Inescapable (GBE2 #117 Topic: Power)

This week, I'm pretending to be a poet.  Enjoy!

 Fingertips...
    grazing my collarbone
gently sweeping
    secrets keeping
    softly whisper
press into me
        ...deeply

Fingertips...
    delicate squeezing
exquisite pleading
    voltaic frenzy
    the silent demand
be my
        ...authority

impetuously
  
      breathless.

electricity.....

sealed our fate

A Walk In The Woods (GBE2 #47 Topic: Home)

It's spring break and we've been trying to get the kids out of the house.  I've been forfeiting my "dance" workout and heading out to the park instead.  While Jeff plays a few holes of disc golf and the kids play on the playground, I've been donning my headphones and doing my version of a power-walk around the perimeter of the park.

I even got ten leaves on my fitbit flower the other day.  It's been a nice change of pace.

The park is small and quiet...almost no one goes there.  It's a gem in our community that isn't utilized to it's fullest potential.  There are trails that can be hiked...a creek for swimming...the possibilities are endless.

Today, Bear was sad.  I found him sitting with his dad.  He said he was sad and didn't know why.  I had a hunch....but I didn't want to push him.  I did what any nature-hating mom should do in these circumstances.

I agreed to a one on one hike...IN THE WOODS...just mommy and Bear. 

I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this, but I thought it was just what he needed.  And, sure enough, as soon as we started walking, Bear started talking.  We covered why he was sad and quickly moved on to other topics.

He's quite the chatty boy.

Look Mommy, tires!  Why are there tires in the woods?  Hey!  That looks like scrap metal over there!  Do you think it's an oven?  Or maybe it's a time capsule...wouldn't that be really cool??  Remember that time we went geocaching in this park?  We never did find that cache.  Maybe we should look again.  Are you happy that I'll be going to a new school in the fall.  I can't wait to torture Nathan just by riding the same school bus.  Are these OUR footprints?  Or...maybe they are ninja footprints!  Yeah!  That's it!!  Maybe there are chuck-wearing girl ninjas out here running around.  Do you think it's weird that I can do different voices?  (Then did his very best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression and his other voice that sounds like Gloamer from the old Punky Brewster cartoon.  Anyone besides me remember that?)

We came to the creek.  It wasn't the swimming area, but rather a portion that was extremely shallow.  A rickety bridge connected the two banks...although it looked entirely possible to cross the creek by walking across the rocks that lined it's bottom.  I was unsure and a little afraid....but Bear quickly crossed the bridge and taunted me from the other side.

Come on Mommy!  You can walk across the rocks.  It'll be easy.  I was brave and took the bridge but you don't have to.  Really Mommy, just cross the rocks.  I bet you don't even get wet.  I'll make it worth your while....


Oh yeah?  How so, little boy?


By giving you a big hug and kiss!  Seriously...how could I refuse an offer like that?

Tentatively, I crossed the rocks.  My feet slipped into the water a few times but the important thing is that I made it. 

As he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek, I was swept up by just how much I love this little boy...how much I love all my children.

If home is where the heart is...then my home was in the woods today.

A Mysterious Recipe: GBE2 #25 (Nature vs. Nurture)

Some people believe that everything we are comes from our genetic makeup. 

Others believe it's all in how we are raised.

The nature vs. nurture argument has always fascinated me.  I don't pretend to have any answers--in fact, I'm pretty much winging this.  My opinion on the matter is this:  how we are nurtured can be very influential to our personalities and temperament, but some things are just in our nature.
My mother died when I was two years old.  Her name was Riki and she was named by taking the first two letters of my grandfather's first and middle names (Richard Killington).  Growing up, I didn't have much more information than that.  Her death was very hard on my father and he remarried quite quickly after her passing.

I did know that I looked like her.  Everyone said so.  My maternal grandmother once sent me a box full of my mother's childhood photos.  As children, we were practically identical.  Looking at those pictures was like looking in the mirror.  The only difference was that I had dark reddish hair and greenish eyes, like my dad, while she had been a fiery red head with blue eyes.

As an adult, the similarities aren't as shocking but I still strongly resemble her.

My mother holding an oh-so-adorable me circa 1976


Me, goofing around with an oh-so-adorable Bear circa 2010

When I was about twenty, my father's best friend told me some stories about my mother.  He described a woman who was extremely sensitive and emotional...a woman who would cry over just about anything....a woman who held her anger inside as best that she could but, if pushed too far, would be a force to be reckoned with.  He told me about a woman who was slightly scatterbrained, disorganized, and sloppy. 

My childhood home was very emotionally conservative.  I was often criticized for being too sensitive and crying over trivial things.  I was never quick to lash out in anger....unless I was pushed just that wee bit too far.  Then, I was a force to be reckoned with.

We lived in a very tidy home and I was usually yelled at for being sloppy, disorganized and for being an outright slob (It's true, I was a slob...but I'm reformed...now I'm just messy and disorganized!).

It was often said to me "I don't understand how you can be so smart, and yet so stupid at the same time"--in regards to my flighty, scatterbrained ways.

For the first time, these parts of my personality made sense. 

It's amazing that I could be so much like a person that I can't even remember and be so very different from the woman who raised me.  I love my (step)mom and I feel that she did a terrific job with me.  There are certain values and morals that she instilled in me....but overall, she and I are vastly different people.

Then I look at my own children.  I see myself in every single one of them.  Even Nathan, who isn't biologically mine.  I've nurtured some of what I consider to be my most annoying qualities right into that kid--and it drives me nuts!

I guess at the end of the day we're a product of a mysterious recipe:  take a bunch of nature, a handful of nurture and a few dashes of life experience....mix well....let simmer for years upon years....

Each of us will turn out different than the next.

And that's what keeps life interesting!