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May 2009 
What might you learn to live without, and why?
Posted on Jul 27th, 2008
by 
Farland
Farland
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for July 25, 2008:
I took the girls to Moab this week. What an adventure to be so child centered without distraction. It was over 100 degrees and the tiny gnats that are usually gone by now have decided to stay into August. We played and created stories that fit our discomforts to make them seem necessary. We sat neck deep in a murky stream while clean tourists tripped across the bridge above us. We hiked in wet clothes to Delicate Arch and talked to everyone we passed. We met people from Belgium and Switzerland, bunches of Dutch families, Germans from Essen and Dresden, a family from Paris and another from Montreal, a group from South London and a strung out multigenerationed Indian Family from West Virginia. The girls sorted through a box of dolly clothes at the thrift shop and we brought home enough costumes for their stuffed animal to perform a multi act play at night by candle light. They kept it a surprise for me. I only knew it involved an evil red cloaked monkey. Sonny the unicycling rock shop owner gave us a small horny toad to set free up at the cabins. We hunted out caves in the slick rock to find shade and played in shallow pot holes full of water skippers. Every little stone found was a gem to collect and lovingly wash. At night we carried our dinner to the canyon edge and ate between the western setting sun and the eastern black clouded La Sals. I read Fiona to sleep and Julia heavy lidded with stories of the Greek Gods and they slept soundly with doors open to the pitch night all clumped in my only bed under sheep skins. The days were theirs and sometimes I would pretend I wasn't there. It would start "What would you do right now if I wan't here could you find your way back home?" And I'd slip back silent as they retraced a trailess path, or "What would you do if I happened to fall asleep right now?" And their eyes would light up and they would light the oil lamps and Julia would settle Fiona into a pile of pillows and read her to sleep a book in one hand and candle in the other. The less we have, the more room we have to live the right sized lives.
Access: Public
that was really so amazing.
yes. yes. yes.
oh how I wish I'd played more of those games with Jordan. I was such a bratty baby of a mommy and not really much of a mommy at all. maybe it's not entirely too late. I'm still learning and growing up and in too and you are such an inspiration.
Farland coming to your blogs makes me see just how stress filled I can be without even noticing it,made clear by this feeling of ahhhhh that overcomes me when I read your words.
Your blog as a form of meditation :-)
that is the most perfect picture of being lifted up by heat and delight and being in a body. Thank you so much for being.
oh farland, if i promise to put aside my “adult” self, would you babysit me? are you taking applications?
The girls get mad when I call it babysitting. But I got a doll baby to sit on so I could say it anyway. Oh I would love it if you could visit tell me what would be on the application? I'll ask Julia and Fiona to come up with some questions and post them.
maybe you could call it girl-keeping, kind of like being a bee keeper except without hives. I want to see their application. I think it might be a great guide for life in general.
What I am most taken with whenever you write about a day you spend with the girls is how there is no sense of separation. I'll try to explain. You are a youthful spirit speaking about time spent with other youthful spirits. Not an adult writing about your day spent with some children. I remember when my kids went through the stage where their most favorite thing to do was to have their toys, dolls, etc. “talk” to each other. I dreaded that game at the time. I don't know why. Trying to immerse myself in the role of a talking inanimate object was something I wasn't “good” at, yet they absolutely craved that game. A decade later, I can now see myself doing that and having fun. I think many of us go through a period of “socialization” (or perhaps it should be more aptly called, “anti-socialization”) where we actively abandon the ability to suspend “reality” and live in our imaginations. A tree still contains the essence of the acorn, even though it's all grown up. You've never lost touch with your “acorn self” so life is filled with possibilities. That's neat. And, inspiring.
Catherine, you are right about that because I often think how much I feel like me at ten years old, how that me is a strong part of how I respond to life. And this makes me laugh the girls would tell you how I talk through all the stuffed animals even the one I might find in a basket at the thrift shop and it will start talking to random children who happen to walk by. I sort of feel more comfortable talking through a bear than me talking…
Your love has no object, it is a mist, like a wise child's. I have no idea what I mean by that, but those are the words that wanted to came out when I read this…..
