Boho Girl

I am sitting here tucked into the corner of my fabric covered couch with the filtered light from the clouds outside the window warming my cheeks. I know I promised a continuation post from my previous dread-cutting-brushing video but the Universe had other plans. We all caught a few local buggies going around town. First a chest cold and then a stomach flu. As much as there are many reasons it is hard when everyone in the house is sick at the same time, there is also something a bit romantic about it. We’re given this permission to stay in our jammy-jams all day and snuggle on the couch for hours at a time and let the chores go just for a few days. We curl up and read or watch films we’d otherwise not make time for. Each of us taking turns at being nurses for one another. Then we are forced at times to be utterly selfless. When all you want to do is lay in bed under the covers, there are others more in need that you must tend to. Its a practice in love, absolute utter love.

With all of this slowing down, I have done almost nothing with my short nubbed out dreadlocks. I have only been able to brush out 10 of them in the front. I am brushing from the front to the back. My head has been achy for about a week with both bugs hitting me hard, so I needed to leave it alone. But most importantly, I really want to be in a space of feeling present and with full intention when I brush them out one by one…because it is all part of the journey for me. A way to savor. That is my word for “slow” these days as I have always known I go about things slowly. And at times in the past, it was made into something wrong about me by myself or others. Now I just embrace that I love to savor what is in front of me.

I will continue with my dread journey in the next post but until then, here are a few images of the last few days that I wanted to share…

Oh how I wish I looked THIS cute after I vomited…

What happens when you mix long hair with a remote controlled flying helicopter…

So, note to self…when playing with helicopter, wear Cedarbun…

And…my phone broke to pieces and I didn’t have it for a few weeks but felt so blessed to find out we were able to upgrade to a iPhone 4S! But look at my yummy new bamboo Deer cover from Grove…{sigh}…

{thank you to Sus for guiding me to Grove. she is my go to friend for gorgeous gadgets}

{some scenes from my sister’s farm at christmas and traveling to and fro}

So much swirling around in my world. All heart stuff. Nothing flashy. Just really simplifying my life and what I am surrounding myself with. I am off to northern california yet again tomorrow for a few days. Our first family therapy session. Hold us in your hearts. I am scared, excited, nervous, oh so many things. This is good, so good…a very long process beginning now. I surrender to it all. Everybody just wants love and to be loved good.

More soon.

Boho Boy’s brother Jon-Erik has been with us for over a week now. He flew into Northern California to stay with us at my sister’s farm and followed us back home. The boys are keeping me very busy! They did a little New Years ditty for y’all at one of our favorite parks (above).

I’ll come back soon to share images and stories of Christmas at the Farm.

Blessings to each of you as we journey into a New Year full of possibilities.

xoxo

New windows were installed today. Three upstairs, one downstairs and our home was covered in plastic and we had to stay in a safe room (home built in 1900, precautions in regards to lead paint). So, we added some romance to it and while Boho Boy built databases, Cedar and I painted, snacked and listened to music (not the same trance music as daddy, blaring through his DJ fresh headphones).

We are finally surfacing. My sister was here all last week and the day she arrived, I felt the flu coming on. Oh how I was wishing it away but there it stayed. A gnarly chest flu that is going around town. So within a day of me being full on ill, she caught it and then Boho Boy caught it and so far Cedar only has the sniffles. So all week, we were lounging around on the couch, feeling miserable and trying our best to help one another when we really just wanted to bury ourselves under the covers. Being hit hard with a flu is rough. Being hit hard with a flu and having to take care of others is a lesson in LOVE and patience. We took care of one another. We survived. And we survived well. A little curly headed wood nymph was the light of our days, insightful enough to know we weren’t our best and made his best efforts at bringing us joy.

When my parents were here a month ago, they caught food poisoning. Both of these visits were lessons for me in surrendering expectations to entertain and really being mindful about “togetherness” and the importance of quality over quantity.

Nearing the end of the week, a new local friend of ours made us soup and dropped it off on our doorstep. A selfless offering of love and healing. We were so grateful and humbled…

ps. various homemade soups and oil of oregano pills… pure magic for our healing.

Its almost as if having my parents here to visit created a completeness about our move. I know it has been as hard for them as it was for me to share with them our days and have them be unable to picture it all in their mind. Where the kitchen was in relation to the bathroom. How big our living room really was. How all of our “things” looked and felt within these walls. Now they know. The shapes, the smells, the teeny bathroom and the musty laundry room where we have to keep the lid to the washing machine up or it will begin to get moldy.

When they pulled up in my dad’s big white truck, Cedar and I were standing out on the front lawn, waving them down the street towards our little blue house. I promise you, in that very moment a very warm, moist wind began to blow down the street and didn’t go away until they left. The entire time they were here, it was the most windy we had ever seen it. But it wasn’t a chilly wind. It was warm and almost tropical. It felt heavy with magic and it made the trees dance until they released what needed to be gone.

It was so comforting to have them near and to share our life with them and to receive their blessing and understanding about where we have chosen to be right now. It was sweet seeing them get to know Boho Boy in a way they haven’t yet had a chance to, since he works from home and was with us most always. And it warmed my mama heart to witness them bonding with Cedar. He loved calling out “Grandpa!”, “Grandmarmie!” because those words are easy for him to say, so he wanted to say them all the time. Vu Vu was hard for him so within minutes of pulling up to our house, my dad told me he wanted Cedar to call him Grandpa. Once I saw the glee on Cedar’s face when he was able to say “Grandpa”, we knew it was the right choice.

