Author: kyce

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Ordering the Stars: Chilling Out

I’ve been thinking a lot about homemaking, these days. About being a woman and a caregiver and a creative soul. To be doing this fabulous, lively, engaging, and yes, tiresome, never-ending, unpaid work. I’ve been thinking, in particular, about how fulfilling it can be, how much of a chance there is for personal growth–what some call inner work. I was thinking about how conducive it can be to living ecologically, to learning new skills, to discovering new passions. And also reflecting on the sacrifices involved in it. There is much that I have had to let go of in order to be fully present for my family (For example, among things on hold for me are a half-written novel about a tree-pruner in 19th century New Mexico). There are days when I struggle with this sacrifice, and days when I celebrate all I have gained in its stead.

And yes, I was also thinking about what makes it work for me, the nitty gritty everyday sorts of things that help our family thrive. I started working on this little series of posts I have planned called Ordering the Stars. And then, boom, I was struck by this lightning bolt.

My housekeeping prowess that I was bragging a bit about?  It’s not my de-cluttering, or personal growth, or menu plans, or some profound philosophy that I can credit. Okay, it is all those things, a little bit. But here’s my real secret, for better of for worse: It’s that I’m, um, driven. A doer, a manifester, a highly enthusiastic, more than a bit competitive, rising star in the type-A Uber Mother universe.

Sigh.

In other words, motherhood had become yet another product-oriented job. As in, how productive can I be? How clean can I get my house, how beautifully can I celebrate festivals, how strictly can I stick to the all-important rhythm, how gently can I parent (a wild banshee), how little plastic can I use, how well can I keep to a tiny budget while still shopping at the most expensive market, how quickly can I lose the baby weight, how fully can I keep my old hobbies and passions alive while doing all the rest of this?

Now, these are all worthy things, wonderful things to guide ones work as a mother. I think in some ways we need to have high expectations of ourselves, to have a vision and to strive towards it. And yet in motherhood perhaps more than any other undertaking, it is possible to strive and strive towards an impossible ideal. To never be quite as good as we think we should be. I could go on and on about how much I enjoy this season of Motherhood–it is challenging and provocative and engaging work. But it’s not a job. It’s life. I’d prefer to just be living it.

I keep wondering how to slip the word “surrender” into this post, so I’ll just say it here. Surrender, Mama! Chill out! Have Fun! Do it cause you love it, not because you saw it on someone else’s blog. It’s okay!

If we need to strive, how about giving ourselves goals that are nurturing and real? To shift it from a How Much kind of quest to a How To kind–from a product to a process. To be guided by questions like, How can I be present in this moment? How can I show love  to myself, my children, my partner? Or, What does it feel like to soften into this journey, letting it take me where it will? Or, would it really be the end of the world if I just chilled out?

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PS–You know what’s cool about all us type-A mothers out there? We have this great safety valve built in that keeps us from being perfectionists: our kids! Three cheers for quirky little beings not interested in conforming to our agendas.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

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Around the House, I See

Around the house, I see beauty:

The girl who won’t nap, but is instead whispering to herself and gazing out her bedroom window.

The mother who decided to see this as beauty, rather than insubordination.

The basket of onion peels getting fuller and fuller for egg dying. Wool roving in spring colors to needle felt an egg mobile.

Two new books of poetry by local poets I adore. I can just look at them and feel peaceful knowing that someone is writing poems. Happily, I’m not too bothered that it isn’t me. I’ve got babies to take care of!

Dishes, again. A reminder that we live and cook and eat here, in this home.

There, too, is the old broom. Thank you for these clean floors, broom!

The bouquets of lilacs and apple blossoms filling the house with scent.

The ripe cheeks of my baby, luscious child whose sweet exhalations are the very stuff of life.

The pages and pages of notes I’ve been writing in my journal about homemaking–sometimes rising in the night to add a new insight, often leaping up from the rocking chair just as we’ve gotten cozy because I left my notebook by the stove (where I’d also been taking notes). How shall I ever decide how much to say, or where to begin, where to end?

