the mud

  Dear College Kid and Post-Grads,  Welcome Home! You are finally here! And we are so happy to welcome you. It's been a long semester. You've faced trials and tribulations. You still need to meet your own benchmarks and others you've exceeded. But it's over now. For now, you must rest. For now, you are released from your duties and obligations for studying and group projects. You don't have to worry about homework and practice and when to wake up and when to eat. You are home. You can sleep until noon. We are here to love you back to health and wellness and give you that unmistakable feeling of home.  Some things haven't changed here at home. There will be bacon and eggs for breakfast and we will get cream donuts from McMillan's tomorrow. We will have bagels and cream cheese one morning. Some things are new to us. We will order the meat lover's pizza. We will make room on the shelf for your protein powder. Some things have changed. We painted the front d

 I've been in college far too long. I've failed terribly and I've thrived epically too. But after a while, you should just be done. Like Sam Hartman. My family knows that I'm not a big fan. If you are 24 playing against kids who are on average 19 and 20, maybe it's time to move on. I mean I know it's tempting, but really, maybe you need to play against people your own age? Sorry, Sam.  I'm not done for those reasons and I don't mean that I'm a student either. I'm a mom of college-age kids. For the past 6 years, since 2017, I have had one or more kids in college. And those are where I've had my toughest losses and my greatest gains. It hasn't been easy. Some days I'm on my A-game. Some days I'm on the DL - the disabled list, or the down low. I shouldn't be in the game, but they still play me. I don't have any good answers and I forget to turn off my teacher voice. It's different having kids in college than when I actual

No one hangs on my leg any more as I leave the house. Only the dog. No one wants to know where I'm going and when I'll be back. Only the dog. No one responds to my texts about shopping when I ask what everyone wants. No one runs to greet me when I return home. Only the dog. No one gets underfoot to carry the groceries in and help unload. Only the dog. Everyone comes when I start cooking dinner and wants to know what that smell is. Even the dog. 

Every day in August is a Sunday... maybe you've heard this before, probably from a teacher. Every day in June is like a Friday, every day in July is like a Saturday, and every day in August is like a Sunday. All that anticipation of BTS. My nieces have a rule not to use the "S" word. You know, the one that starts with s,c,h. Shh - don't say it. That time of year when everything ramps up - kids, paperwork, forms, shopping, planning, packing, scheduling, and trying so hard to fit in one more moment of summer and to APPRECIATE it before it's all gone. I don't have any advice. I don't know how to relish the days or to make them last longer. I don't know how to slow things down. I think trying to just makes it worse. I've tried countdowns and picturing today as the last day of summer and none of it works. I asked a teacher friend how many days he had left before returning to school and he said, "Oh, I don't count." So I'm trying that.

 One of the great joys of parenthood is when your child comes home. It doesn't really matter where they have been, just that they are home. Sometimes it can be from school and you were worried when you sent them out the door, about their friends, their tests, their work. Sometimes it can be from an outing and you were hopeful things would go as planned or as they imagined. Sometimes it is from their first job and they walk through the door exasperated and exhausted and you can cook them something and they feel better. Sometimes it can be from college and you are so grateful to see them again and hold them in your arms. And sometimes it can be from very far away after a very long time and they are transformed from when they left you. And you have to pause and say, Oh my goodness. Who is this? Where have you been? How are you? How are we now that you have this new story to tell?  This week Matt got home from Alaska, after 40 days working as a fishing quality control monitor on a boat

  I have a recurring dream where we live in a house and we suddenly realize there is another whole room that we didn't know was there. It's usually cute and just needs a little touch up. They say these dreams occur when we learn something new, or have a new awakening. Well, this is about an awakening of sorts.  I am sitting here, in my back porch, which is enclosed in screens and windows and a little door outside, which is why I say in. And as I sit here, I've been working all day. And as I've been working, I've been literally lamenting the fact that I don't have a desk or a better place to sit, or a place to store things, or a place to do more. I am sitting on the couch with an old TV table from the attic in front of me and a little pencil holder and papers spread all around me. I lean forward to type and it's annoying. The cushions from the outside furniture are piled next to the windows and they are annoying too, haphazardly thrown about and piled. And I&

A crew mom from Charlie’s high school asked me for pictures from last year's end-of-year celebrations so that she can replicate some of the traditions we had. I was anxious to check through these emails so I could cross things off my growing list. But as I scrolled through old pictures, I got caught in a net of memories, people and places and smiles I’ll never forget, of Charlie’s days of high school rowing, which weren’t that long ago. Looking at his bright face through rowing, and prom and graduation, his seventh-grade awards ceremony, his third-grade class trip, then suddenly sitting in his college sweatshirt, not knowing yet what the future holds. How can this be? How can this moment have gotten here so fast? It still seems impossible to think that he is off to college. I just can’t help but see him as the little kid I relentlessly hugged without thinking, the little guy who ran around the yard chasing his older brothers and sister, the youngest and the easiest in so many ways.

