Boreal Witch

My family is notorious for sending things late. Even my mother, who is usually the only one who arrives on time in my immediate family, sends Christmas boxes - but not Valentine's Day cards, birthday presents, or Halloween cards - late. Ironically, my sister - who is usually the late one - sent all of our presents well before Christmas this year.

We were in the middle of a move, which I do not recommend. Ever. Not only did we have to worry about Christmas and farm visits and cookie making - our typical December activities - we had to worry about cleaning our old apartment and organizing our new townhouse. So perhaps it was not entirely my mom's fault that the box didn't arrive on time because the post office had to redirect our mail, but regardless, we ended up having two Christmases anyway.

Arthur, of course, was very concerned about the gifts not arriving on time, but he certainly didn't complain when he got to open more presents a few days after Christmas! (Plus, the second time was more fun because he and Balin got to open them in front of Nana and his aunties.)

What did you do for Christmas? Did you have two of them?

Blessed be.

We've been in our apartment for a long time - almost two and a half years, to be exact. We had never intended to stay that long; the apartment had always been temporary, but good housing in Beloit is hard to find.

For the past two years, we haven't been able to celebrated Yule, not properly. We had been unable to have a real tree because of our apartment rules. One year we had a large wreath and last year we bought a fake tree.

There are days that I seem to inhale all the world's problems and grief. I do nothing but process these feelings. It doesn't actually help; rather, everything seems more depressed.

Today is a difficult day for me. I can't seem to think about anything without wanting to cry. I force the tears back and - even if I did shed them - would it actually help? Would it be cathartic or would I feel more hopeless and frustrated that I can't do anything to alleviate the suffering in the world?

The older I become, the more I realize the power of breath. I am alive because I breathe and I breathe because I am alive. I shed tears because of the suffering around me, but that does not mean that I shouldn't stop my breath.

So today I will feel this pain and anguish for a while longer until the Universe takes it from me. I will meditate upon where there is breath, there is hope.

Blessed be.

Hugo, my brother-in-law, contacted me a few weeks ago wondering if we would be willing to host Thanksgiving dinner. The boys wouldn't have wanted to miss an opportunity to see Patches because they adore her.

Arthur has been begging for snow for the last few weeks. He's worried that there won't be any snow for Christmas.

Due to several factors beyond my Dad's control, he ended up staying in Wisconsin far longer than he normally does. My cousin's October wedding and Gloria's ankle surgery the week after that meant he'd be playing guest then caretaker.

Have you ever heard of a capsule wardrobe?

The past few months have been very busy with - strangely enough - a wedding!

Due to the Supreme Court ruling for gay marriage, my cousin and his partner of a decade were finally getting hitched and they went all out; thus, my aunt bustled about assisting with preparations that my cousin could not while in London.

Since the wedding was "B" themed (the letter, not the insect), Gloria enlisted my help in making 5 "B" pillows - one for my cousin and his partner (who is also a "B") but also for me and my two sisters. Earlier this year, we had gone through all of my upholstery fabric and picked out the same fabric but in five different color swatches and coordinating backs. The fronts were made of a bone-hued linen which I had colored a unique "B" using a grey fabric marker. I had originally tried to paint the linen using a paper template, but it looked far too sloppy for such an elegant affair. In the end, I finished them with a couple months to spare - a luck feat, too, because by August and September, I would have been far too stressed to devote much time to complete them.

The surprising thing about big events like weddings is who shows up. My cousin seemed rather surprised that so many of the Sampsons were coming. My sisters even flew in from Alaska with my nieces and my sister's fiancee. I like to think it was a glorious show of solidarity and support for the grooms.

During one of our visits to the farm, Gloria had a fashion show in order to find something suitable to wear for the wedding. Naturally this led to a bit of a question of what Robinson was going to wear to the wedding. We ended up making a run to the Janesville Mall to shop for a new "casual-comfortable-formal" outfit for him. After an hour, we left with a knit blazer, new long-sleeve button down top, and jeans. Arthur even left with a new straw fedora that he wore all the way home.

I won't lie. I had a bit of a freak-out, too. In the end, I attempted to do my best impersonation of a 1950's starlet. (My goal was Marilyn Monroe, but the hair didn't quite work out as I would have liked. I fully admit that hair styling is not one of my strengths.) The idea was a really good one, but the whole dress came together by accident.

I purchases a black petticoat on Amazon the weekend before the wedding, planning to wear it with a black polka-dotted dress. When the petticoat finally arrived, I tore open the package and tried on the ensemble only to discover that that particular dress was simply not going to work. I tried on almost every single dress in my closet before finally settling on a green polka-dotted one...but it needed more. I could pair it with my black Oka-B flats and a black and white pearl necklace, but it was still missing something.

