Tonight we’re leaving for a long birthday weekend trip (ours are one day apart. adorkable., I know.) C planned something — he won’t tell me where we’re going - just to dress for cool weather and bring this. I’m pretty giddy… (Taken with instagram)
Then, it came to me, while I was reading Little House on the Prairie to my sweet kiddos. A Revelation. Maybe we were making life too complicated. Maybe I was taking on too many things…more things than God ever meant for me to take on at once. Here I was bringing home toys I knew my kiddos wanted, clothes I thought they needed, books that I knew they would like. And adding to my misery in the process.
I started to realize how I was burdening my kids with this, too. Yes, they are excited when I bring home new things for them. Yes, they love that I thought of them. Yes, they think it’s great that they have yet another book to read. And I feel good that I’m ‘blessing’ them.
But when I ask them to clean their room and they balk and cry and lay down on the floor, too overwhelmed to even know where to begin, I realize I’m not blessing them. I’m saddling them with that same feeling of guilt that I have. Because they don’t really realize that they have too much stuff. They just know their mom is telling them their room isn’t clean enough. And often times hearing they aren’t good enough.
“
| — |
heading toward simplicity: Guilt Be Gone My sister Jen is quite simply the best mother I have ever known. As someone who has spent most of her baby making years in paralyzed doubt over whether having kids is right and how to have them without saddling all your worst tendencies and neuroses on to them (which they will then push on to their children like some crippling family crest), I am in awe of her incredible maternal acumen. And then I remind myself that she works hard at it. Physically, mentally and emotionally 16 hours a day — loving and listening to these kids, shaping them and responding to what they need to become the shape they want to be, cleaning and cooking and home schooling and disciplining and respecting and instilling wanderlust and curiosity and compassion and responsibility and playfulness. She reads every book she can get her hands on. She experiments. She studies. She asks for advice. She never stops. And it must be exhausting - but she makes it look so valuable and so rewarding…like there was no other reason she could have been placed on this earth. However. Raising five kids is complicated and taxing and never ending. And in addition to doing it well, she’d like to do it in a way that doesn’t break her with stress or guilt. To that end, she has started a really thoughtful, honest and profound new blog. Each month, her family is tackling a new experiment in an effort to cut out the excess that does not matter and in fact detracts from their family’s happiness….and refocus on a simple life that gives them more time for what does matter. Last month’s experiment was around laundry — reducing each family member’s wardrobe to just a couple of changes of clothes (they’re keeping this practice!). This month’s is around dishes — each family member (including the 4 year old and the baby) get one set of dishes and are responsible for cleaning them after every meal. Even if she wasn’t my beloved sister, I’d encourage you to follow her blog. We don’t agree on everything and our lives have taken very different routes, but I respect her more than anyone and learn from every conversation with her. Hope you enjoy their experiment on finding peace and simplicity in a society of overabundance. |
Children laughed and played nearby while men loaded bodies onto funeral pyres. Dogs lay near warm coals from old fires to keep themselves warm. Cell phones rang and people talked and it felt a long way from holy. The other side of the Ganges seems to have no development whatsoever, and perhaps that is by design. As night came and the other bank vanished in mist, no one could say where the river ended, or where the bodies might go. The Ganges became a river Styx to let loved ones drift into the afterlife. Lit by the fires of the dead, a man near the water’s edge began to wail.
Still we sat, letting an uneasy darkness creep over us. Something at the ghat felt like voodoo. It felt like dark magic.
“
| — |
Monsterbeard: Varanasi - Part 1
|
Speaking of Ben being close to people, he tells us he’s been in love four times. That’s a good amount, I like that. At least he wasn’t like “never,” or “once,” or “if only you understood French I could explain the dozens of loves I’ve possessed in my life, but English is not the language for this discussion.” Nope, he just straight-up says “Four.” Cool.
Also cool: Ben sent a girl home before the rose ceremony on some “I’m just not feeling this” shit. Big ups, Ben! This is what I’m talking about. What I’m not talking about is you being so easily manipulated by babytalking that you’d give someone a rose — particularly someone who unironically says “winning” after they manipulate you into giving them a rose. In other words, I don’t like you, Ben, when you like Courtney. Courtney is my sore spot, for sure. I feel like the things you like about everyone else make sense, even if they are boring things like “she’s beautiful” or whatever.
Clay Walker!? Who the FUCK is Clay Walker, Ben, and why is he playing a concert for us and how do you know the words to his songs? Ben, will you accept this rose? Back from me? I don’t want this rose anymore.
I like your suit and tie at this rose ceremony, I guess. I DO NOT like how we’re going to Puerto Rico next week. It’s starting to feel like you’re running from something, Ben. What is it? The Law? I kind of hope it’s The Law.
“
| — |
From Jane Marie’s brilliant Hairpin Bachelor reviews: Learning to Love Ben So I may have given you the impression that I spend all of my time reading tragic books in a semi-dirty bathtub, organizing my candy collection and taking pictures of things I cook / climb on / find in our front yard. Not true, friends, not true. For instance, on some Monday nights, we now waste two hours love/hate watching The Bachelor. Giggling and and mocking and lamenting in ironic-but-sort-of-real captivation. It’s like a very sad, very fun, low brow anti-feminist MST3K. It also reminds me of how I can’t watch America’s Funniest Home Videos because I audibly gasp and verbally interact (OH NO! BE CAREFUL! THAT’S NOT LOAD BEARING - OOFFFF!) like a hillbilly or a well manipulated live studio audience. So that’s the confession. For the first time ever, we’re watching The Bachelor. And enjoying it? I don’t know. Everything feels really confusing at this point in our lives. I thought I loved you Emily, but you were sort of not cool last night (even though Courtney IS the Devil). I do know that if I did a set of low lunges every time Ben said “This is someone I could see spending the rest of my life with” or a girl says “It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt this way about anyone,” I’d have the kind of ass you could sit a tea cup on, which is a life long dream. Please, send help. |
Let’s make a deal.
I’ll read Courtney Stodden tweets to him while he does the dishes. I don’t understand the lack of enthusiasm at this offer.
Still being on central standard time means you can consume the world’s largest mimoma in the bath tub before anyone is awake to judge you for your leisure. (Taken with instagram)
It is gaspingly cold here. So cold that when you run down the city block from your parked car to your early morning meeting, tears stream from the corners of your eyes and your breathing crystalizes in the wind. Until you just hold your breath. So cold that there is no snow and only chalky hard frozen streets. Hooded figures shuffling and trying not to shatter. Drifts of smoke and steam swimming away from every rooftop. See you tomorrow California. (Taken with instagram)
