words in the midst of a messy + beautiful life
I wake before the sun most mornings. I keep my eyes closed a few moments longer, relishing the dark and the quiet, the warmth of a blanket on my bare feet, my arm outstretched under a pillow.
I’ve always been an early riser, partly due to the fact I rarely stay up late in the evenings. (The exception, I think, has been the past couple of years, when Atticus’ sleep schedules have been erratic, or … Read the rest
I don’t know when it started happening, but I think it was sometime around when we took you for your first haircut. As you sat in the chair and I watched your soft baby-curls fall to the floor, I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat that had risen up unexpectedly. It’s just hair, I told myself. And it was, of course. But it was also a symbol, a metaphor; my baby was … Read the rest
In September of 2017, we set out on the journey of adopting internationally. We made a decision to grow our family, just like we did when we started trying to get pregnant with our son. September was nine months ago. If I were pregnant again, this is the point when I’d be giving birth. Instead, our daughter sits in a transition home halfway around the world.
I remember the last month of pregnancy with Atticus. … Read the rest
Last week, my son was sick. Between the stomach virus and the ear infection, he was not a happy camper, and sleep was hard to come by in our house. Whether it was his fever or aches, the coughing or goopy eyes, he woke up consistently every one to two hours, for three or four nights straight. On top of that, my husband had just had his wisdom teeth removed, and the pain combined with … Read the rest
My mother was my first country,
the first place I ever lived.
(Nayyirah Waheed)
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Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and, like most of us, I’ve got some feelings about it.
It’s a day some people love and other people would rather skip over. A lot of us, I suspect, are caught somewhere in the in-between. Sometimes, it brings up painful memories surrounding our own mothers, or how we have mothered our children. Sometimes, it reminds … Read the rest
If you’ve been following my story, you’ll know that in late 2017, I started asking questions to try and gather more information about my birth father and my ancestry. It started with a yearly checkup at the doctor’s office and a questionnaire I had to fill out about family history. Literally more than half of it was left blank because I simply didn’t know how to answer. I know it might not seem like a … Read the rest
It’s been over a month since I shared with you that I am on a journey—a journey to recover the lost pieces of myself; to find a solid footing in the roots of my ancestors; to take back the story that was stolen from me by an absent father and a buried heritage.
It’s been three weeks since I dropped my DNA collection kit in the mail, sending it off to a … Read the rest
It’s that time of year again.
We’re just a few days away from January and new year’s resolutions and fresh starts, so naturally I’ve started thinking about #OneWord365 and what word I’m going to lean into in 2018. Some years, I choose the word with intentionality, a specific goal in mind. Other years, the word chooses me. It comes to me unexpectedly–the first thought upon waking in the morning or washing breakfast dishes or, … Read the rest
I am born.
It is 12:55 am on a cold Canadian winter’s night. My mother has labored long, but I have gotten myself stuck in her birth canal, hesitant, I suppose, to come out and greet the world. She births me through a slit in her abdomen, just as her mother before birthed her, and I, thirty-two years later, will birth my own son. The women in my family give life through our stomachs, it … Read the rest
The sun went down at 4:35 this afternoon.
The sky was bleak, filled with clouds all day, and around 4:00 the gray began to grow darker, eventually bleeding into black. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are entering the season in which our days are short and our nights are long. The light is dim these days, and the shadows are everywhere.
Perhaps you feel it, too?
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I am always struck at … Read the rest
