Don’t let other people’s opinions dilute the potency of your authenticity.
Pay attention to your attention.
Late March
Four days of summer got slipped into the end of winter. Manic grins, everyone is capturing the giddiness in their throats through panoramic videos of sun drenched shorelines. We canceled our trip to Mexico, relieved and excited to enter the island-spring with a focus on permaculture and upping the vibes of our home. Investing what we would have spent on accommodation alone into seeds and dirt will be reaped for months and years to come.
It’s a funny thing to mourn unshot photos of imaginary memories from a trip not taken.
Mabel won’t nap in her crib during the day but I can sometimes trick her into her car seat to separate our bodies. Yesterday I jumped into the glacier fed lake down the road and she was horrified, immediately bursting into tears. I think she is so energetically tied to me that the cold shocked her while she perched warm in dads arms. She is sleeping so well at night that I feel bad mentioning it to other Mums. Everytime she wakes up in the morning she is noticeably bigger, a whole new version of self- grinning, thrilled to start a new day.
Today I had an iced coffee and started calendula seedlings that I was given two years ago. My skin is crispy from the sun days and I keep remembering that it’s not July.
🪐🤍🧦
February was a long month that seeped well into March and I’m just coming to.
We are going to Mexico in a week and a half.
We are taking our baby international in a week and a half.
I hope she is inspired to eat during lift off so her cute ears don’t hurt. I hope she sleeps and doesn’t scream the whole way. I can imagine the warm humid air in the dark of the evening upon arrival. Cabbing an hour north it’s hard to picture Mabel in a taxi. ¿adónde vas?
She is 4.5 months now and very interested in the food we eat and her dog Billy. Knowing an infant intimately is time travel. The nuance of human experience playing out. Moments slowed down days stretched out long nights ticking slowly and fast towards coffee- postpartum is mars. Words. Brain. Feelings.
Lunch with Nanny and Great-Auntie Brenda.
205
It’s a great day when you get to hangout with a cow.
feelingconnected
6 years
Six years since this guy showed up at the door of my East Van sub lease with a bouquet of flowers ready to take me out on our first date. It’s so wild to have Mabel with us now, the love story continues.
Taking her out on the boat really wasn’t that fun but once we cut the engine to float amongst the view with snacks it was a beautiful moment. Many things as a new parent are stressful and cumbersome but I know they are still worth doing. I know it will get smoother and the pain is growth, strengthening all of us while we plow forward into a rich and wonderful life.
Cheers to 6 years with the best partner. 🖤
False Spring
Snotty noses red roses backgammon and bowling. Aunts uncles electrolytes and garlic.
Home town, messy house.
Unbuilt furniture laundry piled. Purchase more sheets. **
Sore neck sore wrists sore throat.
Midday pizza delivery. Jugo de pomelo.
Forest walk dirty paws. Tv heat cranked.
Sleepy brain slow read.
Clay.
Orange mesh fabric.
Baby passport new bags sunscreen minishampoo.
Cell phone Instagram Duolingo Amazon.
Teething drool rosey cheeks open mouth kisses light leaks.
Love and laughs and sweat. Baths and robes and cozy clothes.
Victoria
Comox
Sayward
3 months of Mabel
It might have been weeks - could have been days of drear.
I don’t even know if it’s accurate to say it’s been raining.
Is it rain when the cloud has plummeted to earth’s floor, droplets just hovering?
Winter here has a way of getting into my brain. If I spend too much time indoors fog creeps in behind my face.
Today I walked the forest with baby and dog. Trees layered dramatically with mist muting distant trunks.
I stomped around in wet snow and moss nearly ready to head home when I caught a glimpse of brighter fog.
I decided I needed to hike above the clouds. To the mountain’s top. Like a plane ascending through white canopy reminding me the sky is always blue somewhere. An hour of slow steep hiking, grey rises at a similar pace to me.
I carefully climb slick rock to a higher bluff and it’s like the plane has landed - somewhere warm and bright. The most magnificent rainbow circles tree tops, colours so vivid I’m giddy. Manic on a mountain, completely renewed. The blue of the sky hits so hard I can taste it; the sun warm on my sweaty chilled skin.
i wish i brought my real camera. phone photos <
She splats
punctuation like paint
thrown at canvas;
‘,”
No simple answer.
People: how’s it going? How’s motherhood?
Me: It’s good. She’s the best…
…I’ve never loved anything so sickening much. It’s the most heightened blissful love the most terrifying love. I’ve conditioned her to enjoy breast feeding while I bounce and walk around, now trapped marching laps of my house for hours before bed hunched forward, my hands and wrists and arms so sore they threaten to fall off.
Inspired to get stronger, ape like, jacked to manage monkey bars and pull ups for the inner child for the inner old woman who’s always whispered that I live into my hundreds.
Some mornings she is displeased with all of my offerings and I start to feel insane cooped up in this drafty house pacing. So I head for the woods and march around amongst drippy green moss and chatty birds. Up slick stoney hills, crossing frozen dribbling creeks. Breathing. Remembering how wonderful life is and straightening out the knots in my mind.
Her eyes pierce through my soul deep past my heart into a world we’ve known together before. We stare and smile into each other and talk noises. Hers are the most beautiful sounds. Light airy innocent attempts to tell me of her inner world. Her cries sting my ears, wrench my gut. Her tiny hands seem unreal…
…Her feet…
…But yah - I’m good how are you?!
11 weeks postpartum.
My hair inspired this photo.
Killing time.
What a concept. I just read an article on why we as a society have a hard time reading and it mentioned our shorter attention spans and how we can’t sit and wait for someone without picking up our phones as it makes us look “more normal” while we sit in a public space hunched over staring and scrolling.
“Scrolling on social media helps us kill time.”
Time is one thing we can never get more of. Imagine sitting near the end of your life calculating all the killed time, the time used to avoid. Moments deleted and zoned out of. What a terrible story made by living a life filled with time killed.
Almost
I sit in the chair and nurse her to sleep get trapped beneath my sleepy beast. I scroll Pinterest, inspired to make crafts paintings and photographs. I stand up and put her down and she wakes and cries. Back to the chair, nurse to sleep. I try again and successfully walk away.
Wondering what art or craft to do.
I trim my toe nails.
-Motherhood so far.
Mabel's first beach day.
Sombrio beach with 6 week old snoozer.
Water babies.
I’ve spent countless hours in this builder’s-special bathtub in this hollow updatable bathroom looking at my belly stick out of the not-too-hot water imagining who this being inside me is.
And now
I get
to know her.
