dear Mikki and Katie…

i remember the day i brought you home from the hospital, Mikki. we entered our third floor Bangor apartment for the first time as parents, and i sat on the couch while i unbuckled your sleeping body from the safety of your car seat. it had snowed on the ride home in the car, uncommon for April even in Maine.  i laid you on my chest, and the feeling that came over me was a blanket of overwhelming  peace and comfort. rare  in motherhood, at least for me, are these instinctive and relaxed, conscious moments. that is probably why i remember them all.

what i did next left a vivid imprint on the inside of my heart and a lump in my throat…i turned on the television. CNN was on…i must have left it on the morning i left for work before i had gone into labor 3 days before. loud bombs and gun shots rose from the screen and wrapped the living room in a distant yet ripe fear. at that time, the war in Iraq was just beginning, and the reality that we had brought our baby girl into a violence saturated world was too much for my post pregnant, hormone overfilled, drama inclined anyway,  self. tears gurgled in the corner of my eyes, and i changed the channel to Trading Spaces on the HGTV network.

peace won’t always be at hand easily, girls. even in our souls and within our individual lives, that innate need is rarely indulged or sustained. as the world absorbs you and holds you as its own, as young people but more importantly as adults, promote, ignite, and just radiate from your very existence, a genuine sense of peace…for others, and for yourselves.

all my love darlings,

p.s: “maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. a happiness weapon. a beauty bomb. and every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. it would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas. and we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight. boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. with silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. and people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. {robert.fulghum}

daily mantra: life is a flower of which love is honey…{victor.hugo}

Oh blog readers…wedding season is in the air and I am beside myself with pure, uninhibited delight and joy. I had my very first engagement session of the season on Sunday with Jordyn and Jeremy, one of my couples getting married this May, and it was so fun to not only be doing what I love but to also be with such amazing people. Jordyn invited me down to her beautiful family farm where there were plenty of amazing spots for shooting, and it had such a relaxing and home-like feel that I wanted to day to last forever. I love it when my couples pick a place that is special to who THEY are, personally and together. The big day is now less than 2 months away, and will be my very first wedding this year….I can hardly wait.

sigh….I love this one!  xoxo….{a}

daily.mantra:
there is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt….{erma.bombeck}

daily.manta: our task is to say a holy yes to the real things in our life….{natalie.goldberg}

dear Mikki and Katie…

i can hear my Grammy Young saying it now…her voice never a distant echo despite the fact that she has now been gone over 10 years…i can hear it like she is standing behind me, her hands squeezing the back of my shoulders almost too tight, her rings digging into my summer sun drenched skin, kissed with water droplets from the lake. . . “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, Honey….” She gently spanked my swim suit and sand covered bottom, giving me a push towards, at that time, the deep water of Sandy Shores Pond, and then went back to her chair on the beach reading her mystery novel. one eye peeked up over the page, her book a disguise for non concern. (it’s funny how swimming where your feet can’t touch the bottom is a profound metaphor for life. i never realized that until just writing it.) years later, the lesson of the the deep end long since forgotten and surpassed, she would say it to me after my first real high school break up. my head buried, body folded, into her body like i was still 7 years old, snot running down my nose, crying through the non-breathing that heart ache causes….she was stroking my long hair and rocking…she said it over and over, as if repeating the words infused me with a strength i had not previously possessed. (it did).

life is painful and tragic and raw and magical and beautiful and unforgiving and tastes like cookies and milk with a side of vinegar sometimes. i won’t be able to stop that for you, and i don’t want to. because pain nourishes and cultivates something that cannot be learned in a book, or through the experiences of someone else….courage. you can’t be brave if nothing bad ever happens to you, and although part of me truly does wish i could stop all that gushy, messy life stuff from knocking at your door, you need that bravery…you will need it like you need nothing else.

all my love darlings,

p.s. daily mantra: courage doesn’t always roar.  sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says i’ll try again tomorrow….{mary.anne.radmacher}