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Ordering the Stars

Sometimes, my little daughter Cora seems to want to order the stars where to sit in the sky. Move over! She’ll shout at them (in this metaphor). No, There! It’s something to behold. At first this troubled me. Lately, it inspires me. No, we can’t always get Mars to move closer to Cancer (though if we are patient, it eventually will), or get a little friend to share her stroller. But we can shape our homes, and ultimately our lives, to reflect the beautiful order of the world.

Since Maida was born, I’ve had the odd experience of becoming the best housekeeper I have ever been in my life (which, admittedly, isn’t saying much). Odd, because I always expected the opposite to happen once the number of children in our home doubled, which we all know really means quadrupled, in that weird exponential way–2 to the power of Baby. Some days things are the mess you might expect, but it’s not as often as I ever expected. (In case I sound heroic, let me disclose that Baby Mae sleeps a lot, making it possible to get all sorts of things done.) But I’ve found that in order to be a peaceful mother, I need an ordered home. One that “runs itself” and takes care of us while we take care of it. For me, having a home that takes care of me means that it needs to be a creative home. A tidy home. A frugal home. A low-impact on the earth home. A simple, uncluttered home, based on simple, uncluttered systems.

I realize that I am at a point in my life in which I am Wholly Mother. My body is softer. My mind a little slower. My arms or lap often occupied, my hands always busy. It is strange and wonderful, and I am quite surrendered to it. That is partly why, I think, our home is running so smoothly these days. I have been guided to this place by many examples–from my childhood, my mother friends, and also lots of wise voices from blogland. I want to add my voice to that chorus now. For the next few weeks I’ll be sharing my fabulous! revolutionary! Simple! Secrets to Being a Super-Organized Extreme Eco Housewife (Now that You Have Two Kids). This is kind of a re-take on my first Extreme Eco Housewife post–which has some great ideas, by the way. But I have been through a year of serious growth since then, and want to share some of my discoveries about some of the more internal parts of keeping house–the subtle, unseen things as well as the functional, menu-planny type things.

Please come along, and please oh please, share your secrets along the way.

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ps, if you are wondering what’s up with my blog header, that’s secret #1–getting a head start on the fall decorating! Our Christmas tree is still up, too. Just kidding.

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Breathe, Friends.

My girls sleep peacefully, moonlight falling across their cheeks. Outside, crocuses push up through leaf mulch. Dogs bark. On my neighbors porch, a great white crane, folded as so many millions have been folded, hangs. A symbol of peace, hope, healing.

For days my heart has been heavy. It fills with fear and anxiety, leaves the present-moment sweetness of my days. It took me awhile to realize that I’m grieving. To remember that no part of this world is injured without affecting all others. It is impossible to not feel the tragedy of what is happening in Japan. The tragedy of our times. We are all connected.

I find a lot of comfort and courage in the words of Joanna Macy, a visionary elder whose work I feel none of us can afford to be ignorant of, especially as we raise children in these uncertain times. I wanted to share this video of her speaking on Uncertainty at the Bioneers conference a few years ago. May her words be a balm that gives each of us strength to feel our love for the world fully, even when it is painful. And may this love turn always back into gratitude, and service, as we strive to transform our world.

Much love to each of you. May our prayers for healing uplift us all.

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The Journey Continues

So as most of you know, last year we did this thing where our family didn’t buy any plastic. For four months, really more like six, we acquired only the teensiest amounts of plastic–exact amounts can be found at my end of month reckonings–during what turned out to be a life changing experiment. The posts from those months are a celebration of my joyful discoveries of Life Without Plastic.

Since then, though, I’m not even sure I’ve mentioned plastic at all on this blog. I just didn’t know what to say. Recently inspired by a number of posts written by friends in blogland ranging in topic from money to miscarriage to compromise, I have been thinking about transparency and figure it’s long past time to give a full accounting of our lifestyle these days, to reflect on life after no-plastic. Post-post-plastic, if you will.