 When my kids were small, I would watch things happen and think, "Thank God there is a guardian angel watching over them." They would just miss the corner of the table as they fell off the couch. The glass would fall just inches from their face. The baseball would just miss their head as they went for a catch. Once I came home to see police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks in front of our house. A woman had driven her car up on our front lawn and had just missed where the kids had been playing with my husband a few moments before. Guardian Angels. Then there were times when it wasn't a miss, but a hit: the broken bones, the cuts, and scrapes, the poison ivy that sent us to the emergency room. (Yes, it was that bad.) But there were angels in the ER too.  I thought that guardian angels were part of everyone's childhood. We used to say a prayer in elementary school, "Guardian Angel, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my si

 No these are not the words from my kids to me, they are from me to you: Moms out there who are doing it. Love you Moms, who show up Love you Moms, who do the toughest work behind the scenes. Love you Moms, who put a smile on when all you want to do is cry, or at least nap. Love you Moms, who offer a welcome to the newcomer, and a banana to the kids. Love you Moms, who show vulnerability and bravery. Love you Moms, who cut through the small talk and get to the good stuff. Love you Moms, who share the hard parts. Love you Moms, who share the recipes and the gardening tips. Love you Moms, who listen too. Love you Moms, who know what it is to pray, all day and all night some times.  Love you Moms, who are carrying the loaded bags of goodies for our boys, my boy too. Love you Moms, who are carrying heavy burdens. Love you Moms, who lightening each other's loads. You are amazing. You are beautiful. You are powerful. You are holding it all together and yet starting to breathe. You aren&#

I missed writing yesterday, Good Friday. I was preoccupied with getting my house cleaned, a Good Friday tradition in my home growing up. My mother called it a "Big Sweep" and the idea was that you had to clean everything, even under your bed. I don't recall that there was much of anything under my bed, but I guess we had to vacuum there too.  Anyway, as I was cleaning I thoughtfully looked at the Blessed Mother statue on my dresser. I have had it since my grandmother gave it to me either for my first communion or confirmation, I'm not sure which. Either way, it was about 45 years ago! She is a staple there and some days go by when I don't pay much attention to her. She has traveled with me through life and has also collected the wear and tear of accumulated dust, stains, and brokenness.                  Because I wasn't always so careful, her halo is broken. Not just once, but three times. She has markings of coffee spilled on her and stains from dust and who

 No, I do not have servants. I still clean my own house and my husband still does our lawn. We did have a company come to remove a tree, but we don't have servants. The idea of servants is a humbling one to me. I cannot imagine asking someone to do things for me that I could capably do myself. But there is the reverse concept too - Can I imagine myself serving others in a servant position? I don't know. There is something uncomfortable about it.  In the social culture today there is a concept of the Servant Leader. It can be dated back to ancient times, but the basic principle is that a person serves the organization and its people and that the organization serves the person as well. Robert Greenleaf wrote a book on it in the 70s. One question for a servant leader to ask is, "Do we, and those we serve, grow as people?" I have worked for two women in my life who embody this principle. They are such magnanimous leaders that in their presence, you feel lifted. They were

 We are planning a party later this spring that is going to be an open house. We will invite everyone on our list and hope that they can all attend. We will welcome those we haven't seen in a while and those who we see every week. We will welcome those who get on our nerves and those we are close to. We will welcome everyone. The littles, and the bigs, and the old and the young. The neighbors, the family, the old friends, and the new. I started to get the yard ready this morning because we are supposed to have great weather for a few days.  In our search for our mission, our vocation to help others, can we be as welcoming? I never felt so welcomed as when I visited my grandmother when she was still with us. She would stop whatever she was doing and just get a big smile on her face, clasp her hands together, and just bestow so much love on me. From the time I was little I cannot remember a single time she was upset or disappointed in me. If I told her something unpleasant, she would

