Sometimes when we wake up the farm it feels like a little extra magic the way the light hits, or the way the clouds stack up against the pastures.
Today not only was Easter Sunday, it was a day we got to share the farm with strangers. Having a cameraman show up at 7:30 with a reporter just after an egg hunt and blueberry muffins is not for the faint of heart. We are grateful to give a glimpse of the place we call home to people who need a little wonder in their life.
Today also marks 13 years of meeting Mr. Lacko at my sisters deli. Where we said yes to one date- that clearly changed the course of our lives.
So while we sat through church and I cried the whole way through it- for all of it- the hard stuff, the good stuff, the Saturdays that are caught between Good Friday’s and Joyful Sundays. This life is blessing I try not to take for granted.
So while we were all gathered around my parents table. And while we walked the yard of my grandparents house and we recalled old days and took stock of empty rooms that hold lots of dear memories- I’ll be a little extra thankful that the girls held their daddies hand at church and their grandparents hands on a walk down and old gravel road. And that my sisters and I wiped the dirt off the front porch steps and found the place our hand prints rested in concrete, in 1986, and think to myself, we’ve come a long way- and we’re just getting started.
Settle in. Make some tea. I want to tell you something as we step out of the last day of November, as we settle in to the shift of December.
In the July/August 2012 issue of the Atlantic Magazine, an article was written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, Atlantics most read article of that time with over 3 million clicks.
The day I stumbled upon it I was close to 5 months pregnant and was leaving a career I absolutely loved as a 911 dispatcher and headed to a career in the federal government where I aspired to be a leader within the organization…and to eventually land my dream job there. So that title, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” just stared at me from its home near the register. I paid cash for it and walked out the double doors scrutinizing every angle of the picture and about to devour her words.
Three weeks later I boarded a plane, flew across the US, attended my first conference for my new gig, and I walked into a foreign world as an entirely unknown name to anyone within the walls- let alone around the globe. A place filled with brilliant humans and tough jobs and a whole lot of paperwork. And the first year was hard. Going from being needed and loved to being unknown and un-needed, all the while harboring a stowaway in my expensive maternity suit jacket.
Every time it got hard I dug in. Every time I wanted to quit, I called a mentor and they would talk me off the ledge. And then came the day the doctor put me on bed rest and suddenly work didn’t matter at all. Only getting a little baby safely into the world mattered. All the priorities shifted. And only briefly did I think; but why can’t I have my cake and eat it too.
So Amelia came into the world. And swallowed me up. I would hold her in the crook of my arm with a text book in the other so I could finish my bachelors degree. I would wake at 5am to nurse her and then walk out the door for work at 7:30am and hand her to my mother. And cry on the way to work that I left my 9 pound human with someone other than myself. And we survived.
The defining moment came when I passed all my boards and boarded a plane to Chicago to see if I could pass an interview for my dream job. I was now 5 months postpartum with Evelyn, sweet baby girl number two. Dream job on the horizon. I boarded the plane with a crisp size 4 gray suit, blue silk blouse, killer heels and a breast pump with freezer bags. I was going to crush that interview and have every single thing I wanted. I left my hotel room at 5am for a run, breakfast, pumping, and at 7am sharp arrived for my interview with 2 freezer bags of milk chilling in the ice bucket of my room. I crushed it. And when the facilitator asked me if I wanted to double check my work since I had finished so quickly, I responded with, nah, I’ve got plans. And I boarded a plane home and already knew what my answer was for if they offered me the job.
I turned it down. Much to the surprise of my husband, the relief of my mother and the shock to my friends. “You’ve wanted that since 8th grade.” I did. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe I wanted the very life I had made, and that was ok too. There is a season for everything.