On a whim, I went to Goodwill and found a thin black belt and black vintage gloves. Hoping these would pull the rest of the outfit together, I tried the entire thing on and BINGO! It worked! (So, for my dear readers who do not accessorize, you should seriously consider it!) In fact, I received many compliments on my outfit throughout the evening. It was a real self-esteem boost!

For the boys' outfits, I made them bow ties from Liberty-print fabric printed with little flowers and animals and paired them with yellow shirts and jeans. They looked adorable, don't you think?

(A little side note about the difference between boys and girls: my nieces wore their beautiful matching purple dresses to lunch...and left perfectly clean. If my boys had worn their yellow shirts and bow ties, they would have been brown when we left. I'm not saying all boys are like this...just mine. Whenever I dress them up, it has to be no more than five minutes before we leave otherwise they trash whatever it is they're wearing.)

Not only were the kids dressed in matching clothing, but Dad and Dustun came as twins, sporting similar jackets and striped shirts! (Coincidentally, Dad wore almost the same shirt as Robinson did the night of the wedding for the brunch the next day.)

In many ways, it was the usual wedding: unique venue, pre-ceremony cocktails, catered dinner; however, there were a few no-so-typical additions: a professional baby-sitter, gigantic vegan cookies in lieu of cake, and a rainbow piñata filled with Skittles and Starbursts.

The ceremony and reception took place in Chicago at Salvage One, a brick warehouse filled with up cycled and vintage furniture, games, and knickknacks and decorated with at least a hundred Bs that had been collected for the past year. The boys, of course, wanted to climb over and jump on the furniture (though with most pieces being well over $300 in price, we had to insist that they not). It was a touching ceremony and so filled with love.

After dinner, we danced. We ate giant cookies. We drank. Molly and Robinson danced. We took pictures. We talked. Blythe and Arthur played Skee Ball. We admired some Han Solo in carbonite bathroom tiles. My cousin attempted to dance with Balin (he refused). Wayne and Maureen complimented our dancing. We finally caught the grooms and the photographer long enough to snap a couple of pictures. We chatted with Gloria for a few minutes before she had to circulate among the crowd. We missed our bus and caught the next one an hour later, leaving the party well after midnight. Arthur fell asleep on the bus. Balin talked about Paw Patrol the whole way back to the hotel. I could barely keep my eyes open.  

The next day my cousin and his new husband had rented out a 4-car CTA train for a 2pm brunch complete with bahn mi and leftover giant cookies.

Balin is quite fond of dressing up.

I've made him an Elsa dress with a turquoise second-hand skirt and shirt. I've made him soda-bottle jet packs out of two 2-liter bottles. I've made him Jedi robes and bought butterfly wings. He regularly wears one (or more!) of these things around the house, pretending he's a character from Skyrim or Elsa or even Evil Cinderella.

Though he loves sea lions, he is also quite fond of raccoons, which we have nicknamed "rascals" because of an orange and white t-shirt. There's a picture of a raccoon on the front with the word banded across the face. I'm not quite sure what the appeal is. Is it the mask? The perky snout? The black hands and feet? The ring tail?

Whatever it is, Balin is obsessed with them.

While out shopping with some friends, I found a raccoon costume pattern that I had to purchase. Normally I feel as though I don't have to buy anything, but this was an exception. Balin would have a raccoon costume. He simply must.

He even got to pick out the fabrics: sparkly pink for the body, white for the tummy, and dark grey for the mask and tail. I finished it in a day.

When it was finished, I handed it to him, telling him he could take it to his dress-up box. He began to cry.  

"What's the matter?" I asked him.

"I don't want it to get ruined!" he sobbed.

It looked as though I did my job a little too well...

Blessed be.

We went to the farm this weekend because not only it was Labor Day Weekend but - with the onset of fall - the apples were finally ready. The pears, Gloria explained, were still rock-heard, so they wouldn't be ready for another few weeks. Still, she encouraged us to take some anyway, especially since we weren't planning to be around. The next time we came to visit in another few weeks, the pears might be gone.

Arthur was quite eager to pick fruit this year. He demanded we pick apples before lunch, but we insisted he wait until afterwards so that we could all pick together.

We set up the ladders, grabbed plastic and paper bags, dusted off the apple-pickers and started gathering apples. Even Papa and Gloria helped.

About half-way through the chore, Marshmallow (also known jokingly as "Mushroom" by Papa) climbed onto a ladder and sat next to Balin. She begged for attention, meowing and rubbing up against him while he showered her with attention. Balin, terrified of our own cat, happily complied.

