observations on a lawnmower.

Our upstairs bedroom has become my favorite spot to sneak away in the afternoons. Especially afternoons like this one, when the clouds are hovering and the thunder is beginning to rumble. Our bedroom is a bit cave-like anyway, but it’s just the sort of room I’ve always wanted. The walls are silver-grey and angled. Our lofty iron bed is covered in white, and is high enough that if I stood atop the mattress, my head would almost skim the ceiling. (I wasn’t sure so I just tried it.) The old grey velvet sofa is for once not piled with laundry to be put away, so were it not for the tangled springs beneath the surface, it would be a perfect place to curl up and read. We have only one very low window draped with something sheer enough that I can see the sky darkening fast.

While Eli naps, I huddle here atop the covers, surrounded by a mound of pillows, and catch up on writing or steal a few pages of a book before he wakes and calls to me again. Last night, I started reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. My friend Melissa just finished it and it inspired me to dig out my unread copy. After a few days of sporadic excavating in piles of dusty books, I gave up and bought another copy for $3.60 at the used bookstore.

It seems very still right now, and eerily quiet. I think this is the literal calm before the storm they talk about. I like rain on days like this, when we’re all home and tucked in, Jeremy downstairs with a hot mug of afternoon coffee, working away in his office. The dog is terrified of storms and is nestled deep on his polka-dotted bed inches from his master’s feet.

Not thirty minutes ago, the whole group of us was outside in the backyard, swatting at bees and scraping grass clippings from our shoes against the pavement. With the entrance of spring, Jeremy has resumed lawn mowing, and for the first time, Eli has taken a special interest in this activity. He insists on watching the entire process, as his father weaves even lines up and down our acre lot. Two weeks ago, we bought him his own little toy lawnmower that blows bubbles while he pushes it. He proceeded to mow our entire lawn and our neighbor’s too.

Today, upon seeing Jeremy lace up his work boots in the kitchen, Eli put down his fork mid-bite, pushed his plate away and insisted it was time for him to mow the lawn also. So off they went, and then completed the bonding experience by clinking their cups of Gatorade together an hour later. I do love raising a little boy.

Lightning is flashing now and the thunder is definitely causing the dog to shake downstairs. I know this without seeing him. He is a boy too, but somewhat cowardly.

Watching the grass being mowed twice, simultaneously, (once with a blade, once with bubbles), I couldn't help but feel really proud of Eli for choosing such a great man to look up to. I know he's only two, and maybe at that age every little boy sees their father as the most fascinating person to ever walk the earth, but regardless, their mutual admiration is my very favorite thing to observe.

Every morning the two of them have a few minutes in the office listening to music (usually "Bono" or "Coldplay", at Eli's request). This morning, it resulted in coffee being spilled all over Jeremy's desk--and onto some expensive recording devices I don't know the names of. Eli said "Sorry, dada" without prompting, and offered a hug into the mix of flying dishtowels. In the evenings after I feed and bathe Eli, they watch fifteen minutes of a Disney movie together, bundled up on the couch while his hair dries.

I'm not sure how long this season of Jeremy working from home will last---though we've never known anything different---but I know there's something important and possibly rare about Eli having the chance to begin and end every single day knowing how much his daddy loves him. Even when the coffee spills.

*better point out in case my mother is reading, he's not as close to the street as it appears. there's a little hill, and then a ditch filled with leaves.

snapshot.

yesterday, i bought a yellow sweater because i needed something sunny. no more brown. slowly, the redbuds and cherry trees around our town are springing forth with pink and white and there is grass again, just in the nick of time. phew.

eli is celebrating being two with a vengeance lately, testing our patience and persistence to follow through. he is a lovable little elf, but prone to hourly tantrums this week. the yellow sweater is helping.

today, i am loving this photo of my husband taken at our friends brannon & melissa's wedding last month. i hope he never stops playing music.

and i would like a lemon tree.

this morning while stirring milk into our matching sea blue coffee mugs, jeremy spoke up and said rather rhetorically, "you know, what i would really love to have in the backyard is a goat."

i laughed a forceful laugh, one of those bursts from between closed lips that sounds like air escaping a balloon as it zigzags around the room. fortunately, i had not yet taken a sip of coffee or it would have spewed everywhere.

i don't know why i laughed actually. this is not the first time i have heard about this dream of goat-owning. i think i just wasn't expecting him to announce it right at that moment, as one of his first phrases of the day. we had just been talking about corn and onions, afterall.

an hour later, my husband was gone with his guitar and eli and I stood at the kitchen window watching friendly nathan as he tilled a thirty foot rectangle at the edge of our backyard. we're preparing it for a vegetable garden, our first true plantings at this new house. well, aside from a few pots of pansies and a rosemary bush.

