want. i want.

and i need.

i really need to be able to somehow balance this.  to balance the part of me that needs to be fed with the part of me that feeds others.  maybe most curious, is to do this with grace.  clear, rather than the cloudy thoughts coming out as mumbling excuses.  sweet, rather than the....

"hi mom."

time for breakfast...

ms. thorne

i want to tell you about sarah.

of course, the first thing i want to say is also the thing that i know i should wait to tell you until the end for the dramatic effect.  but i can't use her that way.  or the memory of her that way.

sarah died.

i don't even know exactly when she died.  i learned about it from facebook.  sitting right here when suddenly i discovered her gone.  a light i thought was burning up in alaska or maybe in south america somewhere.  a light that every now and then would show up close by and i would be in awe of it.  of her.

i met sarah while i was student teaching.  she was in the 8th grade.  i think i met her parents once- but it was her presence that taught me a lot about parenting.  she talked about her family with deep love.  she described their trips together- she once mailed me a photo of a flower blooming in the desert.  a teen-age girl mailed me a photo of a hot pink flower growing out of dry sand.  that still astounds me.

i spent part of my day with sarah for twenty-weeks.  a small part- in a room with 30 other teens.  we met up a few times.  we wrote letters to each other.  she mailed me a swatch of fabric for the quilt i have still not made for cyrus.  in honesty, i didn't know her very deeply.  i considered her a friend and i knew some facts about her.  but she was one of those folks i also intended to spend more time with "someday."

and then one day she was just gone.

when i heard that she died i went through my box of photos and old letters.  i found that photo of the pink desert flower.  it seemed so impossible for that lusciousness to grow in such a seemingly barren landscape.  that bush maybe only bloomed once every 10 years- when the rain and the wind and the sun was all just right.  the seeds could have sat dormant for longer than i have been breathing.  miracle in the soil.

while i was searching through my memories i also found sarah's graduation announcement from high school.  i went to the ceremony.  her announcement has a picture of her in jeans, sitting near a moss-covered tree.  her smile is shy and confident.  on the front of the card it has a quote from fanny brice: let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be.

i could think and feel on that quote for days.

but it's the inside that really tears at me.  it's from thoreau.

i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately.  i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, and see if i could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived.

i have this card right next to the computer along with photos of my boys, bits of poems, forgotten log-in names and passwords.  i see her everyday.  but most days i don't see her at all.  or i see her photo and forget the message, the moral of her life-story.

sarah died while hiking in alaska.  she was outside, under blue sky, green trees.  i don't have the medical terms for it.  was it an aneurysm or a blood clot?  it doesn't matter. i know i romanticize her death because i want to believe that she didn't suffer, didn't want more, didn't feel cheated.  i want to believe that she knew she was living deeply.  she was sucking the marrow out of life.  i want to believe that she was ok with it so that i can be ok with it.

i miss sarah.  i miss the curiosity i had about her life- wondering what she was up to.  watching her grace spread about like the dawn.  i miss seeing exactly how to suck the marrow of life.  how to live deep. 

dive deep.
so when we come up for air.
we gasp at it with intention
and gratitude.

full

here's something i know about writing: usually you need a point.  like, a moral, or at least a punch line.  sometimes it's so easy to have this nice little package of thoughts with the a-ha moment neatly tucked in at the end.  sometimes vignettes just happen to me and all i have to do is record them.  the plot is all lined up complete with climax and resolution.

i guess that's it- the resolution.  the coming together or throwing apart- but when you are the end you are ready for it.

maybe this is why i write- the ability to resolve conflicts, the power to wrap up life into paragraphs.  the need to have things have a beginning, a middle, an end.

because in real life it just all flows together, doesn't it?

the endings of one moments mesh with the beginnings of another and most times the moral is: keep going.  just keep going.

other times there are moments of peace- like that still point between a wave pulling back and rushing forth.  in that moment i try to make sense, to slow it down, to write it down because then it can be absorbed, savored, honored.

i sat down and opened the blog page because i wanted to write- but i had no story.  nothing but a need to construct.  a need to resolve.  part way into it cyrus wanders in and asks for cereal.  since he went to bed at 6 pm he was up at 3, and cereal at 4:40 makes sense.  after i poured in the flakes, sprinkled the raisins, soaked 'em in milk, i turned to leave the kitchen.  through a sliver crack in the curtain the moon, full and glowing, caught my eye, my heart.