So I have to just say it out loud: the fast that was so celebrated in this space ended in May. Since then, we’ve been buying plastic. Sometimes a lot, like when my in-laws came to town and I just went to Trader Joe’s and didn’t bat an eye at the cart filled with packaging (though I felt sick when I saw it filling our trash can, later). Generally it is a lot less than when the trips to TJs were a weekly extravaganza (that’s right, I was a pretty careless, if all-organic shopper before we started the fast), but certainly it’s more these days than when it was almost nothing.

There are various reasons for all this. Economy is one of them. I have been working hard to get our budget tightened up. I want to keep staying home with my kids, and that means really learning to live on just one income. Could I really keep spending over $10 for a gallon of organic milk just because it was in a glass jar (that doesn’t include the deposit). Did it make  sense to take a special trip across town to one of the big box health food stores for, I dunno, Braggs in bulk?

There was also my picky-picky little one, who essentially stopped growing once weaned. I needed to be able to buy her whatever I thought might help her eat more–whether it was a hot dog or frozen blueberries to top her (homemade) yogurt with. And then there was me, pregnant and needing to be able to walk into the kitchen and eat something right this second, which kind of interfered with my made from scratch ways. I started stocking the fridge with basics like tortillas.

Lastly, my attention was diverted from my extreme eco ways by the intensity of mothering a two year old. I devoted myself to finding my parenting legs (so different from the mothering legs we get when our little baby is in arms!) and this led me down a wholly new and unexpected road to a fabulous realm I call Steiner Land. Furthermore, I wanted to spend time learning to sew, making things, out in the garden, living. I didn’t yet know how to do all that and never buy a plastic bag.

I think I’m much closer now. I feel everything coalescing, all the skills I’ve spent the last year learning, the inner work I’ve done, the growth I’ve experienced as a mother, and the somewhat miraculous (and ongoing) organization and de-cluttering of our home. This has, happily, brought us full circle. I have the inner and outer resources–the drive and the skills–to go back to a life that is in line with my values. I have a sense of what is the right balance for us, the things we need, the things we don’t need.

I have to say that the most powerful thing about our plastic fast wasn’t that we didn’t acquire plastic during that time, but that we discovered out capacity for change. That we broke out of a system that we took so for granted we didn’t think there was any other way to live. Plastic isn’t the point (which I think I made clear even back in the day). The point is to live as carefully and consciously as we can. This means balancing many different parts of our lives, of making sure we are  joyful in our efforts rather than resentful. It means resting when we are weary, and taking up the staff to keep walking when we are ready to keep walking.

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ps–I just revisited the path we forged last year during our fast by meandering through the archives here at Old Recipe. Dang, did I really do all that? I’m so inspiring I just inspired myself. Cool.

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And a book, too.

And now I’d like to introduce my other baby, which was also “born” last month.

This book was conceived just before my first daughter, and came to life the same month as my second daughter.

A fruitful few years.

The Return of the River is an anthology of community voices speaking on behalf of our little river, which was named most endangered river in the USA back in 2007. A little literary activism, if you will.

I’m so proud of it!

You can learn more about our river and the book it inspired by checking out this article from our weekly paper.

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Birth Triumphant

I’d like to introduce my daughter, Maida Rose.

(We say it May-da.)

She was born in the first minutes of January 24th.

She’s lovely.

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And I just have to tell the world that after laboring for 26 hours, I pushed her out, hollering and powerful as any warrior mother and it was great.

I give thanks to the Great Mother for keeping my faith strong, for sending us allies that helped us to birth naturally despite the odds, for guiding us on this journey towards VBAC, and for my own wise body that knew just what to do, and only needed a chance to do it.

Praise Be!

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Letter to Baby

Dear Baby,

I just wanted to write and say that I am

Done sewing you an enormous purple diaper bag.

