second marriage – Frozen Spaghetti

It’s funny to be reminded about what I was writing on 6 years ago and seeing a lot of the same things…

For example, this morning I started envisioning 1:1 time with each child (3 which are adults now) as I drifted back to sleep. I fell asleep imagining having conversations about what they know they need this year, what feels exciting to them and asking questions with the right amount of curiosity as to how I might offer them my support.

This came after a mid-night mining of voice memos. Stirred at like one thirty in the morning, I decided to give into the zeitgeist and see if what JusT&T might be trending. That led to a video about how to cast a vision for your life, which led me to be curious then to fall asleep listening to a workshop I recorded last week. “Was it usable?” I wondered as I began the tape.

Not only is it usable, it’s really good – near flawless in my definition of flawlessness (minus the three times I said “BS”).

My vision of my sister and brother in law listening to it on their roadtrip home from Michigan with the kids in the back silted into a dream of a good friend of mine telling me she would have loved to listen to the recording with her daughter, if not had I referred to life’s “BS” multiple times.

Back to now.

I have a candle on and the Brazil Norway game is on to my northwest. Our recent resurgence of our Sherlock watching has me using the back and forth motion of my eyes to search for the words for this post and I am feeling relief that the point of a blog is to not, necessarily, have a point. Frozen Spaghetti is “my online diary”, as it may be.

But what stirred the post?

Is the desire to better articulate the vision I started casing in that 2020 post. The ribs and the corn and the kitchen and the comet. To see it clearly with overlapping thoughtfulness to my partner’s clear vision, I imagine, would be like scoring a goal in the World Cup. It doesn’t mean the game is won or over, but – damn – I bet that feels amazing.

I want it. I want my kids supported and well traveled. I want my choices and actions to show that I listen. Listen to my partner, listen to my kids and really really listen when it is quiet.

Listen to what my body needs. (Just now? It was a bath.)

Listen to what I am feeling. (Right now? It’s quite directed.)

All of this is coming from a heart hurting with happiness, yearning with readiness, absolutely craving the 10% better – day over day – week over week – till we are all the way new. Till what was created back in 2020 has created its next creation.

That’s how creation works, right?

I know my friends and family will celebrate that arrival so big with us. I just feel my heart soaring at the idea of welcoming family in, showing them around, offering a seat and some ribs and some corn.

And maybe even a view – from a porch – of a comet.

Started into a podcast this morning when Maddox, our youngest, asked for music for a little bit. He is so sweet, I obliged.

As I scrolled for a good easy song to play, I stumbled upon Oceans and said to David, “I think I’ll start us out with a little worship music.”

“I really don’t want to listen to worship music.” He said, with his loving laugh voice which I’m thankful exists.

“Well then that probably means you should” I say in my loving laugh voice which I’m also thankful exists. It was a sweet exchange.

I looked out the window at this beautiful sunny morning, headed into our 9 hour journey to Black Hills National Forest. My heart started to tremble:

// spirit lead me where my trust is without borders //

Listening to the repetition of the prayer while watching the landscape with the lingering smell of a PBJ in the truck cab (made for Aria) made me aware of this reality that I have been led to an adventurous man.

This commitment we are in has me on a roadtrip, through a part of the country I have never been in, using strengths my life has equipped me for (like making three kids comfortable in a backseat and making sandwiches from a front seat – wrapped in a folded napkin with a quick scribble note to the recipient on it) and in a landscape of people so wide and deep that the only realistic expectation I can have of myself to help guide and mother is to stay present. To pay attention.

When I consider the whole of all that is on my mind and heart and how much is unknown, I am led just to consider its opposite: “known”.

I considered seasons of “known” (where nothing major was in question or in flux) and realized those seasons were seasons of plans, concrete planning or where plans were in motion.

If what is “known” means to me that I know the plan then, very much so, my life right now is “on the fly”. Big stuff: I don’t know what June looks like, yes. But even daily stuff like tomorrow night, I’m sleeping “in Montana”.

I did a little word math, a way I journal to try and make sense of complex ideas, to find my center. And I saw quickly that living “on the fly” and living “planned” have the same root: my intention.

If living present, per my true honest root, my intention, I believe, would not make my plan that much different than what I would come up with in a split decision. Said another way, what I come up with in a split decision is probably similar to what I would have planned… I think this is where the lyrics got me, spirit lead me where my trust is without borders.

Maybe living spirit led allows them to be the same: making plans and winging it. Just like Covid changed the best of plans, a boon can change the worst of winging it. If you’re true to your intention, to being spirit led, your trust is without borders.

To close, I’m stunned at how much of my life with David rings true to what I am accustomed to – like long road trips and lots of people – while also having me in unknown territory where I am reminded to rely heavily on the spirit. In yoga, we call this the balance between effort and ease – and when we find this place, we have just the right amount of tension to grow and explore newness with just the right of softness to trust and relax. It’s humbling: how simple the complexities of life can be.

Lots of love. :) me