"cyrus!" i called as i opened the front door, "look at the moon!  isn't she beautiful?"

he came over to me, cereal in hand, and looked up at her.

"it's bright!" he observed.

"it's the full moon!"

"it will squish you," he cautioned.

"i love her" i said in response.

"i know you love her" he calmly stated as he walked back inside crunching his flakes.

and that's the moment.  that's the resolution.  that my 2 year old son knows that i love the moon. 

it's all wrapped up nicely.
now time for tea.

lessons

so- as a mom there are experiences you decide your child should have.  these experiences will "teach children lessons" about life.  lessons we think they should learn.  so we ship them off to camp or make them make their bed each morning.  usually these are lessons are parents forced us into.  most are about Responsibility.

some are about chickens.

see, the cats died two years ago now and they were old and mine- felines from my college days.  the dogs- well, one was old when we picked her up from the pound in new mexico and the puppy- the saddest day when she was hit by a pick up truck and killed in front of seren, who was 4. 

but pets are good for kids, right?  they teach them about poop and fur and death.  of course, they teach about death.

the tetras weren't mourned much.  sad?  yes.  flush and done.  oh, and the hermit crab.  well, she buried herself in the sand and was never heard from again.

then this spring we started talking about chickens.  from all accounts they are the perfect pets.  they live outside, they eat left-overs, their poop is good for the ground and they give you eggs.  we got five chicks and the boys loved on them endlessly.  now the chicks have almost earned their -en.  they live outside.  they go in and out of their coop.  they run from hawks.  good girls.

after dinner we often send the boys outside with the table scraps.  they throw the steamed veggies and such into the run and the girls go to it.  shortly after they are snug in their roost for the night.  sometimes there's a hitch: "no, cyrus chickies (as he calls them) don't actually like to be poked at with sticks."  most evenings it's not a problem.

last night was a big problem.

seren promptly reported that amelia wasn't in the coop.  her full name is amelia one-dot.  she was the first to show off her flying abilities and had one dot on the side of her head.  she is a barred rock- also sometimes called a plymouth rock....maybe the pilgrims brought her over.  in any case, she is peppered black and white with a red comb.  she's an odd bird.  often alone, a few steps away from the flock.  like  me in high school when i was transported from torrance to edmonds.  sometimes the other birds pick on her a bit.

i wasn't surprised to know she was the one who wandered off.

we began the search- chick, chick, chick- we called.  we looked in the fire club, the garage, the basement, under the tractor (so weird that i own a tractor).  no amelia.  then seren asked, horrified, "what's that?!"  at first i thought he was pointing to the black plastic sticking up from under the wood chips  but his gaze extended over the fence into the neighbor's yard where a pile of feathers lay with yellow legs sticking out at unnatural angles.  it was a chicken.  a very dead chicken.

seren has never been one to hold in emotions.  he doesn't "buck up" well.  he immediately went into the "no! no! no!" stage, his eyes rimmed with tears- his hands dug into his wild hair, as his dad went over the fence to retrieve the bird.  her body was still warm despite the gashes on her back and all along her underside.  the neighbor's also have birds: laying and broiler chickens and turkeys, two hens and a tom.  the tom strutted nearby, nervously.

as ben looked at the barred rock, seren fled into the house.  cyrus began his endless chant of " i wanna hold the chickie!" as he followed ben around while i followed seren inside.

let the lesson begin.

poor guy.  a dead chicken, a heavy heart and a real big part of his pain turning into anger, into revenge.  all eyes focused on that tom turkey.  the one who puffed up if you even looked at him, the one that chased the turkey hens around with a determination rarely seen.  the one that just looked damn mean.

