Beating the Hell out of Tuesday: Why Wednesday Wins

Posted on February 6, 2014 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2014, Uncategorized

Tuesday was supposed to be Raines Wilder’s first day at the Nemo-Piglet school. And it was supposed to be a frenetically fantastic day for me and my brain. That morning we got up, ate breakfast, had a tense discussion about brushing his hair, and skipped out the door to head to his class. I was hopeful and excited about getting this going for us. We had to skip the train ride that morning because he couldn’t seem to find anything sweet or remotely loving to say to me. And spiders have five legs, by the way, not eight. I’m so wrong all the time every second always. So hasta mañana, trencito. We were met at the school entrance by the director, who scrunched up her face and told me that, you see, there’s a bit of a chicken pox outbreak among the children. She didn’t actually say it was chicken pox at first, but referred to it as a skin virus. So I asked her if she could tell me exactly what it was, which involved her turning the computer on and trying to find what it is called. She had a nurse come downstairs to talk with me about it more extensively. And as this nurse is explaining to me that la varicela (chicken pox) wouldn’t be harmful to the boy, it could be very dangerous for my pregnancy. I really wonder what my facial expression was stuck on at this point. Also, in the middle of her explication I got one of my lovely sweats and had to hold onto the wall while she finished talking. They said it was totally up to me whether Raines stayed or not, and while he may very well get chicken pox at some point, I say no gracias to him having them here and now. Jesus please no. I had to lay down outside the school before walking us back to the house, where Norma pointed out that my face was empty looking and I should go lay down. This is where I remember our day starting to scrape around all the grime from the bottoms of our feet.

I let Raines Wilder watch a few episodes on his iPad while I slothed myself down onto the bed. After about an hour I said, okay kid, we gotta turn that thing off and go look for another school. 1.5 seconds later the boy lost his shit. I mean, torrentially so. There was screaming and growling and a few other forms of aggression. I was already at a heightened state of feeling stressed, and not having anywhere private to handle this rampaging creature whom I love pitched me into desperation. I couldn’t find a closet that I could fit into, so there I was, holding the glass balcony door closed while I sat on the other side of the wall crying. On the other side of the glass stood my son, who was banging on the door and demanding that I put the battery back in his iPad (I had turned it off). See, at home we’ve got protocol for this kind of mess. The longest his tirades usually last at home is 30 minutes or so. Apparently Mexico has given him super-tantrum skills. He went on crying and lamenting the loss of his iPad for about 2 hours. Yes, my nerves were bright red and yellow and green. And yeah, sometimes I lock myself in the bathroom at home until I can come out and love again. It’s safe. It’s what happens sometimes.

By the end of our day, I looked like this:

I’m not showing you the rest of my face because it was just too startling. Heh.

Things got better. Yesterday was many monies better and today is too. I don’t share any of this to remind myself of things I’d like to slush into a never-happened history. I write this down because it was our Tuesday. It happened, and I didn’t walk through it with Raines Wilder just as I would’ve hoped to. Not my kind of mothering, I’ll have to say. We totally miss Papa and our days are so different here, and my small one doesn’t yet grasp all the shifts and clefts that travel can design. Really, neither do I. I guess I just choose to be upset over things other than the iPad. The only thing I repeated all through the day to him was that I love him, and will not allow him to handle himself this way. I love him. I love him. I love him.

But school happened yesterday and is happening again today! Estancia Infantil Mac Paty seems to be a success! And we got him a bright green fútbol for our evenings at the park. So here I am, sitting at Starbucks (my options here are Starbucks and Italian Coffee Company, or one of the coffee stands in the mall We can talk about this weirdness later), channeling Raines Wilder’s tranquility at school with my blackberry pastry and latte. Check it.