Turning that down meant yes to so many other things. Turns out, my dream job was waiting for me just two office doors down, minus so much travel plus tucking in babies at night. It all still comes at a cost. And contrary, I do think I have it all, despite the Atlantics bold print font that I couldn’t. I might not have it in bank account numbers, or a fancy house, nor fancy car. But I love my job, even on the worst days. Even with the sacrifices that come with it still. The late nights or the weekend calls. Or the dark things we see. Because I come home to the light. To two little girls with lopsided artwork and dirty faces. To stories and puppets and make believe worlds. To gardens and flowers and family who are all there. To my parents patiently helping with homework or pick up schedules. To a husband that reminds me every time I get in the drivers seat and I ask him, “why don’t you drive?” And he responds with- “because you don’t passenger well.” And I think- truer words have never been spoken. It’s why I know I want- need to stay and work to make more of a difference for our organization. It’s also so that hopefully when my daughters raise to these ranks- it won’t be so hard to have both. That emphasis will be where it should be.
Because the act of selfless and service and caregiving are intertwined. You can’t appreciate the art of caregiving without literally caring for the people. Your people. Only then do you know the vast expense of its wealth.
So when the young girls with rounded bellies or fresh babies come into my office and ask me how to climb the ladder or what it feels like to miss out at home for the hard things we do for our mission- or how to make a roast or how to have that hard conversation or-but how do you do it all? You do all the things, all of them, and sometimes it’s exhausting. Some call it second shift, Anne referred to it as a lead parent. I am both. I am also neither.
I simply say, I don’t. I have a support team. I’m not afraid to ask for help. I want my daughters to know too. They can do big things and small things. But what matters most is finding the magic and joy in it and not taking for granted the value of your people. Women can’t have it all- nor men. Nor anyone really. Not every day. But you can have some of it all the time. Balance is something for gravity, but not a realistic setting for life. Some days home will get all of you, and some days work will demand more. And some days it all will fall apart and other days it comes easy. I spend lunch breaks eating my salad at my desk to save time, and sometimes I volunteer at the school for recess duty so I can see my kids on their turf. Sometimes my 45 minutes is for grocery shopping so I can get home and still do one fun thing before we turn off the lights. It’s more of rhythm and dance- or an adventure, and a gratitude for a willingness to try again tomorrow.
I’ve saved the magazine all these years. It sits in my bedside table. To remind me of the work I’ve done and the choices I make and why I make them- and for whom I make them.
Today’s the day! So thankful to launch something near and dear to me.
When we moved to this farm, it wasn’t a flourishing wealth of color and flowers, it was bleak and dry and unloved. With some seeds, a little faith, some hope and hard work, we grew a garden. From the garden we found we not only grew joy, but we found new stories, shared them, and continued to harvest all of it. In June I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream so vivid I grabbed the pen and paper by my bed and I scratched the words out. In the morning I woke Lance and told him. When we give someone a seed, we give someone a story and we cheer them on during the planting, the tending and the bloom. It isn’t really until the next chapter that they see how many stories came from one seed, and how many more will come next season.
I’m not sure what garden you want to grow, or who will reap its harvest; a friends wedding bouquet, a single bloom pinned to a grooms jacket pocket. Sunflowers on a fresh grave, roses to the new mother, zinnias to cheer a grieving friend. Dahlias and Peony’s to celebrate life. Plant the seeds. Grow them. Share them, and tell the story, preferably, over a good cup of tea. Storyteller Seed Co. For joy, hope and sharing the harvest.
@storytellerseeds
This is the story. 40 years in the making. I’m Sarah, and this is the garden that I built. It started along time ago, before I even knew this little bit of land right here would ever be a place I called home. I’ve been many things in my life, and I’ve been called many things in my life, from eccentric and thoughtful, to persnickety and cold. All the words woven into my fabric to make me stronger, more colorful, softer and different kind of beautiful. Every failure a stepping stone, every set back a dance. So this story, everyone’s story, is a garden. Hard patches, harsh conditions, growing pains, learning curves. Sunshine and rain and careful tending, growth and greatness and harvesting. It’s the tiny seed, to the mighty oak. The fresh flowers by the new mothers bed, the handful of roses in the weeping widows grave. The celebrations and the trials. The mourning and the making. The shifting and changing of every season. A little seed held in the child’s hand with a mother whispering it’s meaning and needs. To grow a garden of whimsy and secrets. To grow a garden of sustainability. To grow a community and connection. To feel the warmth and coolness of earth in your very hands and persevere, try again. It’s hurrying grief and planting joy and hope. It the magic and miracle of the process. The story is the seed, and all of us it’s storyteller. So what story will you grow? Storyteller Seed Co. #seedcompany #grow #bloom #plant #garden #sustainableseeds #organicgrowing #smallfarm #smallfarm #beautifulbackyardbounty #greenhouse #community #shoplocal #placerco #lincolnca #flowerfarmer #smallfarm #organicliving @storytellerseeds
One minute I was laughing at the girls and the three of us were piled in greenhouse goofing around and the very next minute changed quickly to fear. Amelia asked me what was in the field.