our garden is what we miss most about the home we left behind. we had just barely seen the fledgling cherry trees start to blossom, and i had legitimately begun falling in love with the blue atlas cedar dawn redwood tree i'd been so reluctant to plant after learning that in winter it would resemble a fish skeleton.

here, we have plans to convert our storage shed into a workshop for jeremy, with a small potting shelf for me. the little ramshackle tobacco barn adjacent to it will become a chicken coop, and sometime this spring we'll order a box of baby chicks from McMurray Hatchery (hmm, or possibly elsewhere since their minimum order seems to be twenty-five. i believe we'll start with six.) i can't wait to wander out in the mornings to collect fresh brown eggs with eli, or to pluck some tomatoes and peppers for an omelette.

eventually to the yard, we'd like to add some river birch trees, a japanese maple just beyond jeremy's office window, a dogwood or two, and some hydrangeas. i have plans for a fragrant potted herb garden overtaking our upstairs deck with lavender, chamomile, russian sage, thyme, and lemon verbena. and maybe eventually we will adopt a goat, but what i would really love to grow is a lemon tree. i am not sure if tennessee has the right climate for it, but i'm hoping so. lemon trees remind me both of italy and northern california, my two favorite places besides home.

once when i rented, my neighbors, the pearsons, had the most amazing wild flower garden that ben had given to his wife elayne as a gift. the bumble bees were almost as big as the enormous sunflowers, and there were long tangles of pink and yellow and purple and white leaning over the fence, dropping pollen on the sidewalk. it was as much my dream garden as i think it was hers.

springtime is nearing and i have never been so eager for it, though i'm confident i feel this exact way at the close of every winter. as a welcome to the season, i made a little bit of new botanically-inspired art for the house. also, we have gorgeous hot pink roses blooming in the kitchen. eli's vocabulary now features phrases like "go outside" and "mama, i want lawn. mow." my breakfast included the ripest, reddest of strawberries, grown by someone named joe who clearly has a knack. while i drank lukewarm coffee, eli marched around the porch in green striped pajamas and converse sneakers, scooping up dirt because that's what boys do.

today's list has and will include a loaf of banana bread, a walk to the coffee shop to say hello, a quick spring cleaning, and a leafy salad with sesame dressing for lunch. there will also be bubble blowing, and a short trip into the yard to scope out the tilled portion and make some plans for what we'll grow. eli has already requested a few of his favorite (most-obvious) crops: chocolate, rice, and salsa. i'm still thinking of lemon trees, and maybe a few rows of corn.

[photo journals to follow below...]

after the thaw.

portraits.

{taken today while teaching eli to use my camera. i couldn't believe he actually held it himself, put his finger on the button, looked through the viewfinder and snapped away, then backed off to check his work in the display window! apparently he has seen it done a few times. a photographer in the making.}

photo by mama. age 35.

photo by eli henry. age 2.

the best friend. photo by eli.

self portrait. photo by us.

creating lately.

for esther.

osage orange.

tulips.

(untitled.) butterflies for the living room.

loving the color grey.

it just felt urgent that i type something, if only to see the little letters punching across the screen. i have this brain that spills over with too much of everything inside it. my friend christie calls this going fast--when you're trying to catch up with a racing mind, to lasso a single thought and make some sense of it. mostly, my going fast has to do with creating and with not being able to wade through my surplus of ideas. i have been pondering this notion lately: that i was created to create.

something beautiful. an adornment. or bigger: a life for my son; giving him moments. and much smaller: an aesthetically pleasing container in which to keep our toothbrushes.

every day i wake up and hope for another chance at something made. when too many days pass where all that i imagine overstuffs my head with no opportunity to come out, i am amazed at how lonely and frustrated i can feel. creating, in many ways, is like a big burst of oxygen to me.

this tension has always been there, probably. but only in the past couple of years has it become kind of sharp and inescapable.

i would never cut my ear off or anything that drastic, but there are real moments where i feel oddly tortured by my need to create. sometimes i feel like i've been wedged into a box that's way too small to house my body, and i'm pushing against it with my feet as hard as i can. but then, i'll steal just one single hour upstairs with paint brushes. or invent a new game to play with eli. or cook a new recipe. and suddenly, i have all sorts of room to stretch out again.

i've been reading. and thinking about this idea of my design. that God sees value in my creative self and that i've been wired for making. reminding myself of that truth helps me breathe a little easier, especially on the days when there's only laundry.

a job well done.

yesterday, while unpacking the groceries, i asked Eli to be my helper and gave him two things to put away. first, a package of cotton balls which i asked him to take to the bathroom for me. when he returned moments later without the cotton balls, i figured he had found his way and handed him a four-pack of toilet paper to carry to the bathroom also.

after that, he went on to play in the living room while i put the rest of the groceries away in the kitchen. ten minutes later, i walked into the bathroom to find the cotton balls and toilet paper bobbing in the toilet.

