Posts Tagged ‘MamaBloo’

December 14th, 2010

MamaBloo Photo Tale: Falling or Letting Go?

This is Kari from MamaBloo chiming in today for Me Ra!

A few days ago a friend and neighbor posted something on Facebook that got my attention. He had been out raking the yard and also listening to Carrie Newcomber’s song where the question is posed:  Do leaves fall or do they just let go?  Since I am caught in that crazy space of only listening to the Backyardigans soundtrack or Taylor Swift, I am pretty much out of any music that might appeal to an adult.  So, admittedly I hadn’t heard this song before.  But the notion of the question of whether or not leaves fall or let go has  stuck with me.

I am viscerally drawn to this idea that the leaves might actually have some control over their own fate.  Not the practical aspect of it, of course.  I mean they are going to wind up on the ground.  That is inevitable, right?  But the control comes in how they perceive their journey.  If they FALL, then well, the changing season takes its toll on the leaf — sending it on its way, making it depart from tree.  It speaks more of what the leaf has lost.  Plus, falling is just plain scary!  When we are kids “Falling Down” is cause for skinned knees, and band-aids, and running to mom while holding back the tears until we are safely wrapped in her arms.

But “letting go” is fun.  Letting go is about holding onto the monkey bars and letting go to feel the wind in our hair, to breathe deeply, to feel our hearts beat a bit faster, to reach out and grab the next bar and, if we miss, to revel in how our bodies absorb the shock of the landing with more ease than we predicted.  I love the idea that the leaves are letting go. That although they “know” they are destined for the ground, that their journey to the soil is supposed to happen, that it MUST happen for life to go on…that even though they know this, they take part in the journey.  They release their hold on what has always sustained them and float to the ground in a swirl of yellow, red, and brown.  Then the leaf waits for the kindergartner that will come by and pick it up, running to his mom, exclaiming, “This is the coolest leaf in the world!”


May we feel freedom to release our holds,

Kari

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August 24th, 2010

MamaBloo Photo Tale: It’s Finally Back to School Time!

Kari from MamaBloo here!

With five kids I am always in a quandary about how to document the first day of school. I remember back to a post from Me Ra about when Pascaline started Kindergarten.  There she was on the front porch tying her shoes — oh, such a milestone and she was doing such a good job.  I felt myself sucked in to the STORY of her first day so much that here I am years later reflecting on it!

But, I must be honest.  By the time the first day of school rolls around I am anxious to get the little buggers out the door so I can kick back and salt the rim of my coffee cup and drink my morning “beverage.”  There is no more creative-story-telling juice left in me.  All my good ideas have been sunburned and chlorine drowned by months of entertaining and corralling a passel of kids.  Plus, to get ready for this glorious day, I have undergone trips to Abercrombie followed by standing in line for kindergarten registration:  a gamut no mother should have to endure.

So, the first day of school pics.

I lit a candle and tried to channel as much Me Ra as I could.

Chanting a bit, to be honest.  “What would Me Ra do?  What would Me Ra do?

Nothing.  I got nothing. Not a thing.  No creative spirit.  No energy to fiddle with the white balance on my camera.  Cursing the day I learned that just stacking your kids in a row and snapping their photo was not “telling the story!”  Drats!  Curses!  A pox on all things that Refuse to Say Cheese!

So, I parade the children out the door to the front door.  And I stare at them.  They stare back.  Then they start to stare at each other as if to say, “The old lady has finally lost it.” Just as they are about to do the unthinkable and put their arms around each other and smile ( and I will never ever be able to show these pictures to Me Ra) an idea begins to take place. Just a little bud of inspiration tunneling itself up through the dry cracked desert.   “Uh, Izzy, hold up 6 fingers any way you want to and start modeling!” Ah man, that 6th grader took off with this!  It was like the number six was a sugar-hit or something.  I am flying now.

I AM photo-coaching.

I am Me Ra but a smaller, rounder, more freckled version.

Onto my 4th grader and her 4 fingers and then my 8th grader and her 8 fingers. “Have fun with your fingers!” I yell.  Who knew that these digits would be the inspiration for some memorable photos.

And then, just for old time’s sake, I had them put their arms around each other and look right at the camera and say, “Cheese!!!”

And I kept that photo, too.

love, Mamabloo

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June 25th, 2010

MamaBloo Non Photo Tale: When Inspiration Fails You… I Mean Me.

Kari from MamaBloo here sending a blog post your way while Me Ra is off with the family.

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I sit here and stare at the Word Press screen.  For those of you who have never blogged, the Word Press screen is a gray mass of boxes of varying sizes.  The one that magically turns into your blog post is about 6 inches long and 2 inches high and you type your “story” inside this box — you can only see a few sentences at a time.  It is perhaps the least appealing forum for writing something meaningful, and today I feel like I need to come up with something meaningful. I can literally hear the screen yelling at me through its ugly interface to type something funny with just a dash of wisdom.  And all I can come up with is my grocery list:

Bananas
Chicken Nuggets
Graham Crackers
Milk
Bottle of Wine
Make that two bottles of wine

Okay, so I am going to try the age-old approach of  staring  a little more at the screen on the off-chance that something will just sorta, ya know, COME to me. If it doesn’t I will have to call Genie on the phone and tell her that “I got nothin’.”  So, I persist.  A little more staring.  A bit more. A bit more.  Yup. Nothin’.

The only other time I was at a loss for words was when I was sitting on the set of the Oprah show at some god-awful hour of the morning while the director did a lighting check.  I looked around and saw my entire family to the right of me on this huge couch.  But there was an empty seat to my left.  “Um, Mr Director???” I ask, “WHO is going to be sitting there…??” I point to my left.  Oprah.  Crap.  And my mind went blank.  All hope of being verbose, pithy, and wise just bloooooppppp went right out of my brain into some other place, some other universe.  I can actually remember the feeling of not being able to put together a coherent thought that I could then expel out my mouth into words.  I felt totally blank.   I knew Dave was going to be almost no help.  And the kids were shell-shocked.  It was going to come down to me.  Me and my incoherent, thoughtless brain in another universe. Great.

Okay, so this isn’t as bad as that….

I can hear the author Anne Lamott practically yelling at me to just WRITE, for the love of God, and stop worrying about being perfect. Something will come, she says. Instead I hit SAVE (although what I am “saving” I am not sure is worth my time… ) and go make french toast for dinner — that I can do and all the kids like it (not an easy feat…).

But as I am flipping the french toast on our new griddle, it occurs to me.  Whether it be writing or photography or parenting or cooking dinner or just plain ol’ life, there are days when we are going to feel totally and completely uninspired.  But we are called to keep going, not by staring at the screen and waiting, but by trying, pushing, remembering, trying again, putting something OUT THERE that isn’t our best and trusting that it’s good enough anyway, and by admitting that sometimes we just aren’t in the moment the way we wish we were.  That maybe we feel it’s a cop out to cook french toast for dinner until we remember that all the kids love it, that dinner together generates a rollicking game of telephone where the message passes from kid to kid and we discover that “vanilla palm trees eat pickles,” and that sometimes just by pressing on we can find a place of self-love that is even better than sitting next to Oprah.

Cheers!

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