We were having some tractor work done on the property and I could see our friend jump off the tractor. I started running to the hose. When I put my head up again to look down the field I yelled to the girls to go in the house and take the animals. It was all on fire.
Lance and my dad happened to be running late on their trip to Home Depot this morning- thank God. I yelled to them “fire” and Lance came running with the extinguisher and my dad was grabbing shovels.
That wind was brutal today though. In the midst of dialing 911 and giving directions I could feel my heart sink as the fire cut through the field and made it to the neighbors haystack and barn in a matter of minutes. I jumped in the truck and raced to their house yelling for them to get out of their house and searching for their hose. When I rounded the corner of their barn I was met with a wall of fire. I turned to the neighbor and told them it’s too late and they needed to go.
I raced back to the house and ran to the field with buckets and hoses but we were no match for the raging fire around us. I will tell you three things though, three very important things. Even though the winds weren’t favorable today, God found mercy on us. The first call I made was 911. The second was to the neighbors directly across from us. All I said was, “Michael the field is on fire” and he appeared with a tractor and set to work. Michael saved our house, and as his beautiful wife was coming up the drive I yelled to her to please go sit with our children. She was wonderful to them and I am abundantly grateful. She held the line with our kids when it was chaos and I couldn’t be in there with them.
The second thing to note is that after I hung up with 911 and Michael, I started to pray. I sent 4 text messages to 6 different friends and it said, “I need you to pray.”
My feet were hot from running through the fire and the heat burned our faces. I prayed for the fire department to come quickly- and it felt like forever, and then down the driveway came two young men in a PGE truck- he looked at me through the window and said- “We saw the smoke and thought we could help.” Why he was in the neighborhood, and by the grace of God in a water tender PGE truck was a gift from God. They went to work putting water on the ground before the fire could take over our actual yard.
The fire trucks came rolling in, and Placer Co Sheriff, the prison crew, all of them. Every last one of them helped us. I’ve never been more thankful for all of them.
The third thing is this: When I got in the car coming back from the neighbors house, the song on the radio station was playing, “there was another in the fire standing next to me, there was another in the water holding back the seas.” I was scared for our neighbors today. I was scared when I couldn’t see my dad through the smoke. I was scared when Lance was running down the field. I was scared that the girls were in the house and I wasn’t there. I was scared the friend doing tractor work was going to catch fire.
Instead of letting that fear take over, I put my faith in God and said Gods got us, and I set about to do the work. No one was lost today. All humans were accounted for, and every last animal was safe. The winds might have been brutal today- they still were as we went out and checked fields for hot spots and carrying buckets to cool the earth and shoveling dirt- but God had us. My family has us and the neighborhood.
When the fire chief left today and Lance and I walked the burned fields and went and checked on the neighbors- apologizing profusely, and heavy hearted at the destruction, we were both abundantly grateful for the mercy shown on us today.
We’ve washed the soot from our bodies and our aloe on the burns and the girls are in our bed with us tonight. My prayers of gratitude on my lips. Today could have had a very different outcome, but I won’t dwell on what could have been. We weren’t given a spirit of fear, so we will meet the days ahead of us with all the work that needs to be done to fix fences and fields and the trust of neighbors.
Fires burn down a lot of beautiful things, but they also give a fresh slate. So in the clean up we will be mindful to plant more seeds of courage and joy and hope and see what springs forth from the charred earth.
To all the helpers today, and there were so so very many of you. My deepest thanks.
Monday afternoon I took a conference call on the porch and checked emails from the garden beds and pulled resources for colleagues in need. At 12:30 I left to physically be in the office and waved goodbye to the girls at the gate with promises of flying kites in the field that night. When I drove back in at 5:45 they were dressed and holding their kites. We made our way to the farthest end of the property and threw wild flower seeds and watched the kites whip in the wind.