he had put them away in the correct room, and in the most logical spot a two year old could think of i suppose. the fact that he is not yet potty trained, but managed to correlate the toilet paper to the toilet is surely indicative of a genius. just as i've suspected all along.

a house is just a house.

it is merely walls and bricks and shingles stuck together, sometimes sturdily, sometimes not. i think of this house as a strong one, even though last week when a very windy rain came, water seeped in through the edges of both living room windows as if they were crying simultaneously. we've known those windows need replacing, so it was only mildly startling. and in all other ways, this house has held up well under the strain of all our poking and prodding the past year.

we've been doing things in here. living. making memories, which is what you do inside a house, and which is, i suppose, the thing that makes it become something more than just chipped wooden siding and leaky windows.

we celebrated eli's second birthday here on january 29th. many small friends filed in, one by one, and left two hours later with balloon strings clutched in their cupcakey fingers. it was chaotic playtime amidst a sea of juice boxes, as mothers tried to chat above the noise of toddlers gleefully crashing into one another. eli requested another "berfday" for many days afterward.

we also, at long last, began work on our master bathroom. for the past year, it's been a dusty shell of unpainted drywall, crammed with boxes and power tools all hidden behind a curtain. finally, we have shiny marble floors, creamy paint, and a toilet. the antique vanity is in place and awaiting plumbing. soon we'll unload the clawfoot tub from the backyard shed and lug it (not me, but some superhumans we'll recruit) up the deck stairs and into the house. my husband, through our renovation process, has become an impressive carpenter, and installed an alcove of beadboard to nestle the tub against.

other improvements have been made downstairs too: pantry and laundry doors, shelves for the guest bath. bit by bit, the details are making this a place that is uniquely ours.

over valentines weekend, j. played and sang at a wedding out of town, so on a whim, i decided to surprise him with a makeover for his studio/office. we had quickly thrown that room together upon moving in, so it's always felt a bit cluttered and uninspired to me. while he was gone, i made some artwork, replaced a cheap table with a new painted bookshelf, and cleaned things up a little. it feels warm and slightly european now, i think. kind of like an old library & an english pub mixed together.

my own studio, on the other hand, looks like a tornado blew through and scattered paint & paper everywhere. last month, i toiled away in that upstairs room and took part in an art show with some friends at a local church. andy and the andys (peterson, osenga, gullahorn) performed a concert and the lobby was filled with easels displayed with various paintings and photographs. i sold three pieces and received a lot of humbling encouragement from the friends & strangers who attended.

last night while talking to j., he pointed out that this house has really nurtured my creativity. i am not sure if a house can actually do that, but i will say that there's something about living here---maybe it's the scenery, or the quiet, or just having my hands in constant 'project-mode,' that has ignited my desire to create visual art. i still love to write, but my ideas have shifted now. i think it is partially due to having an actual space of my own where i can work.

this house, though just a house, is also a place that beckons guests. we've only had a few so far, mostly people passing through for a night or two, but i love having friends and family fill our home. this house makes me want to cook up big, nourishing meals and pull out extra bed linens.

we never know what the future holds or where we may end up down the road. our days in this house may be numbered to 50 or 5000, but for now it's a good home. little by little, we are holding up its walls as we remake it. and in return, it is doing the same for us.

scenes from a house:

1. eli turns two...

2. home is made...

3. art is made...

one through one hundred.

taking a deep breath before diving in. there's a long swim ahead, a seemingly endless list. it's okay though. i like lists. i like accomplishing things and crossing them off. sometimes i even write something on the list that i have just completed, just so i can put a line through it and have a visual record.

i was talking to a friend yesterday about how the list will probably always be there. there really is no such thing as being caught up, because there's always something else to be done by the time you reach the bottom. i can't imagine a time when i'll sit down and think to myself, "i have just finished everything. there is absolutely nothing left to accomplish. what should i do now? hmm..."

my current list includes the not-so-thrilling tasks of laundry, cleaning, exercise, and organizing Eli's closet. it also includes working on pieces for an upcoming art show, making a gift for a friend's birthday, and writing thank you notes. my list is always a combination of creativity and maintenance, it seems. i don't mind either one and appreciate the balance.

of course, the list itself is squeezed in between time with my two-year-old and my husband, preparing dinner, and all the things that i don't put on the list because i won't forget to do them and they happen every day.

i know that simply (or not simply) being in relationships is more important than anything my lengthy list could demand of me. sometimes i forget that, or i merely get distracted by all it takes to keep life going. i think we all do. we move along just getting things done and suddenly realize we haven't had much connection with the people around us; we've been rushing past them for days. one of my goals this year is to be more cognizant of that, to focus more on friendships than i do on making sure the floor is swept.

between a conference with Dan Allender that we recently attended, and a mom's group yesterday where similar topics were reiterated, a i feel like i've been in Marriage College lately. most specifically, i'm learning about some differences between men and women that i had never contemplated before, and also realizing the importance of understanding my own story and how that plays into being a wife and mother. that's a process that can't really be dissected formulaically. it just takes walking through it and being more aware, i think, and less afraid.

so i suspect this will be a "thinking year," whatever that might mean. i'm curious to understand my husband better, and myself; to embrace my child in all that he's discovering; to dig into the deeper layers of my closest friends and some books i've been too intimated to crack open, a new place to write, and the elements it takes to make a home that i've been keeping in a closet. this is worthwhile work. i'm intrigued and eager to get started.

begin again.

