Dark Nights

  Before I had children I don't remember too many 'dark' nights. By this I mean nights where I lay awake and things felt bad. Most days when I was little I was pretty tired when I went to bed and I had my thumb to suck and my blankie for comfort. When I was an older teenager I would do homework, talk on the phone, and read novels until I fell asleep with the light on. Then along came a time in my life as a young adult where I went through great loss and I was very ill. That was when the dark nights started. I was in so much pain physically but more so emotionally that I could not sleep and often I would slip away from my bed where my husband lay sleeping and I would crawl into a corner somewhere and sob with a pillow over my face. I often slept on the couch so as not to disturb him with my sobs. He never knew. There was so much pressing on me and I felt like I had nowhere to get away from the pain. It was every present and there. The dark nights continued after I had children as they have always struggled in many different forms with safe sleep. I say safe because there have been breathing issues but also much pain that comes after darkness falls. It has been the stuff of nightmares honestly. For I dare say most of the nights since my first son was born the nights have been dark. 

  Obviously night is dark. There is no sun and dark is dark. There is this other kind of darkness though that likes to settle like the deepest cloud over our home at night time. 

   Today as I was driving home after dropping off my son at his little class I was thinking about another dark night of despair and I was thinking about other mornings such as this. One morning I had been up all night and I looked out to see the sun rising over the mountain. Some mornings the sunrise is such a declaration and another morning I was driving home from somewhere and saw the blue of the sky as this continual sign of hope. There can be cloud and rain for days here and people literally and figuratively droop, and then the blue sky comes through and everyone straightens up in one way or another. So today as I was driving home the phrase came to me:

There is always victory on the morning's horizon 

  This is simply the fact that darkness must always give way to light. Each and every day the sun arrives an the darkness fades away. In battle one always must hope that victory lies ahead and one must keep on going forward. This is what I plan to do. No matter how many more dark nights there are ahead of me. No matter how many more days I drag myself from my bed and feel like I can't go on I simply just will. There is always the potential for victory in the coming of the light and I will hold that close.

xo

Tansy

Field

 When I was eight or just turning it my family moved to an island and settled on a thirteen acre hobby farm. We had moved from town on a very busy road to a quiet country road. The quietness almost settled upon you in a way that unless you've had it settle on you you'll never quite understand. Our previous house has been close to train tracks and there were scant minutes of quiet. We had neighbors so close we could wave at them through the windows and open the windows and chat. On the farm there was no one close enough to see through the windows. Out my windows there were apple trees blooming in Spring and my mother's vegetable garden and our fields with the horses. Where I live now there is a field across the road and I can't see in anyone elses windows. I feel so thankful. So thankful for this home and the field. I keep dreaming though of that time. I would go back through the fields, over the creek and into the back field where there was nothing but fields and trees. I would sit in the tall grass in silence. Except there was not silence there was the buzz of bees in the purple clover and there were birds singing and you'd hear horses snorting and sometimes a deer would wander by and I'd just sit.

My life now does not hold much silence. With five children in a space where we are all close all the time I find I am wishing to go sit in my own field surrounded by Buttercups and Clover and just feel that quiet settledness that comes. 

xo

A Good January

 January 2021

How have you been good so far to me? Oh January.

You have offered up many days of rain so that each sunny moment feels like some great blessing bestowed upon me. 

Your coming has reminded me to think about who I am, where I have been, and where I am going. 

January ~ I had a son in January and it was fourteen years ago now. It was a birth that changed the rest of my life ~ as all births do ~ and it forever changed January for me.

I have a little one year old who runs and sings and hums and giggles this January. She turns two oh so soon and this stage, this time will be over. This January is especially precious because of her.

This January 2021 like never before, any kind normal interaction with a fellow human is counted like  jewel, a pearl, a precious moment. Everything has changed but last January it was all still the same and I didn't know what was coming. I took it forgranted that seeing another persons whole face would be taken away. That going to church was something I might actually miss. That friendships were going to be shaken and last January I had no clue. 