Gulping Through lo Bueno y lo Malo

Posted on February 4, 2014 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2014, Uncategorized

Welcome to my Tuesday night. I’ve got a sleeping child on the bed behind me, the Ninjago Ultimate Sticker Collection to the right, and a bracelet I bought in Honduras at the age of 20 on my left wrist. Today was a long, skinned-knee, tear-poached face kinda day. But I’ll go back to happier, baby-hippo days first.

Last Friday we went to the zoo in Mérida, where Raines Wilder slid down a slide out of an airplane, ate a form of pink cotton candy, and considered how seeing animals living in the middle of the city makes him feel. But seriously, I’ve never seen more big cats in one place before. There were at least 20. And the White Tiger is the biggest, fattest cat I’ve ever stared at. R kept wanting to go back to the hippos and there I am wondering if these kit cats would ever even be hungry enough to eat us if we were in there with them. One of the jaguars had this huge chunk of meat just lying on a plate below it. Like, I’m so full I think I’ll stay up here and stare next door at the crocodile. Anyway, it was fun and some of the cages didn’t even have locks on them. Um. And the baby hippo who lives right next to the lion pride. So these four lions, who look to be mama, papa, and daughters are all set up on their fancy platform, staring at the hippos all day, every day. Maybe that’s the gate that shouldn’t have a lock on it. But then again, would they ever be hungry enough to eat that baby hippo? After we saw lots of tigers, lions, jaguars, and crocodiles, we moved onto the monkeys. At this point, Raines started asking about where their homes are, so I told him. And then I told him that a lot about zoos, even good zoos, makes me feel sad and I sometimes want to open all the cages and let the animals take over. See, I have a much harder time watching an animal get displaced and strapped into human subjectivity than watching a human get dismembered and eaten by a crocodile (this is true, but does not mean I would choose saving a baby gazelle from a cheetah over saving my kid—or your kid even. But some people, I mean, maybe I’d pray for them and all, but if they were getting got by lion or tiger I’d probably just leave it at that). I believe we were left with the responsibility of caring for and protecting animals (not in lame, mushy, animal-hoarding ways, okay), and this has always been a foundational part of me. But, as I told R, it gets complicated, this whole idea of freeing the animals. It just wouldn’t be best, because then we’d have these creatures wandering through Mérida eating inappropriate things and the military police would probably come and shoot them. Not a good ending. Not really a good beginning. But they’re not starving and Raines decided sometimes it does make him feel sad.

I’ll jump from there to a few side-note flickerings that I was thinking about. Some favorite recollections of previous travel (before boy, before real love) are my in-between or alone times. I would be riding a bus to or from town, sitting at a bar or cafe waiting on a friend, or searing the soles of my shoes while climbing a volcano. I could have full-sentence reflection, if I wanted. I could trace back through my day to note things I should never do again, or remind mindself of new phrases I’d learned. Today, now traveling with R, is the most necessarily present living I have ever done. Sure, I make plans for our following days and look ahead to falling asleep next to my lover in our home, but every day I must be here. I must be now. Because the boy just fell on the rain-washed sidewalk and he just tried to stick his hand into the Bengal Tiger’s cave (’cause we totally could have touched him). I need to be present, to be with him, when he’s inspecting all the dirt-crusted treasure in the street. Like yesterday, he saw this pink styrofoam thing that he really wanted to use for a boat. I’ve gotta be ready to make compromises and to not make compromises. I must navigate our days, intent on making it safely and contentedly to our bed, without having my son feel that all I do is tell him what to do. This is my love, my ministry of the heart, wherein I fail and succeed daily.