Tired at sunset we made our way back to the house. On Tuesday everyone was out of sorts. Big emotions and tired bodies. By 11 I hit pause on homework assignments and told them to take a break outside. 5 minutes later both girls were crying and I scooped them up and we sat under the shade of the plum tree and I told them we needed to hit reset. I walked down and found Lance sitting quietly at the edge of the greenhouse and had him come up to the house. I made a huge charcuterie board and we sat down for grace.
I left for work and came home with promises to plant sunflower seeds in a row. When I got home Evelyn seemed fine. The girls greeted me at the gate and waited for me to change out of my work clothes. They showed me their creations and I called them for dinner and bath. Evelyn told me she was cold after her bath and was all bundled up in blanket. I was perplexed by her blotchy red body and tired eyes. I held my hand to her head and scrambled to get the thermometer. 103.5 and lethargic. I carried her back to the bath to cool her body and began rewashing her hair for some reason. I found 3 ticks on the back of her head and called for Lance, Amelia lingering behind him trying to hear my whispers.
By now it was 8:45 and I knew we would miss the urgent care by minutes. I called the advice nurse and was told we had 4 hours to find a place to take Evelyn in to be seen. A handful of phone calls later and frantic text to my mom and sisters at close to 10 asking them to pray for Evelyn. I didn’t want to take her to the emergency room, but I couldn’t not take her because she was so sick. Blue cross put me on with an emergency room doctor in California who requested she be seen and assured me that at close to 11:30pm the emergency room was empty and we would be seen right away. I asked what they would do and what she would be given. He went over it with me and then said, “if you can keep her fever down and watch for a rash tonight then take her to the pediatrician first thing in the morning, then you don’t have to bring her right now. If it changes, then straight to Emergency.” Motrin, cool wash cloths, Pedialyte and prayers all night long.
In the morning her fever was holding at 100 and she looked better. Pediatrics got us right in and taught me to look for the signs of Lyme Disease. How high her fever could go before I had to take her to the hospital and how severe her reaction was to 3 tick bites in one location, the lymph nodes down her neck entirely swollen. By noon and a dose of heavy antibiotics she was tired but the fever was gone. By Thursday she was getting her appetite back. Today she was busy and playing. We are still watching her for fever and rash for 27 more days. And she has over a weeks worth of antibiotics to take still.
You guys my heart was wrecked and beating in my ears at midnight with her in my arms. Evelyn hates doctors more than anything and she was terrified and so brave. She asked me what was going to happen and as calm as I could I walked her through it. I was praying and talking to her and singing. As I put on her little slippers and purple sweats for the doctor she looked at me and asked if we could pray, I hadn’t stopped praying, but I took her in my arms and we stopped. We prayed for her protection and healing and future. “Gods got us, Evie, no matter what happens or what we have to do. He already knows.” When we got to the doctors office she looked up at me with big eyes and her little cupcake mask on and whispered, “I am brave. Gods got me.”
It was a long week. With a lot of hard and scary and good and trust and faith. I check her constantly, and she lets me, and she always gives my hand a squeeze and thanks me for doing it. Evelyn laid down in the field to watch her kite on Monday, and on Friday, we are still looking up, so thankful that Gods got us and meets us right where we are every single time.
Evelyn and I ran out to the field in the wind and rain this morning. She splashed in the puddles and Henry couldn’t have been more pleased about it. We collected palm branches from the trees and carried them back in with a bouquet of Calla Lillies and roses.
Amelia and Evie decorated the living room for our online church service, Amelia was the door greeted and seated us on the couch. We watched together under a pile of blankets. My sister came by and dropped off something awesome to help for homeschooling. The girls gave kisses through the window.
It’s been a quiet weekend around the farm. There’s 14 baby chicks in the guest bathroom and there was a package of 3 pounds of live Italian bees on my desk in our office. Alice the kitten likes to stare at them. There’s plants to be planted sitting in the sink. Yet today the rain called us to rest. To be thankful. To Remember that Palm Sunday starts the Holy Week. To play card games and take a nap. I put my new hive up and Lance helped. I was sad my dad didn’t get to come over and help me like I had planned so many months ago. But he called me and I sat at the kitchen table and smiled through our conversation.
