December Light

Happy December! By the hardest, I’ve been holding myself back from thinking about December for a while — from thinking about the Christmas holidays. It IS hard. And not necessarily because the excitement is overwhelming, but because the busy-ness and preparations and schedule can be overwhelming. And because all the hullabaloo the holiday brings tends to encroach on my rest and my peace of mind sometimes.

Just before Thanksgiving, I was in the local Wal-Mart picking up items for Bug’s 5-year-old birthday party. I wanted to get a few extra gift items for him and also some “big brother” and “big sister” gifts for the other two. I think that’s when the impending holiday season hit me — right about the time I turned onto the toy aisle. To say it was overwhelming is an understatement, for sure. My mind immediately went into overload with the number of options for Christmas presents. I flittered from one item to the next thinking how one would love this or one would love that. My brain filled up with a low-grade panic because I didn’t yet have a “plan” for getting Christmas presents or doing teacher gifts or baking goodies or putting up decorations. I had to shake my head at myself right there on aisle 17. I had to tell myself to snap out of it and focus on the birthday at hand.

That’s when I decided that I wanted Christmas to be different this year. Sometimes I over-plan or over-work or over-schedule myself right into a serious case of Bah Humbug or at the least a case of wanting a long winter’s nap during this season. Sadly, there have been times when it made me happy to see the festivities come to an end.

With changes and challenges and the plethora that comes with mommyhood and designerhood, I found myself perhaps dreading the holiday season. But, here’s the thing. I’m a celebration-junkie. I like to celebrate. I like to create and enjoy traditions that celebrate and elevate the simple splendor of everyday life — and especially the simple splendors of a Christmas Christ child on a bed of hay. I don’t want that spirit to be dampened in my heart, in my home, in my life. I don’t want Christmas to get so lost in a sea of preparations that I miss the opportunity to see it, much less celebrate it.

The true celebration of Christmas has the uncanny ability to bring a unique light to the winter of life. From a miraculous child and astonished herdsmen to questioning sages and a guiding star, the story of Christmas can bring clarity from it’s sheer simplicity and humility. This month so often sheds light, a pure and clear light. One that opens up our eyes of wonder. The wonder that makes us step outside our tired thinking to believe in possibilities. The wonder that makes us curious. The wonder that gives us courage to follow the light set before us. The wonder that makes us seek our own light found in the unlikeliest of places.

So, I’m starting this December with my guard up. So that I can keep my heart open to the season’s light. I’m guarding my time so that I can choose to focus on the best things and activities and people. I want my children to know this celebration, not just their busy and frazzled mommy. I want them to see this light and wonder for themselves. And I want to see the light myself. And wonder.

I hope YOUR days, this December are “merry and bright.” Feel free to click and download this month’s desktop wallpaper calendar or iPhone/iPad wallpapers. I’m also beginning a 25 Days of Light posting series over at my Plop! blog to share photos of Christmas light. Feel free to click by!

November Bounty

Happy November! It seems almost impossible that 2011 is almost over, but here we are. Last weekend my kids and I visited our family farm and enjoyed some time exploring outdoors. As we were gathering leaves and rocks and other treasures, I was observing the light and the colors. Fall is a random time in the South. It’s random in that you never know exactly when it’s going to hit and what response Nature might make. The typical Fall colors and signature blue sky spread themselves along the landscape from late September well into January sometimes. For this trip, I was noticing the clarity of the colors. The blue sky was astonishingly blue at times. The greens were still quite vibrant in places. The yellows and reds and oranges were popping out in their appropriate tree species with a punch. I sometimes assume November will offer only the most sluggish of colors that are soon muddied out by an overwelming gray/brown neutral. Not so, as we begin the month this year! Even my own yard is ablaze with deep hues. Clear hues.

