Goodnight Moon...

Sitting at my desk, I look straight up and see the moon.

This house is our shelter from the elements, yet our love of the outdoors shaped the plan- where 1/3 of the under-roof footage is covered porches and 9 doors, 20 windows and 3 skylights barely allow for the walls of the less than 1,500 sq. ft. interior. In order to stand anywhere and NOT be able to see outside you need to be closed into a closet or the pantry. Or have your eyes shut.

Most of the year all the windows are open and the birdsong flows through on the wings of the never-ending springfed creek and pine needle scented breeze and we are living outside...inside. And I love it.

This morning we trundled 10 cartons of books over to Denton for the homeschool garage sale. When we moved from the big house to the little house we (and by "we" I mean Ward, mostly) had to winnow down the books that came. We all love books, but Ward is the most avid collector and has been the best at keeping his collection with him between moves. I left a lot of my books in Wisconsin, something I regret now.

Ward also inherited the majority of his parents' books when they passed over- a huge assortment of frankly horrifying psychiatric tomes from his dad, and an overwhelming amount of western romance novels from his mom. On his own he had cartons and cartons of paperbacks, along with many hundreds of hardcover books.

The hardcovers came to the new house along with a select group of his dad's books and paperbacks- in addition to his small but designated library we have bookshelves in the living room, dining room, bedrooms and Alec's study. We took most of the rest, along with the kids' books Alec outgrew to the rummage sale.

Tomorrow is Saturday- the day when Ward and Alec go to lunch and the bookstore. Sometimes Ward comes home with a new book (he mostly buys used from Amazon anymore) but it's an almost certainty Alec will have a new book. When we were in Denton today one of our options for the afternoon was to visit Recycled Books- a family favorite. After the rummage sale any leftover books will be sold to Recycled Books.

There's a very good chance the boys will end up buying a few of them back... and our recycled books will be recycled back to us. And I love it.

On the way home we drove through storms. Or they passed over us. I'm not sure. At one point the rain suddenly pounded the car and Ward was driving almost literally blind, the roar of the downpour drowning out the radio and then

nothing. We were out of it momentarily.

Alec said "How did THAT happen?" and I said it was the cloud that had been over us. He said "The entire sky is clouds, mom". I said, "Yes, but they're not all raining at once". I don't think he believed me. He's skeptical that way.

Alec will be 12 in a few weeks- my last baby. And with all three of them I've learned so much more than I've taught, been shown over and over again that babies and children are NOT empty vessels or lumps of clay to be molded and shaped into humans. They're born human and have innate gifts and powers and if we allow them, they remind us of all the wonders we overlook in our rush to grow up, our determination to attain and maintain that elusive illusion of adulthood.

I know I spent more time than I should've worrying about what other people (other adult-type people) were thinking and less time than I should've paying attention to the lessons my children were trying to teach me. I'm making a valiant (if sometimes failing) effort to pay very good attention with this last baby- the young man who is as tall as I am, as brilliant as his father, and who is a free yet critical thinker. He is a daily, constant yet constantly kind and funny reminder of how much I don't know about parenting, being adult... or even being human. And I love it.

I've been loved and hated, ignored and dismissed. Been married to the absolute wrong person and married to the absolute right person. I'm surrounded by people who need me, depend on me and count on me but all the while they're the ones who give me strength and support and a reason to get up in the mornings. My family- blood related and otherwise, human and otherwise are my treasures pure and simple, and I'm as fiercely loyal to them as they are to me.

All the bad bits (and there've been some heinous bad bits) are the glue that enable and encourage me to stick the good bits together, making damn sure I hold onto them and never let them go. If there had been no bad bits, I'm afraid I'd take the good bits for granted- letting them fall away like so much confetti, so many snowflakes glittering in the sun like they'll never melt and disappear. Until they do.

This is life. This is my life. All the inside is outside, released yet recycled, knowing less with every morsel learned, receiving blizzards of kindness and compassion for every snowflake given minute of it.

Sitting at my desk, I look straight up and see the moon...And I love it.