Done cutting up sweaters to make longies so you are toasty-warm here on the Outside.

Done with knitting possibly the most adorable things I have ever made. That’s right! For you.

Even, to my amazement, done with the quilt I started piecing by hand almost ten years ago.

You see, my baby, I’m done. Out of projects. Nothing left to do.

Now if you, my little baby, aren’t feeling quite done, that’s fine.

Take your time coming out.

I’ll savor this ripe stillness.

This pause before life speeds up again.

Sweet in-breath before your first breath.

You are coming. I know it. But if you take much longer, I’ll have to start another project.

And I’d rather be holding you.

Love,

Mama

ps sister is ready, too.

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Mealtime Grace

 

Is there some unspoken rule that every blogger (with children under age ten) must write at least one post about meal planning? Let’s just pretend that there is, and that I’m meeting my requirement. My apologies to readers of the non-housewife, restaurant-preferred variety.

I’ve never been much for meal planning–while I loved the idea, doing it regularly never happened, so I opted to just have a general idea what kinds of meals I’d make in a week: something with chicken, something with beans, etc. It worked, more or less. But lately,  I’d go to the store and buy milk and eggs and chocolate and then come home and wonder what to cook.

With a baby coming, oh any day now, I’ve spent the last few months trying to find every way I can to get my kingdom running itself, as a friend of mine says. For me, that means not having to think about what’s for dinner. Fortunately for our family, I had a huge burst of I’m getting my act together. And I did, and it’s working.

I started by planning meals for a full four weeks instead of just one. I  could have kept going but was starting to feel compulsive (at one point my enthusiasm for the project was so great I almost made a super complex house cleaning chart, with each day of the week a slightly different chore. It was totally OCD, though I still fantasize about it.) Anyways, I came up with general themes for  weeknights according to our schedule: oven fare on my baking day, crock pot day for the day I’m out in the late afternoon, beans and rice on Friday, because that’s what we’ve done for years and years (and called it a feast, too.)

Then I got out my cookbooks and left them on the table for a solid week. I tend to only turn to cookbooks when I’m feeling kind of desperate, and it seldom works out because I don’t have the right ingredients on hand at the last minute. But I love these books and want to be guided by them more, both to expand my kitchen skills and to have a wider variety of flavors on our table. For instance, if I knew we’d be having a stirfry one night, I wanted a different sauce each week. I took notes on what recipes caught my eye, and made a rough outline.

I found that the menus were like a puzzle, and I had to move the pieces around a bit to find the right balance between rich meals and healthier ones, to make sure we didn’t have rice every single night one week, and to vary the amount of cooking required each day. Some days are full-on cooking affairs where the oven runs for hours straight, other days we have leftovers, still others it’s twenty minutes to fry some fish and steam the veggies. While some days are very detailed, others are open: We’ll have vegetables, surely, but I won’t know what they are until I pick up our CSA for the week (but a safe bet these days would be turnips).

By organizing what we are having each day, I’m able to use our food much more efficiently. I know that if I roast a chicken on Monday, we’ll be having soup on Wednesday. I know when to soak beans, and when to defrost meat. And most importantly, for my budget and dwindling brain power, I know what to buy at the store each week. Yep, once I had the menu ready, I made up grocery lists for each week listing all the major components of the meals. If I already have an ingredient I can simply cross it off the list, which I find easier than putting it on the list by pulling it from some imaginative, dreamy part of my kitchen brain.

And yes, at first I rebelled like a willful child: What? I don’t want chicken tonight! I’d cry. But you know what, there is something so comforting about just having that dang chicken since it’s chicken night, and not having to think about it for another minute. Though of course, one could always change the sauce. I’m now on round two of my month long menus, and this time it’s even simpler: much less meat (as I won’t be pregnant too much longer, I hope!), and more straightforward meals that involve less use of cookbooks.

What’s cooking at your place? Please share tips about cooking, budgeting, babies, and other kitchen related epiphanies.

Love,

Kyce