My parents fell sick the second day they were here. We think it might have been food related. They both ate fish from downtown when no one else did. It could have been the water they were not used to drinking but whatever it was, it laid them up on our couch most the of the remainder of their stay. Each of us were sad about this at times but we always came to the understanding that truly, they are here to be with us and there are plenty of opportunities to tour them around during their future visits. It was nice to have a home for them to relax in and to stay in our jammies and to just be together. It was definitely another lesson, a message of how important it is to not have expectations…especially when going on vacations. A lesson in letting it flow, being in the moment and being aware of what means the most to you and for me, snuggling together on the couch at night means so much more to me than showing off our new city.

Cedar is almost 3 years old now. A few more months away. I am really seeing him come into himself and he is in a fierce space of finding his voice. He is coming to an awareness that so much of him is separate than us…meaning his wants, desires and needs. He is loving the idea of “No” right now. Which I find so inspiring to tell you the truth because for years I was a YES person and the last few years have been about me grooving with the idea that it is okay and crucial to say no to some things in order to align myself with my truth. So on one hand it can be so annoying that Cedar is resisting our ideas or needs for him but on the other hand, I am admiring him for being so in touch with his own needs. I am also noticing he is an empath, much like me. He absorbs the emotions, feelings and energies in a room and has a strong reaction to it. All this to say, he was in a sensitive place while my parents were here. I could tell he knew they were not feeling well. He was really acting out a lot and it was a huge lesson for me to not feel shame or sorrow about it around my parents. We all have this deep need for our children to be truly SEEN for who they are…especially around family and when they get explosive with their emotions, all these fears come up about being judged.

I kept finding myself trying to explain to my parents that he wasn’t being himself and of course they were loving and patient about it with me, reassuring me they were just happy to be with him regardless the space he was in. After they left I did a lot of self reflection about it because the times I was rambling off to my parents about how he is not usually like this, I felt an ick inside that I even went there. Cedar is Cedar…even when he is in a chaotic space and even if it is not an everyday occurrence, it is still him and I never want Cedar to attach any shame to his emotions because he hears his mother apologizing for him. Oh this goes so much deeper and I am too exhausted tonight to get into it but I will explore it more in this space.

I know that them just being here, witnessing our rhythm was needed and it was a foundation for their relationship with Cedar and even if he was more grumpy than peaceful…it is real and raw and OUR LIFE. I know that is all they could ask to be a part of and I love them for that.

I also wanted to share that I just hired a Holistic Health Coach! I feel so blessed that Stephanie came into my life. It all begins in October and I will be exploring and documenting this new journey here on my blog.

Here are a few more images from their visit:

{my sis and me, after a few days of much heart work and tears that come from the deepest places}

Some thoughts that have been on my mind the last few days…

My whole life and especially presently, I have been attracted to and attracting people that are very different from me. I love the unique. I learn from it. It widens, expands and opens my heart. For years now I have been a seeker of the different on a quest to find Truth and Love.  I do not need the people in my life to be the same as me, although kindred spirits are a blessing in and of itself. What I am discovering that I do need and strive to cultivate is kindness and respect among family and friends, however it is expressed from person to person. We all express it differently. I yearn to cultivate peace for my home and the environment surrounding my son.  Peace that will offer him room to breathe and LOVE and be who he needs to be while feeling held in complete acceptance. I suppose peace does that for me too and it is important, very important for me to offer that breathing space to anyone around me.  It always has.

One thing I am learning and navigating through, is the balance of being open to love and be loved with healthy boundaries.

Every single person in my family, oh my…we are all wonderfully different than one another.  This past year has been full of some deep wounds opening within all of us.  We are all…each of us, in a space of wanting to let go of habitual patterns and release what binds and holds us spinning in the same unhealthy and toxic cycles.  That is so so hard, isn’t it?  To break free of such things.  For so many reasons.

Last week, before my sister arrived, I was sitting knee to knee with a neighbor and dear new friend, listening to her share about her own family dynamics and how her and her parents are now practicing consciousness of patterns that arise each time they visit with one another.  Each of them are doing the work to come to a place of awareness with one another.  They have moments when they catch themselves projecting and they each take responsibility for their own actions/reactions and work through it together.  When she shared this with me, my eyes held hers and I shared how deeply I craved this for my family; An openness that can provide healing and understanding and compassion in a peaceful way.  She reminded me that it is HARD work because the only way we can all get there is if we do our own work, take responsibility for our part in the cycle and have compassion for the rest.  That’s huge and hard but so freeing.  It is a space we all ache for but our fears and insecurities hold us back.

So that is where I am.  I plan to step through the fear and do my own work.  My part in the puzzle.  I am going to seek out a therapist and work through it in a way that feels right for me.  A few of my family members are planning to do the same and those few of us plan to go together next month.  Perhaps someday, we can all…every single one of us in the family…gather and do the work together. I am going into this without any expectations but with so much HOPE because the awareness that has surfaced this past year and the peace that comes with it, is enough for me to keep going and trust in this process.

And I am so grateful that I have this amazing person by my side through it all.  A man who truly SEES me and my truth and inspires me to step into LOVE every single moment while still maintaining those boundaries that are necessary for self preservation and peace:

And this little dude who has been an angel in my family this entire time. His arrival and gift of healing hearts around him was divine timing:

I love my family. I feel blessed with the different and the same and even the hard work that comes with it all.