Lovely Little Things, 27

This week was awful.

For me personally. For the world. For laughter and spirit. For all of it, this week was low.

The more than five hours I spent in the car with my family, sitting in traffic jam after traffic jam, all of us screaming at each other. The moments that found us all screaming again as we tried to make it through our NYC vacation. The moment that I saw that Robin Williams had died and I deleted that CNN alert email as fast as I read it but it didn’t change the reality. The moment I returned home and learned that while I was all caught up in my head, more people are being killed here and all around the world as a result of horrible, brutal injustices.

This week was just plain awful. For me personally. And for the world.

But even in the awful, there is always gratitude. And so I’m here. Looking for the light and letting it guide me to tomorrow, and next week, and the rainbow that follows the storm.

This week’s lovely little things.

curious

We’ve read The Curious Gardenover and over and over. Sometimes I think I love it more than she does but she asks for it too and she did become smitten with the little boy and the train tracks and the leaves and flowers that pop up everywhere. So, while in NYC, we had to visit the real curious garden, Brown’s inspiration for the story: The High Line. And it started out rough but before we left, we came together and for at least a half hour, they took turns climbing up and leaping off the benches, making funny faces and allowing me to capture their silhouettes against the NYC skyline.  I’ll save that memory forever. In a place where people came together to take something old and broken and turn it into something new and beautiful, we picked our tired, weary selves back up and made beauty of our own.

homecoming

The instant we set him down inside the house, he climbed up on his favorite chair and began giggling uncontrollably. Still a babe of no words, he still expresses himself in sounds and smiles and laughter and that was all we needed to know that he was happy to be home. Homecoming has always been my favorite part of travel; sometimes I plan a trip with that end in mind. And so Tuesday afternoon, we all settled back in, giggling and giddy to finally be back home.

moving forward

Last week, I checked off a milestone. I attached my book proposal to an email, in it’s awful drafty form, and I sent it. Not to an agent, but to a friend. A friend who I knew would read it carefully and critically and give me honest, fantastically constructive feedback and make me and this dream better. This week, I’m getting it back. And after pouring myself into this work all in my own little vacuum for the better part of this year, just this passing back and forth feels like the most gigantic progress.

the park

Travel meant naps were a little off, running a little long, and so bedtime moved as well. So as just about every other family was packing up and carting off, we returned to our park. It had been almost a week and as our park feels like a close friend during the summer, I missed it. The evening felt like late September rather than mid-August and they pushed each other around on bikes until it was time to go home.

and the winner is

The lucky winner of our Out of the Blue giveaway of Barefoot Books’ first wordless book is… Leslie (aka Rorybore) of Time Out for Mom! Congratulations, Leslie!

We’ll have another giveaway next month so stay tuned!

favorite words

Happy weekend, all. Here’s hoping things are looking up.