In my estimation, this new year is off to a pretty good start. I just put the first roast chicken of 2009 into the oven with garlic, lemon, and a stick of rosemary--the only non-brown plantlife on our porch. The chicken reminds me that we are settling back into a routine of familiar things. And we've seen many friends since returning from a holiday vacation in Pennsylvania that brought a very good end to 2008. At home, we've spent equal time resting and being productive. Aside from the general cleaning, laundry, food replenishing, and un-trimming the house of its tinsel, we also finally got around to decorating Eli's room with a gallery of prints I've had set aside. He still lets me rock him to sleep some nights (an indulgence I know won't last forever), and it's nice to have something to look at by the lamplight while he drools sweetly on my sleeve and drifts off...

We're only three days in and I'm optimistic, as I think back to days behind and look forward to plans for the three-hundred-and-sixty-two before me. It occurred to me, while sprinkling herbs on the chicken, the way that we measure our life in years and mark them as good, bad, difficult, or worth repeating. Jeremy, the history major, says this last year was one of his hardest, mainly owing to the physical and mental challenges of home-renovation, coupled with transitional changes for us as a family. For me, it was definitely transitional, but also filled with a great deal of joy and creativity. I've relished piecing together this home bit by bit, watching Eli grow into it as he simultaneously grows out of his size four shoes. I've painted a lot of walls and produced a lot of art which has been gratifying work. I've sold my first paintings and seen long-forgotten things through a toddler's eyes. (Also, I do not dislike change as much as my husband, and I know his labor this year was far more painstaking, so it's easier for me to regard the time as well spent.)

In some ways, they've all started to run together---the years---into a giant collage of events, some significant, others less so. There was the year I taught myself how to knit. The year we went to Europe. The year we had a baby. The year of the unfortunate eyebrows. The year we got all that snow and people abandoned their cars on the highway.

I know, as I glance at my life backward, that 2005 was my hardest year by far, and sometimes I feel too much altered by the experience of watching my father die up close. Many days I see myself still trying to get back to who I was before, or maybe it's forward; I'm not sure. But to be entirely candid--because possibly this is a year of being even more honest in my writing--I can pinpoint when it happened, on an afternoon that October while sitting alone in the driver's seat of my dad's truck in some Houston parking lot. I had just left the hospital for the day, couldn't bring myself to drive any farther, and knew in that moment that I would never be the same again. It was scary to witness a change like that so sharply, to know that you are being scarred deeply and permanently by such aching beauty with no way to escape it. It was the moment something inside me grew up for the better and that some selfishness was lost, but with it, any lingering innocence too.

When I created this blog just two months before, I had no idea what was coming. Instead, I was grieving the loss of a favorite city after the hurricane. Maybe not grieving. Weighing. I had called my dad to see what he thought about the whole tragic thing. A few weeks later, I was in the produce aisle squeezing avocados when he called me back with news that felt much like the blindsiding unknown of that earlier storm, only standing alone in the center of it.

It is funny the way that we mark our lives by years, and our years by adjectives of what they meant and how we feel looking back on them. I know that for some, 2009 is already a year of heartache and disappointment. I know that for me it is marked by a hope for continued recovery.

Little things are reminders of what is true. Like the chicken in the oven. Good friends who are not afraid to have a fight at your table because they trust you enough. Kids for your kids to grow up with and bake pretend cookies in a cardboard oven. Provision upon provision, in spite of doubt. Hard work and the fruit that comes of it. Memories, and the empty blank slate of a year that holds the promise of being filled, come what may.

a merry christmas...

 love,

 jeremy, kierstin & eli

while the snow pretends to fall.

the cold, grey-green wintry days have awakened small gusts of creativity in me. it's been good to sneak upstairs to my little studio during eli's rests, with favorite *christmas music on my ipod while i layer paper and paint upon canvas. the songs, and the season itself, have both found their way into this recent work. and my friends amy & katie at red tree coffee[shop] kindly offered them a temporary home on their walls.

*on the playlist:
baby it's cold outside (zooey deschanel)
christmas day (dido)
i heard the bells on christmas day (pedro the lion)
delig er jordan (kings of convenience)
just like christmas (low)

sold.

forest in winter.

winter window.