This past weekend felt like success and failure and then…exhaustion. We went to Puerto Progreso for a couple days at the beach. It really is awesome to be on the sand, listening to slipping waters and watching my son work so intently on impermanent projects. The first night we stayed at this fancy-looking hotel. And while it seemed clean in the bleach-rising-from-the-floor sort of way, the bed was something a lizard wouldn’t sleep on. So the next day we asked around a bit and ended up meeting a pretty cool South African guy who manages a restaurant and hotel in Progreso. We checked out the room (and smooshed the bed to make sure) and decided to stay there for the night. The guy’s name is Keith and he said he’s been in Progreso for the past 2 years, which is 3 months too long for him. He’s an engineer and heads back to Nigeria via London in 2 weeks (where he’ll be making $200k/yr instead of probably $10k/yr there in Progreso). He was helpful and unsketchy, and it ended up being a good move for us. The only thing we used out sheets for, though, was to wipe the sweat off of our limbs and bodies during the night. Raines Wilder had some hard falls and seemed to contract a less-than-lovely attitude over the weekend.

We’re back in Mérida now and Raines Wilder starts school tomorrow at Estancia Mac Paty (yep). And if you were concerned about whether he’ll be in the midst of a chicken pox outbreak, calm your hearts; I found a new school. I’ll write about our today (may it filter out of heart and mind quickly and leave us in peace going forward) tomorrow.

Such a choppy post, I know. Forgive me and pray for my hips and back and baby and kid.

If you’re wondering, Does he really need that sheet? No, no he does not.

He wanted to climb onto this.

Biggest tiger ever.

Lions next door to hippos

We waited through this super long line to get on this thing, and right as it was our turn the guy looked at me and told me that I couldn’t do it because I’m pregnant. Maybe I’m just eating a lot of tamales–sheesh. Lame.

“¿Es real, mami?” “Uh, creo que sí.”

“

Big hippo, little hippo, big hippo

Beso para el hermanito

Major project: digging this rope out of the sand. It was soooooo deep.

28-weeks pregnant in Mexico, with a gremlin child.

SOL EN MI CARA

The light in our room was just, well, either too much or too little but sometimes lovely

mush brains

I might look serious here because it was early and I was staring at a light cloud filter next to the sun. This is the climate in which mothers jacket their children, and I can feel a drip of sweat running down my chest.

Profile of a belly button

águila

Funny green hat I made for bebé dos.

In the Streets

Posted on January 30, 2014 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2014, Uncategorized

Good day so far, today. We found this three-peso train machine-type thing a block from the house. I told Raines that if he can save his pesos we can come take a ride every morning. He said no problem, he has SO much money (um, give it to your mama, please). After receiving multiple sweet compliments about him being a beautiful little girl—just like a doll, ya know—we continued down the block and visited a little school. First of all, Tigger and Piglet are on the front banner for this place, so we’re both like yeah, we can dig this. We met with the director and she showed us around. This place seems perfect, educational and interactive. Raines Wilder starts next Tuesday at this place. I’m thinking by that point he’ll be needing a break from my lame battling styles and book-reading skills. He’ll want more. And I’ll get to catch up on some work projects, knit, and think about my sciatic nerve.

Yesterday we took a bus downtown and weaved through the streets of Mérida, watching our step along the way. The boy was intent on finding a black rope to buy, which became a public situation until we found some balloons. I love and hate these types of solutions. It was kinda weird how we could find every other color of rope, but no, not a black one. We waited an hour-ish for the bus home. Meanwhile there we are standing streetside in this old, marching city and I start to feel green. I mean green and dizzy, I guess. Sitting down wasn’t a good option, so I just tried to focus on specific cracks in the wall. All we needed was one R1 bus to come at us, none of this R2, R3 mess. And I’m sweating at least 25% more than normal, I’d say. If I had been alone, just me and little one inside, I would’ve cashed out and found a coffee shop or a glass of wine somewhere. So obviously traveling with a smaller one changes things up a bit, mainly affecting the crevices and every detail of a trip. This kid’s incredible though, powerful as he tells me on occasion, so we’ll be making our way through our days together here and I’m good with it.