 Dear Friends, We have made it through Lent, whatever your lenten sacrifices were, planned and unplanned, expected and unexpected. This is Holy Week. We are preparing ever more urgently for Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In the Catholic church, we have Holy Thursday - a beautiful evening of prayer around Jesus' last meal - a Seder meal that we share with our Jewish cousins. It is a time to reflect on Christ's last days and conversations he had with friends, always acting to fulfill his purpose here on earth. We have a purpose too. This week I invite you to turn your focus outward. We have thought and rethought about who we are, what we need, what we want, and now we turn to others. What gifts do we have that we can share with others? Our world is so hungry, so in need of our love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and our mission. How can we feed them?  St. Ignatius called us to be people 'for and with others'. What does that mean to you? Who are you for? Who are

 Here is a little prayer I've been saying as I go to sleep, or anytime I want to just refocus and ground myself in the moment. There are a few variations you can use to begin the prayer.  I breathe into my... Mind and headspace I breathe into my eyes and face I breathe into my jaw and neck I breathe into my clavicle and shoulders My arms and elbows, forearms and wrists, hands and fingers. I breathe into my heart and ribs, I breathe into my organs and stomach, I breathe into my hips and back, I breathe into my legs, and knees, shins and ankles, feet and toes.  With each breath, I try to focus on sending oxygen through my body and as I do I relax my muscles. I find it calming and quieting. You could focus on any parts of your body. I use eyes because my eyes always feel tired at the end of the day. My hips and back are prone to soreness. Sometimes I pray down my body and I'm done or I'll go back 'Up' my body and say it in reverse. It kind of flushes out the aches and

 Yesterday I got a call from Annie. I no longer worry so much when a kid calls out of the blue. I don't know why. Anything could happen, right? But a part of me trusts that things are going to be okay. Again, I don't know why. I guess I'm still learning to trust my children, now that they are in their 20s. Trust is so important to our relationships with kids. I think I'm learning to do it better each day, each year. Or maybe it's something we have to learn over and over as they grow. I remember when Jay was in high school and he was a little shifty about something, and I knew he was struggling with making the right choice, and ultimately he did. I learned to trust him and through high school, I was like, "He's got this. He knows what to do." But now I kind of fear each new milestone in a way. "Now that he's off to college, is he going to do the right thing?" "Now that they are on their own, are they going to know what to do?" &q

Our cushions on our couch always reveal what's been going on. When Charlie and Matt were here together over spring break, the indents in the couch in the family room showed how they'd been hanging out or up all night or even sleeping there. The pillows get tossed to the floor and they are free to lounge wherever. The blankets tell the story of how long they were there. Twisted up - usually a long time. Gently tossed but not totally unfolded - usually a short sit. The pillows and cushions on other couches are usually moved only a little. In the living room, the pillows get pushed aside when we have a quick conversation while waiting for someone to get ready or on our way out the door, but they don't really retain any imprint of an extended stay. When cleaning the office, I'll move the pillow to the center where it sits up nicely. Jason will move it to the end to take a little nap and it folds gently against the arm of the couch. In our 'coffee chairs' in the kitc

  When you read those words, what came to mind? Was it visions of lush greenery in an open field? Soft lamps and candles lighting the indoors? Blankets piled on a soft couch? A bunch of ingredients that you are putting together for dinner. What do you surround yourself with? Who do you surround yourself with?  I've been thinking about this. When we were in California, we were surrounded by others who were on vacation, happy to wake up each morning looking forward to a day of adventure and promise. We were surrounded by beautiful rolling rocky hills with various trees growing here and there. All of it brought out another part of us - a part that hadn't been before. We were surrounded by fields of vines upon vines, some old and gnarly and some thin and tallish. And mustard flowers, believe it or not. They say the Jesuits brought the mustard to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys and sprinkled them around. The mustard enriches the grapes grown for wine, so they still grow it. Every row of

 Everyone seems to be talking about cutting back. Cutting back on calories, cutting back on wine, cutting back on spending, cutting back on work, even quiet quitting, which I tried a little. Cutting back is good, but then there's a voice that says, No, Do more! and I become confused. What is all this supposed to mean? I remember telling my kids they had no excuses to do less. They had full bellies and a loving home and everything they needed - no need to do less with all they had. I have the same privilege, so how can I cut back, and still follow my own advice. What's my excuse for doing less?  While I am trying to cut back on social media, I started following this wonderful gardener on Instagram who visits random (seemingly) gardens and offers just a bit of advice on how to care for things. One thing in gardening that is perplexing to me is how to care for hydrangeas. Some you are supposed to cut back, like way back. And so I've hacked away at these 3 bushes we have and ea

the mud: Unexpected :  So after a wonderful visit with my son, I'm a little behind in writing and have some catching up to do. There were so many days when I ...