Clarity. It can be hard to come by sometimes — in colors and in living. As November has brought it’s clear hues this year, I’m also wondering what I’m willing to let it bring for my clarity of spirit. This month, we celebrate Thanksgiving. We focus on the blessings we find in the privilege of living. The bounty.

Bounty is clarifying. Taking the time to recognize the bounty around me pushes aside muddy thinking and muddy priorities. It focuses my attention on what matters. It keeps the main things (and people) in clearer focus. Bounty refuses to allow itself to be governed by regrets or have-nots. It requires that I see a full plate. It flies in the face of all the distractions that come with that battle in my mind. Am I really making progress? Am I really speaking? Am I really moving? Am I really living? Moving my attention to the bounty of each day and each experience helps me live that day and that experience will a full focus and a full heart. That’s my goal this November, and that’s the inspiration for this month’s wallpaper art. Enjoy for your desktop, iphone or ipad!

Nimble

“Jack jumped over the candle stick!” Bug came home singing it a week ago. They had finished up nursery rhyme week and he could recite the poem in full laughter mode complete with a demonstration of the famous leap. There is pumpkin fever around my house! Little Drummer Boy, Bug and Baby Girl have all had a hankering for Fall fun, and I have to admit that it’s taken me by surprise. Yes, October arrives every year on the day after September 30th, but for some reason I’ve felt a step or two behind the process this year. Fall IS my favorite time of year, and I suppose I’ve spread that little joy to my children enough in the past to help them catch the autumn bug as well. That’s probably why they’ve been asking non-stop about carving pumpkins, pulling pumpkins from the attic, painting pumpkins, decorating with pumpkins, icing pumpkins, etc. Are you catching the theme?

As I’ve watched their excitement grow over the last week about silly things like pulling down the attic stairs and fetching the Halloween box. About finding the best “horse apples”, those green seed-y balls from the Bodock tree they’ve decided we need to decorate aptly. About picking out just the right pumpkins from the produce bin. About all the things we’ve planned to do and enjoy once “Fall” arrives.

Well, now it’s here.

I couldn’t help but use the word “nimble” in this month’s desktop wallpaper. It’s a different kind of “Jack” of course, but naturally, “nimble” seemed to fit. It also fits my feelings this month. It seems October has arrived with more quickness than it usually does. Where has 2011 gone? And, I have no doubt that Jack’s month will usher the rest of the year through our lives with even more agility. In the same way, I see my sweethearts all full of giggles and smiles and questions, and I can’t help but recognize how nimble the passage of their days is as well. I’m barely caught up with one stage or one skill before they’ve moved on to the next. I’ve barely wrung out one tender moment or one amazing conversation before they’re on to the next profundity. As this October begins, I find myself gripping to slow the process down, to halt the furious race toward the next accomplishment in their lives. But, try as I might to resist it, I’m certain Jack will be nimble. And quick. So, I’m determined to be utterly captured in the gaze of his fiery grin for as long as possible. Before the flicker is blown by leaping. As their feet rush on to new journeys.

Click and enjoy.

Summer Daze

It’s Summer time, and I don’t have anything profound to say about that fact. Nope. Summer just seems to defy profundity and position itself squarely in the camp of carefree. And, I guess that IS a little profound. Sometimes in the thick of real life, carefree is very elusive.

Who can’t smile at gumballs? Aren’t they the the epitome of instant sweet-filled and quickly-fleeting summertime carefree moments? I took the photo in this month’s desktop wallpaper image one Sunday afternoon earlier this month. That day, I did just what I imagine I did as a child on a summer weekend afternoon. I gazed at the scrumptious offerings inside a window, but was too drawn by the possibilities of the moment to stop and go inside. Summer daze gone by — when the endless opportunities of free time were almost overwhelming. And the absence of time constraints almost made me dizzy with possibilities.