Perhaps I’m being vague, so I’ll sketch it out a little here. I love traveling. I love the idea of travel. I love my son. I love the idea of traveling with my son. It’s not always (and sometimes not for days) dreamland, which isn’t the purpose of doing it anyway exactly. I get to know some of the best and most ridiculous sides of me in situations such as these. And now I get to take the boy along, to step out of our lovely life in Nashville for a bit and learn to give a shit in a new way. I mean a lot of things by this. I’m 27; he’s 3. He gets to think about colonialism and the Spanish conquest and recognize that it’s interesting and sad and there are so many bad guys involved. I get to revisit and reinvent my love for experiencing people and cultural history. So I don’t expect it to be by-the-beach easy or a dream vacation really. But I expect it to be worth it, hopefully worth it for everyone we meet along the way too, not just us. We shall see. So now I’m gonna go stare at my soaking wet shoes that are supposed to be drying in the sun. I’d bet you three pesos that they won’t be dry until February 21.

Bus ride home, all 3 of us

Just before our $2 umbrella went down

BNA>Houston>Mérida>Infinity and Beyond

Posted on January 28, 2014 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

Estamos aquí. Ya llegamos.

Mérida, MX opened its centuries-old gates and let me and my long-haired boy in. Saturday, not so much Friday, as planned. So Houston happened and we’re fine with it. Mainly and only because our sweet and new-to-Houston friend Marianne saved us from a day in the airport. I mean, I’m sure the Houston airport is just incredible, etc. and probably even has Dippin’ Dots, but hanging out with dark-haired Marianne, meeting her brother and his strangely and greatly social kits (check out ragdoll cats), and eating at Torchy’s was exponentially better. I should note and then forget, however, that Raines Wilder handled himself perfectly on Day 1 (Nashville>Houston) only to melt into the form of a droopy chihuahua on Day 2 (Houston>Mérida). And now Marianne has the crumbs of an awesome granola bar in her back seat. But he should still get a quarter or something for Day 1.

Now we are here. Norma and Silvio and Lu (beagle) are giving us our own room with a balcony and floral curtains and animal print sheets! They live on the north side of Mérida, which is the poshiest side of Mexico I’ve ever experienced. I should simply say that I’m grateful, so grateful to have a safe home while we are here. Plus they have three turtles on their back patio. So yes. I’m gonna go ahead and blame already forgetting everything I’ve read and learned about this city on my pregnant condition. I hope I can remember at least five amazing things about this place to share at some point. I think today’s Tuesday, which has nothing to do with where we are but that’s all I’ve got down right now and I keep getting distracted by this baby that’s mushing around in my stomach.

Raines Wilder and I miss Aaron and we miss him so much that we want to beam him down here now. He’s basically, uncomplicatedly, and superbly a wonderful part of us. Tonight at the park around the block, Raines ran in big, loopy waves as fast as he could in his Batman shoes. I’m certain that good and strange things are happening inside him, because when he stops to catch his breath he tells me that he’s fast, so fast, faster than Papa even. He also asks me if I wanna come run circles with him and I say no, I can’t because my back and feet feel so weird from…the baby. Lame mom. But seriously, I feel more like sitting around with a bottle of coconut water than even thinking about doing one (1) yoga pose. Raines Wilder is awesome at yoga, by the way.

So we’ll be getting to know Mérida a little more this week, and then figuring out which of the crazy-close ruins we wanna visit first. And cenotes. How did I not know about these… they’ve been in my dreams and nightmares for years. And after seeing the art at the Palacio de Gobierno yesterday, Raines Wilder is very intrigued by the grand, sad, and violent history of the Maya. So I’ll get to look back into this history with my son, which makes me a bit happy.

We’re gonna take a shower tomorrow with Raines Wilder’s new dinosaur soap, so we have at least that to look forward to. Heh… and everything else that will happen to us. We’ve done dozens more things and Raines has been brilliant and bratty multiple times a day, so instead of swishing more words around, here are some photos. Buenas noches.

Not super impressed with our delayed and delayed and delayed flights.