seren cried and cired.  he wanted to know if it was amelia but would not go outside to look at the bird, wouldn't go outside to bury it.  yes, we bury all the dead animals.  pets and roadkill.  hawks, dogs, moles, owls, cats, finches, frogs.  first we pry them out of cyrus's hands while he hollers "it's dead!  it's dead!" and then we put it in the soft ground, say some words, pour some water and lay it to rest.

seren refused to be part of it.

meanwhile, cyrus was determined to hold the dead chicken which i had looked at and confirmed it was a barred rock- that it was amelia.  she looked bigger in death.  her feathers puffed up, her head still.  i looked at her eyes quickly, saw the dot and went back to consoling.

ben was focused on the funeral.  all business, gathering this and that.  stashing the box with the bird atop the shed as we debated where to bury her.  cyrus still wanting the chickie- then arguing "she's not dead, she's sleeping."  me in that place again of wondering what death means to a toddler- if it was possible for them to understand such a bizarre concept.  then me going back to the child who did understand it enough to know that it sucked.

this idea that something is and then something is no longer.  who made that rule?  that one minute you have joy in your heart and then the next sticky blackness that pulls at your gut and pushes out tears and tears and tears until your nose is stuffed, your throat is sore and you neck begs for a pillow.

i held seren and agreed with all his rants while trying to inject small bits of "wisdom" that sounded like hallmark meets disney with a new age twist.  "it's like the yin and yang, death is part of life, life is part of death."  i even used the analogy of the robin nest on the deer skull- which barely makes sense to me now that i think back on it.  and i deeply regret pointing out how the birdsongs were using the downy feather to add to their nests.  while i think this is beautiful- well, seren didn't react well.  he kind of gagged in disbelief and disgust that these birds didn't know enough about his love for amelia to know it was not ok to be looting her feathers for their own purposes.


even in his sadness, seren was all about who did this.  and so was ben really.  while seren went into payback mode- convinced without any evidence that it was the turkey- ben went into problem solving about how to protect the remaining chickens even though we still didn't know how the chicken had died.  cyrus pulled the pillows from the couch and wandered around half naked.  blissfully unaware.

ben was processing his own experiences with death- so many- and how as a child he wasn't allowed to cry for them.  how watching his son fragile in grief shifted something inside of him.  something about how sadness sits so close to anger inside of us for many different reasons.

then slowly it seemed like the worst wave has washed over us.  that seren was calmed, reserved, resolved.  he had thrown out his angry solutions and deepest fears and the regrets- and we did our best to talk about them, rub his back, set things right while knowing we couldn't really set them right.  then, seren decided to go outside- rather suddenly.

later he admitted he was going to see "if there was blood on the turkey's beak or talons."  as we walked outside to look over the neighbor's fence he saw a flash of movement and then promptly returned upstairs.  his brown eyes were round and hopefully- his face shown just like in the photo of him holding his newborn baby brother- "i think i just saw amelia!"

i wanted to believe but for a split second i wondered if he had cracked.  like he was going to be the kid who saw his dead chicken following him around- just always out of the line of focused vision.  shadows of her everywhere.

but against all sense- there she was- waiting at the door to the coop.  pacing because she decided she really did want to be part of the group afterall.

i looked down on ben and seren herding her inside and i laughed with such relief and gratitude.  the complete 360 degree turn about of a split second.  the wish of an 8 year old suddenly granted.  he didn't want that dead chicken to be amelia and it wasn't. 

or maybe it had been- maybe we had buried her with love and prayers- and maybe something shifted in what is possible and she became alive again.  miracles happen, right?  it happened for jesus.  maybe it happened for amelia too.  for seren. 

because maybe the lesson that miracles- even when all the facts point to something else- the feeling of a miracle happening to you, the heart-healing miracle- maybe THAT is the "life lesson" we really need to learn.

again and again.