Yesterday I doorbell ditched him and my mom and left them things to plant and muffins on their doorstep. I texted them that there were muffins outside the door and sat in my truck at the gravel road so I could see them when they opened the door.
The slowing down has felt welcome, even though it’s been a new dance to learn. The girls greet me at the walk with pictures and tell me about their day and Lance has been helping with the homeschooling in between building the greenhouse and helping me put in a garden. The Earth patiently waiting for us to fill her with beautiful things. It’s all starting to take shape around here. So much work, so much goodness. A welcome place to come in after work and take off my heels and trade them for rain boots. I am so thankful to call this place home and let our girls run wild. I’m also thankful that when we first moved in and I wanted to cut down the palms that we put it on the bottom of our list, because I never would have imagined that almost seven months later the churches doors would be closed during the start of the Holy Week.
Fear not. The church was never the building, and putting Palm leaves down our table today and reading the girls the verse and watching Millie pull out her bible when the pastor pulled out his bible to read from. We were called to worship. To rest. To have faith. To be thankful in this messy place. So when your heart is hurting for the things you’re missing, or when it feels unbearable to think of the hurts and chaos around us. The struggling families. The rise of domestic violence, the sickness and the unknowns, rest in His word. Rest in this week. Let the rain wash over you. Remember, “they laid down their palms, He laid down his life.” The battles already been won.
Faith over fear. Rest over worry. Peace in his presence. Let this week be your reminder.
This morning when I woke up and trekked out to feed the hens with Jack and Henry in tow, I stood in the field and watched the rain.
I pulled my phone out of my old Patagonia jacket pocket and played the Bayside Church morning devotional. I let it play and watched the raindrops splash the screen and chickens take cover under the rose bushes. I listened to pastor Ephraim Smith talk and remind us whose we are, and who has us. And I remembered to breathe.
Here’s the thing. Life was hard enough already before we all came tumbling to a screeching halt. I sent out an email today to our 464 employees and felt the weight of the words I carefully typed and sent. I wanted to make sure our people were OK. Because the reality is, it’s hard. People are anxious, families are anxious. We are full of unknowns and fears. The words are hard to hear, let alone digest them and put them in to practice.
I followed a handful of cars to pick up school packets and was greeted with teachers doing their very best to take care of our kids. I drove into work and spoke with parents that are doing their best to keep the mission and also create a homeschool environment. Parents with crushed seniors missing classes and friends, folks in search of basic needs at grocery stores. Everyone walking around a little lost and scared to breathe or touch anything without sanitizing the world around us.
It’s balancing the weight and reality of elderly parents and child care. Or minimal support systems. Shuttering small businesses with their artisans goods and grit. Choosing when to pause and reflect or lean in and give it all you have.
It’s also knowing that for every hoarder, there are 3 givers. For every struggling single parent, there’s a handful of people willing to help. it was walking into the Blood Bank truck when it pulled up and rolling up our sleeves and giving blood today so we could make a difference. It’s hitting pause and reset and realizing it will take a bit to find the new rhythm and above all else, grace is the best antidote to fear and fumbling.
We never expected to be here, but here we are. So as we digest the words, as we find our balance and new norms and temporary setbacks, and while some carry the burdens of staying the course of front line work; the doctors, nurses, public safety, the truck drivers and store clerks, know that your exhaustion doesn’t go unnoticed, that you are appreciated. That the newly minted homeschool parents don’t have to get it perfect. That schedules don’t have to be rigorous for your child to learn. That baking is science and Art is tactile and nature walks are exercise. Classrooms can be outside and play is learning. Give yourself grace to get it wrong and try again tomorrow.
Sometimes it’s hard to be still. To sit back and watch. So when tempers are short and anxiety high, I encourage you to give grace, give encouragement and give kindness. To check in spiritually and abundantly with each other. For the kids with big emotions right now learning new routines, for the spouse sitting at the kitchen table instead of the office desk, for the people trying to make ends meet. For the overworked people who keep showing up to keep us fed or healthy or safe. Choose grace. It never fails.
