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Relationships with Words
This post feels a bit heavy-handed on “words” — but given that the physical tethers have been stretched thin during COVID, words are often all we have to go on in our relationships. I can be a vulnerable person, or at least come off as such, in the way I use written word to process feelings. When I feel prolonged dissatisfaction, shame or sadness, I often work my way through and rise above them by wrestling with words. It’s like being a broody hen, who feels all sorts of ways and sits on her eggs until they have hatched. My words are my eggs, an expression of myself. I share…
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Duke Gardens with Friends
At the end of March, the kids had a day off school for a teacher workday. After seeing an Instagram post about a “Bloom Walk” in Duke Gardens, I gave the boys a heads up that we would be making a trip, and I tagged my friend Erika on the post, hoping she would see it and hadn’t already booked her day. Friday morning she messaged me and we made plans to pack snacks and hit the road at about the same time. I have never seen the garden as busy as it was that day. The weather was perfect and the lots were completely full. We were directed a…
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Doughton Park Camping 2018
How nearly every Blue Ridge Parkway adventure begins and ends: a stone arch We planned this trip three weeks out when we were looking to camp in Hanging Rock during an October weekend. Every single reservable campsite was booked for every single weekend in October. When I relayed this information to my friend Sarah, who had felt me out on whether we would want to try a joint family trip, she suggested checking out Doughton Park, which I had never heard of. This is a national park, and camping reservations can be made through recreation.gov. To our good fortune, there were still three or four spots still available. We grabbed…
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Tying Rafts Together
Yesterday I posted the following on Facebook, which seemed to resonate with fellow moms and women in general: If I could give any advice to new mothers it would to tie your rafts together. When the waves get high, don’t cut each other loose. Those friendships are precious and there will be a time when the waters calm and you get to float for a bit and sip your margaritas, but don’t go at it alone when times are hard, because nothing is sadder than drinking alone when times are good. Early in motherhood, probably in the first six months of my firstborn’s life, I felt isolated. Whether this was…
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Wrinkles and Relationships
It’s amazing what photo filters can do for wrinkles and relationships. As I scroll through my instagram feed, I see one continuous incongruity – I rarely edit photos of plants and scenery, but pictures with my face in them have gone through filters, sometimes more than one. Photos with my kids go through another sort of filter, the one where they are presented as loving, creative, motivated, funny and kind. I rarely capture the tantrums, the boredom or the fights. The scrutiny I apply to my appearance and my life is hardly fair. Sure, we all look a little better in the brighter light that softens the wrinkles and splotches, and…
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Gardens and Friendships and Really Long Metaphors
I used to really have fun with analogies and expounding on a metaphor. Due to my high level of enjoyment of nature, and using nature for examples, and due to the fact that nature can be icky, for awhile some friends called me “slightly gross analogy girl.” I was okay with it. So I’m going to metaphorize here in this little web space that rarely gets tended to anymore. Lately I’ve been thinking on friendship. It seems that even when a woman is well out of high school, friendships can still feel rather, well, “high school”. Perhaps not the friendships themselves lack maturity, but the concern over them and drama…