I love that feeling. And, even though my constraints are a little more rigid in this grown-up June and July, I hope I can still capture a touch of that daze. Just a touch of that carefree heart peeking in the window, but too busy with loving life to bother with dropping in the coin. Enjoy my personal glimpse of summer, and feel free to download to use in your own devices. *wink*

Oh Happy Day: Turning Three

I’ve been in a season of busy-ness. I feel it in every way — in my sleepiness and sleeplessness, my stretched schedule, my unkept home, my burgeoning to-do list, my perpetually delayed accomplishments. I always try to maintain gratitude for the wealth of opportunities busy-ness tends to signal and for the chance to help or serve my children in all their interests. But, I’m feeling it. There’s no question that we have a boundary line, a tipping point in the load of busy-ness that, once crossed, begins to hinder everything we do. And, it often seems those things we most enjoy (or most need) take the greatest hit.

I’ve been realizing this week just how much busy-ness robs me of a life aware. The sheer pace of activities numbs my senses toward experiencing each day, each place and each encounter fully. It numbs me to my own thinking and feelings and priorities.

Today marks the third birthday of EyeJunkie. I started it in May 2008 as an outlet–an outlet for creativity and for my centering my own thoughts about life and this world in a consistent stream. I sub-titled it “adventures in paying attention” because I found myself in this similar place. I found myself needing to curb the busy-ness of my own mind and my own schedule so that I could (as Thoreau said) live “deliberately.” So that I might re-claim a life of intention, at the mercy of my own priorities rather than at the mercies of everything else around me. I started EyeJunkie to articulate thoughts. My thoughts. The thoughts that had gotten lost in the din of activities and projects and needs surrounding me. I started EyeJunkie as a starting point. A place to begin and document an effort at paying attention to each day, and thereby elevating that day to the most important among days.

As I look at my stream of posts over the last few months, I see that what I’ve written above is true. One of the things I most enjoy (and most need) has taken a huge hit. And, I’m feeling it. It’s fitting that the anniversary of EyeJunkie’s beginnings falls on a Friday, the day I sometimes call “Oh Happy Day” and devote writing space to articulating gratitude. I am grateful for so many things in this writing experiment. Of course, I’m grateful for anyone who takes their own precious time to lay eyes on it. I’m mindful that this simple choice from a reader is an incredible compliment and gift since I’m assuming the realities of busy-ness aren’t just limited to me. I’m grateful for the experience of entering a non-traditional and growing medium. I’m thankful for the opportunity to experiment and learn in that medium. I’m thankful for the outlet it’s given me to express myself on whatever topics seem to rise to the surface at the moment. But, I think my greatest gratitude for EyeJunkie today is its ability to filter and center my thinking. That’s what I’ve sorely missed over these last few months of inconsistency.

Something about the act of articulating my thoughts into semi-coherent sentences and phrases helps to solidify them in my own mind. Somehow in the body of essays I produce for this space, I find the trends of my own heart. You would think those things would already be apparent to me, but it’s not so. Sometimes the process of understanding and recognizing my own place is so much harder from the inside out. To see it looking back at me in words and statements helps me recognize it more clearly.

Upon turning three, I’m ready for a renewed commitment to the founding theme of EyeJunkie. The adventure of paying close attention. Giving life the attention it so richly deserves. It seems to be a contradiction, but the reality of experience shows that we often have to cut back to experience more. We have to tune out to listen carefully. We have to speak more softly to be heard loud and clear. We have to look past some things to see the subtle blooming of life all around us. And, I want to see the blooms.

I want to get back to that pursuit that has brought me such gratitude and insight so far. I want to see May flowers, as the school rhyme goes. But, more pointedly, I want to see how May flowers. I want to be hard on the trail of that life aware — the one where I actually notice how each day (even each moment) blooms. Be it the sweet-scented blooms of opportunity and joy, or the bitter-sweet flowering of change or struggle, I want to breathe it in. Fully.

And I want to write about it.

[I hope you enjoy this week's destop wallpaper (a little late). Feel free to point-click the desktop version above or grab these for your iphone or ipad.]