From “Mean Free Path” by Ben Lerner:
I finished the reading and looked up
Changed in the familiar ways. Now for a quiet place
To begin the forgetting. The little delays
Between sensations, the audible absence of rain
Take the place of objects. I have some questions
But they can wait. Waiting is the answer
I was looking for.
When it is so cold outside that you literally cannot take a breath, winter is reduced to…
…waiting for spring.
From “The Land of Nod” by Robert Louis Stevenson:
From Breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do–
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
“Learning to fall asleep.” I know that’s a weird title for this post, but it’s not about me. It’s about my daughter, Lillia. She’s nine years old and, up until a few days ago, she couldn’t put herself to sleep. Every night I would lay down with her until she fell asleep. As a mama that didn’t really bother me. I love to snuggle with my kids.
Lillia listening to an audiobook of The Hobbit.
However, lately I noticed that it was taking longer and longer for her to fall asleep, and by the time I got out of her bed it was almost 10 o’clock. And, then I still had to put the baby to bed! Between homeschooling and full-time mothering, I don’t get much time to myself. Okay, I get no time to myself. But, neither does my poor husband, who works full-time and then fathers full-time when he gets home. I know it’s hard for him, and with Lillia taking so long to fall asleep it was pushing his “alone time” out. He was staying up later than he wanted to during the week, and then he was tired in the morning.
I knew that Lillia would have to learn to fall asleep…by herself. And, you know what? It’s working! For the past four nights she has fallen asleep by herself. The first three nights were really hard, but we have come to a compromise where I read to her (which I always do anyway) and then I stay in her bed with her for 10 minutes. I scratch her back, get her settled, but then I leave before she falls asleep. Now she is in bed by 9:00, which allows Damian to have down time (a.k.a. sanity) without having to stay up until midnight.
Small victories.
From “January” by Betty Adcock:
Wind hisses and one shadow
sways where a window’s lampglow
has added something. The rest
is dark and light together tolled
against the boundary-riven
houses. Against our lives,
the stunning wholeness of the world.
January is about: darkness and light; shadows and sun; keeping the cold outside and the inside warm; and, lots and lots of books.
From Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Birth of Christ”:
Each golden artifact and perfumed spice
That roams distraught among the senses –
All these were of such sudden brevity
And, in the end, brought only sorrow.
From T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” —
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
Happy New Year! 366 days have come and gone, and now a new year has begun. As always, the beginning of the year is a time of hope and anticipation. And, of course, a time of resolutions.
Here are mine:
1. Paint the basement and put up the curtain walls.
2. Work on creating my “mom cave” so I can be creative without distractions.
3. Finally finish college and have a graduation party!
4. Read all of the books that I got for Christmas, before next Christmas.
5. Write letters to my grandmother once a month.
6. Stick to the budget I created last fall, which was completely disregarded in December…
7. Schedule time to be alone, time to be with my kids (individually), and time to be with my husband.
8. Put up pictures in the hallway.
9. Work on Lillia’s ballet performance scrapbook.
10. Grow some stuff! (Vegetables, flowers, whatever strikes my fancy).
11. See my friends at least once this year. I miss them.
12. Learn how to use my new camera — techniques and composition.
13. Work on the Anna Maria Horner feather quilt (the only craft on this list, for a good reason).