Asleep in a wheelchair in Houston

Free and fancy hotel

Silvio and Norma and my cochinita

Off to Mexico

Posted on January 23, 2014 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2014, Uncategorized

We leave tomorrow. Tomorrow. Me, Raines Wilder, and this other kid flipping about inside me. Aaron is gonna stay back and keep things grounded in Nashville, cuddling with the animals and tree work and all the other many things he does to love and care for us. We’ll be back in four weeks, which should give us enough time to have some real adventure. Raines Wilder gets the part where we’ll be speaking Spanish all day with everyone and we’ll need to Skype with Papa every day because we already miss him. I’m just not convinced he gets the month-long part. We were in Costa Rica last year for 6 weeks, but he was such a little babe and even then he asked for Papa too many times a day. Too many tears got logged into that trip. Besides, that trip was rough on both of us and this time will be gold and silver and stone. He’s a boy now, un niño feroz even. So we got this.

We’re headed all the way down to Mérida, on the Yucatán Peninsula. Our friends Norma and Silvio are lovingly welcoming us into their home (where they have a pool….¡What!). At this point in my little life, sleeping in a friend’s house while traveling with a three-year-old ninja child and being, ya know, kinda pregnant is so many times better than sleeping in a bathroom stall turned hostel room with a barn door (This was fun, by the way, when I didn’t seem to mind the thought of getting kidnapped or shot or something.).

It’s gonna be brilliant, this one. Plus it’s in the 70s and 80s every day down there and I’m pretty sure my heart will start pumping again and I’ll look more me than vampire. Sweet, I’ll take it. But you see, I’ve grown quite attached to Aaron. He’s my love and my hand gets held so well by him. And he sits by me. And he watched every episode of Spartacus with me. And he still loves me and comes home to me even though our lives are living a different kind of exciting these days (this will come and go in swells but I’m aiming for real-life goodness, not so much the win-free-cocaine-in-a-bathroom kind of material. Not my story, by the way).

So off we go, the three of us. Off to México, where dreams are made and driving is more fun than church.

Days and Then Months

Posted on November 18, 2013 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

I’m failing every day, according to me. I wake up each morning after being kissed in the dark as Aaron leaves to work another day. I open my eyes and stare over at my preferred three-year-old hoodlum, who, during these moments most resembles the heart of God (this is biblical, hardly blasphemous). I experience surges of calm, joy, and gratefulness. And each of these emotions comes accompanied by various adjectives, slanting one way or more every time. I am at peace. I am transformed. We are choosing life together as lovers and friends. I’m thinking, coyly and committedly, our love should end up like the walnut seed ingrown and encased by the tree itself, certainly possible and beautifully remarkable.

And then I think about sitting up and pressing into the day. It is at precisely this moment when the non-option of burrowing back down into the blankets and contriving slow movements for the rest of the day becomes my most coveted objective. It is the best and the only. Raines Wilder opens his eyes, tackles me, and/or tells me he’s hungry. So it begins. See, I’ve been pregnant now for four months. We’d talked about more babies last year and then again this year, and then we got married in July. Three weeks after the wedding it worked. And then about six weeks after that my head exploded. I won’t go into details or pour out the grease of pregnancy here, but incubating my own precious parasite this time around has brought me back to Mexican amoeba days, exacerbated times 100 and still going. I dropped out socially, trying to figure out the best way to pour my kid cereal and lay down on the kitchen floor simultaneously. Sometimes I would try to leave, get us strapped in the car (me, Raines Wilder, 3–7 sticks, and some bungee cords), and then we’d end up unloading back into the house ten minutes later. I am frustrated and grateful all the time. It’s getting better, with larger gulps of clarity and only the occasional hot flash / chill / freaked-out sensation.

And now the freedom to take joy in this baby. I can anticipate our future with happiness and a solitude that I haven’t had before. I was packing my things in giant tupperware and coming up with escape plans during my pregnancy with Raines Wilder. I felt cornered by my own decisions and gripping blame like a sloppy climber. This is at least eight curse words better. I love my family. I’m still ungiddy about those weird pregnancy notifications telling me that my kid now has webbed fingers or is the length of asparagus. Hm. This does not mean I don’t love this life growing inside me. Oh, I do.