We were late for school this morning. A text from my sister stopped me in my tracks and I doubled back, stared at my phone and felt the ache in my heart that feels all too common these days. Heartache. We had prayed for a miracle for the boy in the hospital. We had prayed for his full healing. But miracles don’t always happen. And not every chapter ends with pretty sentences.
There was already a funeral penciled In our family calendar this week. Now there would be 2 squares filled with the words “funeral”.
And the news of an NBA legend dying, and a plane full of military hero’s crashing to the ground. Everything feels heavy. I try and envision the leftovers. The parentless kids, the gutted mothers left childless, the siblings devastated that sisters and brothers don’t come home. The last moments between a parent and child.
The reality of getting back to the safety of our beds an act of war and prayers.
We stood at work, a few of us trying to wrap our heads around the world events. A good healthy discussion to be able to park our emotions somewhere. The words uttered that life is so fragile. Indeed.
I left work early to meet my mom and give my parents time to prep bedrooms at their house for my aunt who has to bury her mother tomorrow.
I stopped by the garden section of a store and ran my fingers down the empty spines and branches of all the quiet trees longing for spring. Their buds tightly furled, afraid to unclasp their treasures for fear of the cold. I pulled a Blue Chinese Wisteria from its place and held it in my hands. I knew where I would plant her in the garden. I knew that when I looked at her far into the years to come when her vines curled through a fence that isn’t even up yet, I would remember today.
I stood in the yard and soaked up the conversation with my mama before she left, the way she held the garlic stalks in the yard and we marveled over the tiny seeds. I savored the quiet time with my dad while the girls played and him and I talked about life and hurts and things to come. I took a bouquet of daffodils to the neighbors with a new baby and clipped mandarins off the trees with them in the dark with a sliver of the moon in the sky. I walked the acreage with the girls jumping in mud puddles and freckled with dirt and counted the snails that Evelyn collected and took note of the song Amelia was singing when Lances car pulled in the long driveway and I swung the gate open for him, “I will send out an army to find you in the middle of the hardest night it’s true, I will rescue you.”
The four of us walked back up to the house in the dark. We ate dinner together at the table that Lance built. We said grace. The girls giggled through bath time and I kissed soapy heads and breathed in my sweet babies and thanked God for another day.
As we head into the long night, the sleepless hours of my friends that are quietly crying their losses into the dark. The ones screaming in silence. The ones questioning their faith, asking God, why.
“You are not hidden, there’s never been a moment you’ve been forgotten… I hear you whisper underneath your breath. I hear you whisper you have nothing left. I hear your SOS your SOS. I will send out an army to find you in the middle of the darkest night it’s true, I will rescue you…”
I’m sorry we didn’t get the miracles we asked for. I hurt for the strangers I’ve never met, but I will pray as if I’ve known them all my life. Isn’t that the thing about life, the cruelty and unfair things come just as often as the wondrous and the ordinary, so we have to be ever so careful with the words we speak, and the lives we touch and the gardens we tend. Spring is just on the other side of the frozen ground.
The lunches are packed, the clothes are laid out and the baths have been given, bedtime stories read and babies tucked in. The house is put back together. Everyone is sleeping and I’m still trying to wrap my head around a whirlwind of a week.
There was a lot of quiet chaos and work hustle, there was a lot of world devastation; fires burning, planes falling from the sky, arguments over world events and just a little before all this started, there was the destruction of Rabbis destroyed at Hanukkah parties and people shot while they had heads bowed during prayer at a little church in Texas. It’s all enough to take your breath away. It makes you wonder how people get up and keep going day after day. Life is hard.
There were some moments behind closed doors in my office where there were hard conversations across the table, movement and change and unknowns.
There were two little girls at two separate dentist appointments sobbing and scared and me perched in a suit and heels at the end of their reclined chairs, leaned forward holding their hands and praying over them. I texted Lance and told him that I hated doing the dentist appointments and that the next round of them were all him. And 4 minutes later he was standing in the room with me, holding Amelia’s hand while tears rolled down her little cheeks. I’d never been so thankful that he’d been passing by on his way home and just showed up.