January 2021 ~ The mountains shrouded with mist, white capped and regal are something I look at every day with thanksgiving. I have always been thankful but this time with so many other normal every day things stripped away, they are good for my soul in deeper ways.

January 2021 you are good

Thank you

Thrive

 In my home Covid 19 has brought about much introspection and change.

I hope you are finding your new long term normal where you feel you can thrive even in the midst of so much confusion and shifting rules. Every single person having their own safe way they feel they are operating and that not being the same as the next. 

I have been thinking on that word lately. Thrive. What does it even mean? I feel like in my family of origin thriving was not something you did. You survived. That is what you did. You survived as best you could day in and day out. You found simple pleasures if they were to be found but over all you were doing your best to keep on going to get to that next day.

I am plain sick of this. Sick of surviving. I want to thrive. Maybe you do to?

What does thriving even mean? Well I think just like every single person has decided how they individually must survive this Covid 19 time in history, it is the same for every person in their thriving state. It is totally unique to that soul.

I just wanted to put that out there. That I desperately want to thrive. That from the time I was my youngest self I have looked around longingly at those who seemed to thrive, that seemed to have some sort of connectedness to safety and joy that I did not have. I have wished to feel it. I have sought it. 

I still am seeking. And that matters. It is important. It is not a needy ridiculous longing that I will never achieve. It is something that holds much value to me. 
I am strong in this resolve and I will be victorious.

:)

Tree Stumps

 There are sadder things than a grove of trees that have been cut down

Desecrated really

But somehow the look of it

The death of it

Speaks of the saddest moments to me

Today when I saw one

It was in town

And I had enjoyed it so much

Over time in the Springs and Autumns

And it was gone

Just like that

And it reminded me of so many moments

Where I have seen the remains of a tree

And I have remembered so many other sad things

There have been so many trees that have mattered to me

That I have not forgotten

And when they have been taken

I have not forgotten

And I wanted to write that down

My Craft Fair Experience of 2020

  Here where I live November is an inglorious month. It is mostly grey, the beautiful leaves are usually swept away with wind storms, and  the rain pours down. However, for me November holds a promise that other months do not and that is the promise of craft fairs.

Oh craft fairs! They fill me with so much joy. I am not someone who feels overwhelmed with joy a lot, nope it is mostly just overwhelm and not as much joy. So craft fairs mean so much to me. This year with Covid and rules there were not many craft fairs and if there were I missed them as the ones I always attend did not happen. This was so hard for me. I actually didn't let myself feel it really I just tried to soldier on with the homeschooling and the driving everyone and managing all the behavioual issues of being house bound and bored etc. Deep inside me though I was quite sad. I look forward to this all year.

However I was given a glorious gift.

The day we went to get our Christmas tree I had my own personal craft fair experience. W were driving back with our tree strapped to our roof and my husband saw a free microwave and I saw a sign for a hand made wreath. He turned around to snag the microwave for his job site and I asked if he would pull over so I could take a picture of the sign and also look at how the wreath was made. I took some photos but then I asked him if we could just try to find the place that was selling them and he said yes. So we drove a ways down a side road and there was another sign. We pulled into the driveway of a house and I saw there was a door way open into the garage area. I hesitantly walked in as Covid has stripped all innocence and feelings of being welcome anywhere new. 

And I was delighted. No one was in there as the proprietor was out back creating. There were so many little treasures. There were the beautiful wreaths, there were soaps, there were jams and jellies, there were wood crafts, and it was all I needed to feel my craft fair joy pour into me. I was tearing up with happiness and I bought some treasures. The proprietor was so kind and so glad to share her talents and treasures with me.

This moment was a jewel in my year. It was like a special gift to me.

The Annual Christmas Tree Tradition

 We managed once again to uphold our Christmas tree tradition. It was a muddy glorious experience and we found our tree without too much drama and for the second year in a row no tears.