 So after a wonderful visit with my son, I'm a little behind in writing and have some catching up to do. There were so many days when I should have written and even wanted to write, but was just too tired or caught up in things that I didn't. Anyway, last week I wrote Expecting. Today, it's the Unexpected.  After flying into San Francisco, we stayed in a little inn in Sonoma for the first few nights. (I may blog more about our trip later because there is so much to share, but I'll save it for another time) We met some people and it was lovely. What we didn't expect is that one of the couples from the hotel would be on our tour in Napa, on a little bus through the hills and vineyards, but there they were. And what we didn't expect was that while we are from very different places, they are from Montana and we are from NJ, we would have so much in common and would very quickly become friends. We hope to visit them one day! Expect the unexpected! And while the weath

Yesterday I traveled cross country with my husband to visit our son. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride with heavy winds much of the way. But it was so amazing to look into his eyes, to see him in his own place, to see where my son now lives. Since he moved here last summer I had visions in my head of what it would be like. Well it is far more lovely than I imagined. As we walked down his street to a cafe the newly wet streets were coated in fresh blossoms of I don’t know what but it smelled divine. I could go on and on but the lesson I believe is that we travel, we land, we imagine what could be. It could be far more than you imagine.  Where are you? Where are you going? Imagine big! Even if it’s bumpy you’ll get there. 

the mud: Nourishment :  Thank you for continuing on this Lenten journey with me. I appreciate you being here and I hope you are finding something that speaks to yo...

 Thank you for continuing on this Lenten journey with me. I appreciate you being here and I hope you are finding something that speaks to you. What do I need? What do I want? What do I feel? All of these questions are important to ask ourselves and our children, our spouses, and our friends. We find deep connection when we ask them.  But for today I want to pose another question: What do I eat? Part of Lenten rituals regards abstaining from certain foods on Ash Wednesday, Fridays, and the Easter Triduum, the 3 days leading up to Easter. Some people think this is nonsense, that what we eat shouldn't be a sacrifice. I remember a teacher in high school saying that the fishermen in Ireland wanted the Pope to make meatless Fridays because they wanted to increase the fishing industry in Ireland. I have no idea if that's true, but maybe? In our house, we try not to cook fresh meat, we sometimes order pizzas (which is not a sacrifice at all, haha), but lately we've just been eating

Often we hear about how important it is to grow, stretch our wings, reach out. I've heard from astrology friends that the planets are aligned in a new way right now and that this is an incredible time to bring new things into our lives. But what? you ask. What am I trying to do, what am I trying to grow toward? The only way to answer that is to be grounded, to be deeply rooted in who we are. Then we'll know where to grow, how to grow, and what we need.  So how do we get there? First, we have to go back to what we wanted as young 20-somethings. What were you dreaming of then? How has your life matched those goals? How has it veered off course? Are there dreams that have been dormant? Just lingering beneath the surface? When we connect back to our truest selves, the ones that existed before kids, before marriage, before time and life took a toll on us, what does that self still yearn for? Going back to our roots, connecting to our inner child, our inner voice will encourage us to

 Yesterday for lunch I made Campbell's Beef Barley soup. It was way in the back of the cabinet and I thought I'd just clean it out. Making the soup reminded me of the time when I first found out I was pregnant. During that pregnancy, I craved Campbell's Beef Barley soup, so much so that I drove half an hour to a store to get some. We lived in farm country then and of course, we didn't have uber eats, so we had to go out and fend for ourselves. The funny thing is, it was exactly 25 years ago. Making the soup yesterday for lunch took me right back to that time. Sometimes I wonder what it is that jogs these memories - the light, the air, the temperatures outside, the season, the smells? Anyway, I remember that time - being so careful of everything, careful about moving, careful about sleeping, careful about working too much, careful about lifting or carrying anything, careful about what I ate and drank. The doctor wanted me to take it easy., not traveling, not standing on

 Sometimes there is nothing so gratifying as cleaning. Today I tried to clean a pair of pants that I love but that have a stain. And a pair of Annie's sneakers that seem to be in vogue right now and that I want to wear for a trip.  I watched a video on how to clean these stains. I got out a bunch of supplies. I still have about a gallon of hydrogen peroxide from the pandemic, when we thought we'd never have enough cleaning supplies to fight the virus. And a handy dandy toothbrush to gently scrub the hell out of the stain. It may have worked; it may not have. The pants are soaking and then I'll run them through the wash. The sneakers came up nice with a little cleaning sponge but I still have to wash the shoelaces. It felt good to do something menial and focused. You definitely don't need to worry about much when cleaning a pair of sneakers.  Cleaning is part of Lent too. My. mother used to banish us to our rooms on Good Friday to clean between the hours of 12 and 3. Wha