Resting, working, thinking...a lot...

Hi,

I have missed you.  I have missed me.  I have been thinking a lot.  Big picture ideas, little picture notions.  What is going on, what will be, what I have control over, what I don't.  Then....what to make of that.

My friend Beth made it out of surgery well, but not as expected.  They opened her up to take out the large tumor and found several small tumors in the connective tissue.  It did not go according to the original plan, a new one has to be made...  What will be now?  This is the scary part to me, the unknown, the uncontrollable.  I felt really numb and sad for a while.  I still feel sad.   BUT, she is still here with us.  This is cause for joy, despite the unknown.  

We all are here just for as long as we are.  There are no contracts on that.  We have the time that we have and during that time we need to LIVE.  We need to appreciate each other and the work of our bodies, to do what we can to leave the earth better because of our lives LIVED here.

In a round about way all of this thinking and dealing has really made my word this year fit.  My word is Welcome.  For me it is about me being inviting in my heart to all the things I am going to learn this year, all the things that I am going to experience this year, all of the change that inevitably will happen.  I did not know when I picked my word that it was going to effect me so profoundly, but it is really helping me to see the journey that I am on.  I don't know if I really have ever thought that a life as a journey, as silly as that may seem.  For some reason I have always thought that it was more a series of discrete chapters.  I have always thought of things ending and beginning.  It does not seem so black and white to me now.  I am seeing that there is a flow to things, one event running in to another, and flowing back to a happening in the past that suddenly makes sense. Going on and on...  the lives of your children carrying you further and then back to your own parents.

Yes, it has been a week of much thinking.

The thing that strikes me as totally absurd and also totally obvious, is that while I have been having these Jack Handey-esque "Deep Thoughts", my boys have been marching on in their own growth.  In the past week my youngest has decided to be potty trained and my oldest is venturing ever forward in his pursuit of language and reading.  I think that all moms must go through this from time to time....as you, yourself seem to be growing and expanding, the little ones around you are showing you how it is done with far more grace and acceptance than you can muster yourself.  Wow.... and wow.

I have a bunch of exciting quilting, sewing ideas (you are going to sew your own clothes you say?), and I want to share about a sabbatical I am going to be taking this summer... but I think that has to brew for a few more days.

Thank you all so much for your kind words and heart felt prayers, I feel blessed by them and Beth will too.

JMB