Through these past few months of ick, I have experienced unwavering gratefulness. I have understanding friends, loving family members, animals, and one galvanizing hell of a lover. Oh yeah, when I get really happy these days my face fills with tears. This shit is real, and I love looking into our days ahead and living in our present.

9 weeks

Bringing the swaddle back for unruly children

Hoodlum menfolk

El Amor y la Soledad [Love and Solitude]

Posted on September 29, 2013 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

Haylie Grace Willard died when we were 18. She was my best friend in the whole world since before I can recall. Our parents were friends before any of us kids arrived. We moved across the country a few times and ended up in Nashville, ready to run across the green-grassed yard and reunite in an embrace. We spent life together. We planned entire days of eating ramen soup and watching MacGyver (episodes with Murdoc were the best, and we could never understand his choices in women but were pretty sure one of us would marry him one day). We named countless kittens, argued over who would wear the poofiest dress, and spent years focused on things other than figuring out what parts of us were broken and why. I don’t write this to preserve my memories; I won’t lose them. I write this as a testimony of love and solitude in friendship. No one will ever know me the way she did. Her struggles were often frustrating for me. I didn’t get why she cared so much about the size of her feet or her need for depthless affirmation. And on the other side, my side, I didn’t understand why I kept pushing at time to hurry up and slow down. I had a serious pull to gain control and independence. I’m sure that was annoying to her. Neither of us tried much to understand these things—until we were 16. Then we started discussing the internal confusion, our brains, our hearts. We both made fantastically awful decisions over the next two years. And some good ones too. Our connection grew stronger while compartmentalized sections of our hearts closed doors to each other. We both still knew what the other was doing. We were coping and grasping and mistaking want for need. We could still sit in a car together for hours listening to Lauryn Hill without saying a word and it was healing, it was love, it was solitude. And then reasons culminated—real ones, bullshit ones —and Haylie jumped off the top of the Sheraton hotel downtown. She landed on her feet and left her body here.

Nine years ago August 29. I grieve her. I give tears over her lost years. She never met my son, couldn’t make my wedding, can’t answer my phone calls, doesn’t borrow my clothes, will never have her own babies or fall in love. I mourn that she will not be here to meet this tiny life that grows inside me now. But I know what it means to be known and loved. And forgiven. She understood compassion like Jesus of Nazareth gave it. She gave and gave and poured herself out for others. Too much, I told her; you give too much and don’t know when to stop. I want this—unconditional love. I want it for my children. I want it for my world.

Chattanooga con la familia

Posted on August 10, 2013 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

Chattanooga is an easy escape. Two hours of familiar roadways and memoired trees, a healthy nostalgia of new and old, and good friends make this one fancy whirlwind of a weekend. Each new visit yields too much, too many, but leaves a good residue of contentment that settles in as I pull into our Nashville driveway.

Last weekend Aaron came with the boy and me. He’s such a hard-working (and tough) arborist that we don’t always get him on the weekends. So his company and help with the boy was lovely. We scurried through town and spent clips of time with friends. Sometimes Chatt is all about newly renovated triangle buildings on a sketch-sketch side of town; sometimes it’s about sidewalk-anchored sculptures and whether we can find one we like or just snub them all; but mainly and nearly entirely it’s about people. People I don’t want to lose touch with. People who have strengths that I don’t. And I never get to see them all.

