Do you see me?

November rain.  I can hear the wind blowing what leaves are left around our yard, and the rain hitting the windows.  It seems like November snuck up this year.  I am almost startled that it is November. I want to murmur that time should slow down, and please let us have a chance to catch our breath.  This has been a year of character.  I can think of no other way to describe this in the way that I feel like I have learned a lot, had a clenched stomach a few times, worried about money a lot, and worried over aging cars, homes, and our loved ones.

I have thought some about women's work lately.  The quiet chores that make up motherhood, especially when you add in the extra workload of working full-time.  So much of women's work is stuff that gets done in the background.  It isn't flashy.  It isn't sexy.  It has to get done.  Like clean sheets, a clean bathroom, and the dirt swept up off of the kitchen floor.  It doesn't always get done daily or weekly, and maybe some chores monthly.  Some times it is like I am waking up and realizing that I haven't done some chore for months.  Or organized bills when I realize that I have them squirrelled all over the place and our filing cabinet in two years out of date. It is amazing how much time being organized can take.  The energy it takes to pick up after yourself, and put things away, and then to find a little bit of time somewhere for something that you love too.  I love my family, however, I think this listing of the books I have been reading also serves to remind me of the time I have taken for myself, in one of the greatest joys I think there is - reading.  If I was better at it, I would catalog the items I knit as well - it is so rewarding to see a piece of string turn in to something beautiful, serviceable, or both.

These kind of chores aren't really missed when they aren't done.  They make life a lot easier when they are done though. Some days I struggle to get them done.  Like the dishes.  Not a fan. Yet a clean kitchen is a big deal, but it doesn't come naturally to me, even if I love to cook and bake.  Speaking of which, we made an amazing chocolate peanut butter cheesecake today.. K's traditional birthday cake. Hot damn, it was good.  Way, way too decadent, but since it is once a year... bloody brilliant.

Years ago I figured if I write my own book, it would be called relentless.  Now, I think I would call it practise.  I have come to appreciate how important practise is in every element of life.  I think this is hysterical. It is so simple, and yet at times, we seem to forget this simple lesson.  That, coupled with routine.  Both are so important.  Routines, and practise, and the little things.  Three pretty important things in my overall, emerging life philosophy.

I think we all struggle with being noticed for who we are, and what we bring to the table.  Especially when your kids are young and so much of yourself it given to others, freely and with love.  I think this is the part of growing up that changes you.  A decade ago I can remember loving getting gifts, now it is truly better to be the giver, and even then, what I want to give, and to whom, has changed.  What I want to receive has also changed.  

Things are not as important.  

I remember when my dear friend PWB was slipping and fading, all I had for him was time.  It was't about money, it was about love, and acceptance, and time.  The stuff that money can't buy. Now that it is out there, you would have been 43 this year and it still moves me to remember your smile, and how much you taught me.  You were an amazing friend, and I see and feel your influence in my life still.  You are remembered. 

When I think about my true friends - they are scattered around all over the place, not all of them physically close.  There is a space in my heart that they have, and words aren't always needed, and time apart doesn't drive us away.  It makes the time we have so much more special.

I think about our families, and what they choose to share.  

I think of the communities we belong to, and what generosity of spirit means to me now.

This last decade has been quite the journey.  It appears I still wax poetic as I am trying to sort out how I feel, and to track some of it here in words, and thoughts, so I have something to look back on and say, hey, look, I was here. I loved, and was loved.  I made some marks, even if they were in the sand, and a wave came and moved them.