Yesterday afternoon, Jason and the girls picked me up at work a few hours early so we could get in part of our family night before dark. I think we are all for family nights starting at 3 p.m. more often. We got to fit in a lot of fun before bedtime rolled around! It was Kali's turn to plan our time together and she had chosen picking up dinner at Chipotle and taking it to the arboretum for a picnic. We padded those two activities with a bunch of other things: a trip to Rocking R for some supplies and a little Christmas shopping at the request of one of our girls (no asking questions around Christmas!), a stop at the Friendly City Food Co-op for a few things to make wild WV cranberry sauce to take to the Benner Thanksgiving and a little more Christmas shopping (yes, our two older girls are very excited about Christmas already and it warms my heart to see how much they enjoy thinking about each other and their family and picking things they know will delight the people they love). We stocked up on books at the library and also went out for ice cream before heading home via the place we pick up our milk (this week we left all empty jars except for one filled with lard as a small thank you to them for helping to feed our pigs!).
I don't know the last time we went out for ice cream as a family, and we tried a new little place on the square downtown called Dream Cones. We were all fans - it's a narrow little shop, only staffed when the bell rings noting you have entered, and is cute and comfortable. They had little tables with coloring supplies for kids and were playing pleasant music. They serve hard serve ice cream, which is our preference if eating ice cream. All of those positive things would likely still not have gotten our family in the door; after all, Jason doesn't like ice cream and we are trying to avoid sugar and commercial dairy. But, it was very worth it! We went at our neighbor Robert Mast's request - in his obituary he asked that in lieu of doing anything else in his memory we go out for ice cream with our loved ones. So we did, and we remembered him together. Terah enjoyed the little chairs and dancing to the music and I'll admit that I'm thrilled she didn't even take note that the rest of us were eating colorful creamy stuff. Some could say we are depriving her. I'd say we are giving her a chance at a better foundation on which to build her own plan for how she wants to interact with what sustains her! And since she couldn't connect with the sentimental reasons for the outing we just enjoyed watching her play and work on some dance moves!
Terah also didn't pay much attention to our Chipotle burritos. I think it was partly that her appetite is messed up by the cold she has just landed and also that the pond at the arboretum had dozens of ducks swimming around in it. We sat by the pond and enjoyed our meal as the sun started to go down and the chill entered the air. Then the older girls got some good swinging bridge time while I walked Terah until she sacked out for a pick-me-up npa and then we went for a little hike all together.That's when I had my little "post-election reflection time." I've had lots of night-time anxiety sessions alone, many too many minutes spent on facebook, and some positive and deep connections with people of various viewpoints. My emotions continue to be all over the map and I am mostly not too interested in using this forum as a place for airing them. I'm eager for real conversations with real people and open to having those in variety of forums. In this space, I wanted to share a few thoughts that came to me on our brief hike.
Kali wanted to see if we could get to the labyrinth and back before dark. I was eager to try as well. As we neared it, I invited my family to join me in each choosing something/someone that we each wanted to dedicate the good energy of our family time and our walk around the labyrinth to. It was something we had done in the Circle Processes class I took the weekend before the elections that I found really meaningful. My musings aren't directly related to that, but I think having that intention as I walked had the labyrinth take on more meaning for me this time. Two things felt kind of profound about this particular walking of it.
First, as we were walking I realized how often it can feel in a labyrinth that I'm going the wrong way; that I'm going away from the center which is my final destination. Of course doing this before I know it turns out ok. But when if you haven't done it before? Or no one can assure it's going to be ok? How do you trust the process that if you stay the course you will get to where you want/you need (or we need) to go? It seems like we have made some strides in our country in the direction I'd like to see the world go (towards embracing the diversity in our world, celebrating and protecting it), to what feels like a big turn in the wrong direction. Can I believe that if I continue walking the path that connects my gifts and passions with the world's needs, we'll get where we need to go?Then as we wound our way around and out, I noted that when walking the labyrinth with other people it often appears that you are walking in the opposite direction. The divisions around me are stark and sad and painful. It often feels like we aren't all on the same journey at all. Can I push myself to believe that some of those that appear to walking in different directions from me are actually headed towards the same goal?
Even these brief musings are difficult to put out there. I feel like about anything can be twisted right now with tensions running high, or lead someone to be inclined to put me in one particular camp or another. What I'm working really hard to do is to be open to listening, to working at managing my own anxiety so that I am not debilitated from being the person I want to be for the world (and maybe most importantly my family and local community), and to embracing the anger, sadness, disappointment, and fear while looking for any and all signs of hope.
So here's a tiny ray of hope to end this reflection on! We adopted our road several years ago (via the department of transportation for trash pick up). The first number of times we did it, we lugged huge heavy bags of trash and recycling home. Up until this year I think we always got at least a full bag of each. We did our third pick up of the year this past week with my parents and came home with such a paltry amount I would have said it wasn't worth it, except we got to enjoy a lovely walk together on a beautiful fall day! Thankfully I'm beyond having the irrational thought that we aren't successful at our job if we don't find a lot. It's the kind of job that it would be great if we lost for lack of anything to do! Of course we hope that the reason for the decrease in trash is that folks noticed the road being cleaner (might I boldly claim "more beautiful") and decided to join our efforts and not only litter less but also use less stuff in the first place and not some other reason (like those that littered the most moved somewhere else). I'll choose to believe the former!
Now it's about time to get the finishing touches on dinner and enjoy the fact that Emily and Ivy have joined us at Tangly Woods for most of today. It's about all I can do to keep my hands off this sweet baby - but none of us want to be the one to pass our minor sniffles along to her! Not right before her big trip to the Benner home place for Thanksgiving. So we are admiring her from a distance and I know our older girls are feeling thrilled to have some Aunt Emily time while Terah gets a much needed nap and I get some work done. A nap would also have been nice since I haven't gotten any good stretches the last two nights - our kiddos are so dramatic at night when even the slightest bit sick, and then seem more or less ok during the day. The good days help me endure the nights but I sure was enjoying a bit more sleep at night. It will come...
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