A few from last weekend:

Brian (brianbeise.svbtle.com)and Jena and Lillian
Nick Honerkamp (http://www.utc.edu/faculty/nick-honerkamp)
Stubbs the kit
Timur Akhriev (timurakhriev.com)
Natalia Romanova and Trent Whicker
Jonathan Mansfield (http://dplusj.com) and Kara Floyd
Gramm (Jane Pettit Andersen), the grandest Gramm in all the land
Kim Saunders (http://www.healthykimberlee.blogspot.com) and Jefferson Kinney

And check out Raines Wilder’s photo of us (a boy’s eye view) at The Flying Squirrel (go there! http://flyingsquirrelbar.com). My favorite.

This is Lillian Florence

Honerkamp – Road Runner

Stubbs

Russians don’t smile

Russians only smile at night?

My arm, guarding us both

J + K

A boy’s eye view

Ascending Path

Good generations

K + J

Me, married

Posted on August 7, 2013 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

Aaron and I started our scandal about six years back. I was seasoning a growing list of heartaches and moving back to the Tennessee basin. And he—well, he was Aaron Andersen. It was October, my sister had married his brother, and we left their celebratory evening together to go sober up in front of his pot-bellied stove at Greystone. I had hiccupped in front of my parents and left them to watch us go down that gravel drive and into our newly carved history.

His home was in Nashville and I had three semesters left in Chattanooga. I remember late–night and early morning drives on I-24 to make it back for class. It was during this stretch that I hit my Chattanooga-Nashville record time. He would swing through on weekends on his way down to the drop zone outside of Atlanta. A couple of months in, he whispered “I love you” into my half-asleep ear and drove off to jump out of a plane. Ugh. I already loved him.

Things went complicated from there. After we realized we truly liked each other, we started trying to get away—and in the most acute and galling ways. I mean, I didn’t mean to fall for Aaron Andersen—um, no. I moved to Nashville, got a job, and tried to make sense of my trajectory. After a weekend in San Francisco with my friend Lien, I came home grumpy and still set on moving out of Greystone. A box of pregnancy tests, a glass of wine, and dinner at J. Alexander’s just made things feel wobbly and sketchier than ever. We’ve been through waves, over and under. Sometimes I like to romanticize our journey and think of it as Over the Rhine’s Drunkard’s Prayer, but we were unfiltered and impure. And selfish—a brutally charred selfishness pervaded everything between me and Aaron.

I don’t want to belittle the unattractive parts of our story, because we endured them and we now understand how to hurt each other good and choose not to. But our history gets better. We have a fantastic son, nearly three now—Raines Wilder. His birth did not save us; it did not fix us. In fact, the first year of the boy’s life seemed the loneliest and most hopeless of all my memory. Raines Wilder is, however, the most redemptive representation of our love for each other. This kid… seriously. We haven’t been able to lean on mushy, fleeting “love”—we fell to our deaths high on this. I decided. He decided. And it helps some kinda crazy that we really like who each other is.

So here we are working out our love for one another (all three of us) in a lovely home in grand Nashville, surrounded by products of my love’s creativity and skills. It was the end of June, we were driving through some beautiful states on our way home from the Outer Banks, and we decided. We decided to text Josh (A’s brother, my brother-in-law) and ask him to “marry us”—he said “Yeah, yeah, for cheap.” A couple weeks later there we were on a cliffside of Lake Superior in Marquette, promising ourselves unto each other.

So here’s to conscientious love gracing two broken humans:

I promise to love you through every season of our lives.

I promise to guard our marriage in hope and loyalty.

I promise to keep you and our family a priority.

I promise to respect and trust you as we continue to forge our life together.

I promise to protect our friendship with grace and forgiveness.

I promise to support you in kindness and with a vulnerable heart.

I promise to love you for the rest of my life.

Photos: Jesse Cusic

bienvenidos de viernes

Posted on July 28, 2013 by sceneafaire under Days in lives

I’m a woman. I’m a mum. I’m a wife (¡ay!). I’m young and old and harbor a longing for understanding others, myself, this life, and the next. Sometimes I spout words as if they’re overarching truths and sometimes I swing in doubt. On occasion, I fight and am defeated down to humility. This, for me, is where life shines beauty.