Busha Full Of Grace

Life As I Know It

I love this blog.

This morning while searching for an old photograph to post for a friend on facebook (of Camille squatted in concentrated search for heart shaped sea glass - as a gift to me - on Glass Beach in Mendocino) I re-fell in love with my blog. But then, I know I've always loved it. Just over the past year it's been harder to create my entries. I don't know if I've been lazy, or uninspired or what. But bottom line is: I love this blog, and the people who read it, and the new way I look at my world since I've been blogging. Since I began this blog in 2006, I have realized that each moment is special and there is something in it to share. It keeps my mind focused and attentive. It inspires me to notice more carefully.

I think part of my lapse has something to do with my long work hours and the solitary natue of my work. I love these babies I care for. One year old twins I have know since they were two weeks old. I love them to death. I love them like my own. I miss them terribly when I don't see them. But my work day, from alarm to walking back in my door at night, is usually around 14 hours. So once there is the time to write, I am spent. As well, most days see the sun setting and I have only spoken to one year olds, all day, with a brief 15 minute chat with their parents in the evening. And the things I could share about my interaction with one year olds are so deep, so primal, so intuitive that they are hard to translate into spoken words. I find it hard to write about:

The exhillaration felt when I simply watch, for 15 minutes straight, as Eli balances and grips into standing with his little one year old hands and toes.

Or the depth of Sofia's giggle that makes me laugh out loud.

Or her dancing fingers that cross sometimes as if she's making a very important, secret wish.

Or the way she hugs you with her whole body until it shakes.

Or the feeling of Eli's soft plumpness under my kisses.

And the way he kisses back.

Or the mischief in his eyes.

Or just how I know exactly when the desire to sing Itsy Bitsy Spider comes into Sofia's little mind by the way she raises her right hand slowly and calls, Eeee Beee or when Eli sings Yippee Ky Yi Yi and it's knee slapping fun he wants.

So you see, it's unspoken, all spirit right now, my human interaction on a daily basis.  Our language is touch and music and kisses.  Kind of hard to put into words.

But I am blessed beyond words to live a life filled with children.  Where everything is forthright and honest and raw and real. 

It's just the words that are harder to come by these days.  But I am still here.  And I am still looking at the world through enthusiastic eyes.  And I'm not going away.

Just so you know.

 
 

Give Praise, Give Thanks!

A List of Praises

 by Anne Porter

 Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,

Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,

Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,

Give praise with the babble of infants,

who wake with the sun,

Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,

A poetry not in books,

a vagrant mischievous poetry living wild on the Streets through generations of children.

Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away

With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle

As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,

Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh

Of the wind in the pinewoods,

At night give praise with starry silences.

Give praise with the skirling of seagulls

And the rattle and flap of sails

And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell

Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.

Give praise with the humpback whales,

Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.

Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,

Give praise with hum of bees,

Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.

When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries

We know that the winter is over.

Give praise with mockingbirds, day's nightingales.

Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle

And glossy tulip trees

On quiet side streets in southern towns.

Give praise with the rippling speech

Of the eider-duck and her ducklings

As they paddle their way downstream In the red-gold morning

On Restiguche, their cold river,

Salmon river, Wilderness river.

Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.

Far, far from the cities, Far even from the towns,

With piercing innocence He sings in the spruce-tree tops,

Always four notes And four notes only.

Give praise with water,

With storms of rain and thunder

And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,

And the faint floating ocean roar

That fills the seaside villages,

And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains

And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,

And with the angels in that other country.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

With love,

Marianne

This Moment - A Friday Ritual

This Moment - A single photo, no words – capturing a simple, special, extraordinary moment from the week. A moment you want to pause, savor and remember . . .

 

0 - 17 - 40 - 57 - Love.

Brooke and Mama 1970

 

 

Brooke and Mama 2010

Traveling Shoes

Daughter Camille had her tonsils out a couple of weeks ago and all was going well until Day 8, when she started bleeding and needed to be re-admitted to the hospital. Everything ended up just fine, with the exception of her visit. She was coming to Chicago for the last four days of her recovery time off of work and obviously could not. So I called Jet Blue to see if her ticket could be used at a later date. They actually waived all transfer fees so that I could come and be with her. So here I am, waking up on Day 8 (once again) of my visit, on a beautiful Saturday morning, my 57th birthday, the doorway to my Saturn Return, home in my wine country, Sonoma. I've been here for a week and what a great week to be in San Francisco.

 

First of all, just to be with my family once again through Halloween, the gorgeous changing of the leaves in Northern California, and my birthday as well as Brooke's 40th birthday party tonight; but the vote and the Giants' victory too! It's been quite a week of gorgeous flaming trees (I've been searching all over the midwest for them and here I've found the most vibrant right here in my own neck of the woods), baseball games, San Francisco excursions, loving my family up and taking care of this body with familiar practitioners.

 

 

My mom:

 

 

Banana Nutella crepe at ti couz.  Yes, we shared it.  Yes, we loved it!

 

Organic pear hard cider.  Second yum.

 

 

Ocean Beach:

 

 

Cute Temple booty in the bathtub:

 

Birthday pedicures with my girls:

 

The pink of autumn that I love:

 

Just some photos snapped driving home from the dentist.  That's how beautiful Sonoma is...

 

 

 

 

 

I'm headed back tomorrow with a brand new look at life! And this morning I awoke to the soft, sweet breath of my little grandson, Satchel, no longer curled up in a tangle with me like days gone by, because his branches have grown so long. His lanky body stretched across the bed like a working rubberband, twisted into just the right extension of who he was last time I saw him. So flexible and so ready to grasp and hold onto each new bit of this earth. And simutaneously he stretches to find his perfect, very important, position within a family full of humor. His jokes pummel the air, trying on one after the other until he makes his mark. And he's getting it. Sometimes he is so right on with his cleverness and his timing that I laugh out loud. And sometimes....well, sometimes I just chalk it up to a good practice lesson! His new braces are changing his face, specifically the structure around his mouth. There is a vulnerability that chokes me up. A new softmess in the way his lips touch when he speaks. A tenderness when he holds them together in concentration. It is the newest treasure added to Satchel's pocket in the tapestry of my life.  And of course when I try to capture it he hams it up!  But blogworthy for sure...