Arthur, my little daredevil, wanted to climb the trees. He spent a good portion of time after the clean up climbing up and down one of the apple trees. As he grew comfortable up among the leaves, he became less apprehensious and slipped. He managed to hang onto one of the branches and I grabbed his waist and lowered him down. That little hiccup didn't stop him; however, because he shimmied back up one of the ladders and back up the branches, the perfect apple in his sight.

When we returned home Monday night and the apples and pears were finally unloaded and stacked in the living room, we began the arduous process of producing apple butter. It's sweaty and time-consuming, but it's well worth it!

Blessed be.

Dear Parents of School-Ages Children:

This morning as I walked both of my boys to school, there was a tear in my eye. Perhaps this little detail is a bit surprising to those who know me, who know that I marked the first day of school as "Freedom Day" in the calendar on the first day of summer. It was mostly in jest, of course, and I had always claimed that today would be something new.

It would be the start of a new life: a life without children. A life with more freedom. A life with no little hands grabbing items off shelves at the grocery store or a life bound to the children's section at the library. It would be a life without constraints; a simple life.

Today as I begin this new chapter, I'm crying. With this new life comes freedom, but it's also scary. Who will I hang out with on these long, boring days? What will I do to fill my time? Who will I have lunch with?

People often say that children grow up way too fast. I say they just grow up. People say that their children don't need them anymore. I say they will always need their parents, just in different ways.

Many of us chose this life: first the diapers and midnight feedings, then the potty training and the many stages of no, and finally school. We chose to nurture these little fledglings until they become birds and fly, fly as far as their wings can take them.

And so I say this, to all the parents with children in school: it's lonely and it's sad, but there's a comfort in it, too. There's comfort in knowing that we survived these first few years and that there's hope to survive the ones to come.

There's comfort that we'll now be able to spend more time on ourselves as well as our children. That we'll be able to recharge enough to pick them up and whisk them off to all of the other activities that they do: soccer, basketball, gymnastics, dance, piano.

There's a comfort in believing that the world isn't ending because they are in school. It's merely changing. It's scary and weird, but you will thrive. You will be able to focus on the task in front of you. You will be able to accomplish other things, different things, projects that have been sitting for years because you were never able to pick them up and complete them.

This morning, as you sip your coffee and eat breakfast (that isn't Cheerios) in a quiet house, just breathe. Let the events around you unfold as they will. Take your time. Don't become overwhelmed. You have the entire school year to get things accomplished. For now, just sit and take some time for yourself.

You earned it.

Blessed be.  

I've been to many stunning places around the world. So far, my favorite place to visit has been the Greek Islands. I hope to go back someday.

But I digress. There are so many lovely places in our own country, too. Really. I lived in different parts of one of the most beautiful states in the U.S. for a very, very long time. Even places like the birch forests around Fairbanks or the flat, treeless tundra of the North Slope - both of which seem rather uninteresting - hold remarkable beauty. I still remember how the snow sparkled in the moonlight or how the Northern Lights danced or how the tip of the teasing winter sun peeked above the horizon before back dipping below. I remember glaciers and mountains and waterfalls. I remember the Kenai and the Chilkoot and the Inside Passage.

But that is only one kind of beauty. Alaska does not boast a slow spring or a colorful fall. There are only two seasons: winter and summer. Autumn colors are reserved for states like Washington or Wisconsin. Alaska has mountains, yes, but they are typically covered in snow - the jagged peaks sticking out from the white drifts.

I have been to Utah several times now and every time I spent most of my trip in Utah Valley. It's suburban, but has grown into a sort of urban jungle, as briefly described in my last post. In the past, visits to Utah meant we stayed close to Robinson's family; however, since we had planned to drive down to Cedar City for a couple of days to say good-bye to the Adams Theatre, Robinson promised to take me to Zion National Park.

I have never been to the Southwestern United States or the Grand Canyon or even the desert. In high school, a friend of mine went to Arizona or New Mexico and brought back some of the local plants in ziplock bags - the Yucca being the only one I can recall. The Native Americans used to make shampoo from the root, my friend had said. There were some tiny delicate flowers, too, but I do not know their names.

Up until now, Utah was the closest I have ever come to the area, so it is the only place from which I could draw my experiences. Even those experiences, however, are limited to northern Utah. The area hills look like a tel I would have excavated in Israel. But again, I digress.

Perhaps my favorite part of this trip to Utah (besides visiting family) was witnessing a different sort of beauty. I could go on and on about the magic of Zion; how the place seemed other-worldly with its red rock and picturesque scenes, but I'll let the pictures prove it to you. I took almost 200; these are my favorites.