When my Father died (it was 7 years ago today) my brother wrote in the local paper that he had given love away as if it were the cheapest and most abundant thing on earth that it was like rain. Mist is getting there. Thank you.
I think sometimes that am the luckiest human creature alive. I have you as my mama and Opa as my Opa and this whole wonderous community to watch over and breathe with.
Mist is getting there. Thank you.
A perfectly wonderful description of a perfectly wonderful day into night.
We are all the luckiest human creatures alive Siona. At least I think so.
Me too
Sigh…..eyes doing that water thing……me too :-)
“he had given love away as if it were the cheapest and most abundant thing on earth that it was like rain”
I've been thinking about this since I read it. that is how I want to be too. I'm practicing daily. it's a very fun practice. it makes me smile. it makes me feel rich.
“he had given love away as if it were the cheapest and most abundant thing on earth that it was like rain” ….: this was how I found my way to your story Farland… and I was seeking Sonia….!
Reading this was deep sigh precious.. and lit up for me immediately a little piece I had written in my own journal over 20 years ago (which I was able to go and lift just like that!):
“Now I am an adult, I am finally able to be a child. I say, I really want to… And I say, go on then, do it! Today I played in a rock pool in the rain. It was as good as in the sun. I always knew it would be..”
Love flows so naturally in your blog, Farland and I am so grateful for being led here through Siona’s profile! And so timely that it happened in the month of love! Thank you both! Hugs!
I just joined a few hours ago, and this was the first post I read. I don’t think I could have picked a better one. Siona did a wonderful thing by linking this entry from her profile. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I love it when someone makes a new comment on a blog I have read because it reminds me to look again at the photograph (this one is brilliant!) and words (these – gorgeous!)
-d
I love that too Dawn! I just reread and read all the comments and so I’ve already cried this morning and it’s only 9am. I like to get an early start.
nice. I’m having a very late finish. have to wake up in less than 5 hours, but I’m just having a quick, quick look at the gaia messages. I’ll never catch up at this rate. :-)
I third SFL’s comment. I love to come back to a great post and relive it months later.
I just spent a few days with my nephews (3 & 6) and, as I always do when I visit them, got to reconnect with the child in me that I never let out when I was actually a child. And they remind me of the kind of life I’d like to lead now, as an adult, as much as possible. Stripped down. Simple. They are made happy so simply. They entertain themselves so simply – except, of course, they got a Wii for Christmas and entertainment became much more complicated and loud for the 6-year-old and the 3-year-old and I would slip off to his room and build a fort and turn the star light on the wall on and off and on and off. This post is a great encouragement as I spend this week thinking about how I want to spend the upcoming year and about the kind of person I want to continue to become.
Me too. I like not just returning to posts like this, but seeing the ripples out into the worlds of others. It makes the whole thing feel so alive and growing and endless…
(And Katie! Welcome to Gaia. :)
I’m with you on that Dawn - I love love love the wonderful conversations these comment strings sometimes turn out to be. Having been away for a while it’s the thing I’ve missed most, and the thing that is pulling me back in. Glee and anticipation - ah!
Like Katie, I stumbled onto this thread through Siona’s blog while I was utilizing my modest-Fieldmouse voice to ask her to fix something…
If I could recommend a single thread that shows the support and inspiration of this community, well…this is the leading example thus far. OH! I just had an appostrophy! Why don’t each of you feel free to send me a message linking your favorite example of a great Gaia thread! (I remember, once upon a time, a bunch of us got together before I returned from work and colored a map of Mayamar…)
Katie- Welcome to Gaia, a spectacular cove in the virtual Information Stream.
“he had given love away as if it were the cheapest and most abundant thing on earth that it was like rain” - I wanna practice being this, too.
Thank you, all!
Jason