There have been many faces that crossed the threshold of my office door and quietly closed it behind them and cried, or yelled or just sat there stunned. There’s so much life going on. So many hurts, or memories of missing people gone to soon, that there is a whole world of raw, gutted people just trying to do their best.
By 2pm today I glanced at my uneaten salad at the edge of my desk and messaged a friend grappling their own predicament, that I was headed to grab a coffee and did they want anything, or did they want to come. Four minutes later they were sitting in my car, trying to figure out the best plan for being the better person in a tough situation that had been unraveling for weeks. When we parted ways in the hallway, coffees in hand, fresh perspectives I said to them, “rise up”. It’s all we can do.
I sat at my desk finished up some paperwork, stared at the bouquet of daffodils and paper whites I’d gathered up Yesterday to remember my sweet aunt Polly with and looked at the message on my phone from Lance. “Hurry home, I have hot wonton soup for you.”
The house was messy and loud when I got home, and the girls had colored me pictures and made a fruit tray. I took them outside for a moon date. The full moon lit up the pasture and the pond, the girls and I played tag under the stars and chased each other until we were breathless from running and laughing and our cheeks were red from the cold. Jack was thrilled to run with us.
When it feels bleak, or lonely, or when it hurts too much. Find someone who reminds you that you don’t have to do it alone. When you are weary it’s ok to rest. And when it’s your time to rise up, rise to the occasion to do better, if only it’s to try again tomorrow. And if you can show up for someone else. Show up.
Take yourself on a moon date when you get the chance, stand there in the quiet and look up at the big wide black canvass and the silver stars and remember that your aren’t alone.
I stood in our kitchen this morning, pouring fresh ground coffee beans into a drip coffee pot and staring at a leftover plate of chocolate pie and I stared in awe at how easily the very things that are so easily at our disposal, can be taken for granted and my eyes filled with tears. I thought of all the fire ravaged homes in Paradise today, the Camp fire still raging destruction, the death toll climbing and I prayed over the people, the fire men and first responders working tirelessly, serving, helping, extending kindness in the midst of a living nightmare and I thanked the helpers. The shooting in Thousand Oaks and the stories of people rushing in, bravery out weighing fear. The fires that are part of California’s history this year, where the simple titles of Carr and Woolsey are part of our historical vocabulary. I thought of the conversation round our parents dinner table the very night before. We had gathered for family birthdays, to celebrate life and Veterans Day and we talked about Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. It struck us all as amazing how ahead of the times Fred Rogers was. The core values, the character, the quiet observations of human kindness. Golden rules and lending a hand, and most important, showing how very much the same we all are. And in the midst of terror, look for the helpers. There I stood in my warm kitchen celebrating Veterans Day and watching the news hearing over and over the rising stories of the helpers, the social media posts filling up the threads for ways to help, where to give and where to serve. The good neighbors that we are all willing to be when the world gets scary and sideways and it all starts to fall apart. That we start in our own backyards and then it ripples. Your human kindness touches someone else and so on and so forth a chain reaction goes. When we rise up out of the ashes of destruction and become community. We ourselves become the helpers.
At our own little dinner table last night we went over fire evacuation with our daughters. “It’s going to be scary we said, but you can be brave long enough to get out and run to the neighbors for help.” Right there. Your neighbors. Our neighbors. Gods simple words to love thy neighbors. It starts in your own home setting up our children for success, and then it spreads to the neighbors, who are the community, whose borders fringe on other neighborhoods and it stretches across the world. So in the midst of the fires. In the middle of the scary. In the middle of the ugliness and crushing hurt. Look to the helpers- the ones who have become the hands and feet of the church, the very act of prayer in movement. Giving to others, helping in need, rushing in when the very nature says run the other way. Go be the helpers. Spread some joy, give what you can, spread compassion. Lend a hand. Go be more like Fred.
Monday afternoon I took a conference call on the porch and checked emails from the garden beds and pulled resources for colleagues in need. At 12:30 I left to physically be in the office and waved goodbye to the girls at the gate with promises of flying kites in the field that night. When I drove back in at 5:45 they were dressed and holding their kites. We made our way to the farthest end of the property and threw wild flower seeds and watched the kites whip in the wind.
SarahLacko, The Voice Behind My Tea Cup 