Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 6 Comments

The Last Year

“This is your last year.”

He’s saying it with a smile as he lets himself surrender, folding more deeply into my arms.

I’m with Jeb at the bus stop in early morning with only one other carload of drop-offs behind us.

“Last year?”

I act as though I don’t understand but I have a good sense of where he’s heading.

“Yep, when I’m 11, no more of this.”

He nestles in for a final soak-in of mother love, then pulls away like a mischievous elf. “This is your last year…”

“Oh, really?!” I grab him back and pull him towards me as he giggles and squirms. “Last year, hah! We’re going to be hugging for the rest of our lives!”

“Na-uh! Last year, mom.” He moves away and opens the car door, putting one foot outside but remaining in his seat, smirking.

“Jeb, when all of your friends think they’re too cool to hug their moms, you’re going to be the coolest one because you’ll still be doing it and not caring what anyone else thinks.” (Might as well plant the seed).

“Ehhh…I’ll start hugging you again in my twenties.”

Where is he getting this?

The kids in the car behind us have unloaded and one of the boys is anxiously watching for Jeb’s exit from our vehicle. This time I get a rapid, cursory movement somewhat resembling an affectionate gesture, followed with an upbeat “Bye!”

And then he’s gone and I’m driving away.

Last year. Pfft.

Well, this may be the last year for some things. At day’s end, just before dinner, Jeb comes into the house spitting blood into the bathroom sink like a triumphant boxer.

“I was watching the sunset and just decided, now I’m going to do it. And I pulled as hard as I could and it came out.”

Jeb’s tooth rolls clean and white in his open palm as he spits again like a tough guy into the sink. “It hurt a little bit but not too much.”

At bedtime he shows me exactly where he’s stashed the envelope housing his tooth. “It’s just right here under this pillow, mom.”

“Ok, well, I’ll be sure to tell the tooth fairy,” and we give each other the secret smile that is so old now, we both know it is outgrown.

I think this may be the last year of losing teeth. It is also probably the last year that Jeb and I will wear the same size shoe.

But the last year of hugs?

No way…

the first lost tooth
the first lost tooth
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 6 Comments

The Best Things in Life…A Free Book for You

With recent holidays behind us, the gift giving may have settled and many of us may be on to thank-you cards. I’d like to offer up a combination of the two.

Inspired by the spirit of giving, and offering this with a gratitude to every person that has taken time to pause here at the Archives, I am happy to give everyone a chance to download my book for free.

“Volume 1: Love and Motherhood” is the first in a series that began here at For the Archives. It’s a collection of 33 posts and 15 original photographs, compiled from my first year of writing on the blog.

For those of you keeping up with the story as it’s been unfolding, that was over three years and 750 posts ago. I was a single mother with a six-year old. There was no Bohemian in my life yet. Just Lego guys, a good dose of loneliness, and an optimism to find some magic in the everyday routine. I was trying to scrape together enough money for rent, and waking at 4am to jot down prose. I was typing out words about sorting my ‘junk drawer,’ playing Foursquare with my son, and seeking the silver lining in a broken heart.

The book has been available through Amazon since October and for the next three days you can download it for free.

Vol 1_Book Cover

Looking back to when I began For the Archives, I am reminded of the intention I had to start sharing my words with the world. I wasn’t sure (and still, sometimes, am not) if my perspective mattered. But I felt strongly that there was beauty in the process of expressing my experience, no matter how simple or mundane. That, somehow, found within that sharing, was a gold that had the ability to lift the ordinary into the profound.

Further, it was my hope, that if someone read my recounting, they too, would be inspired to see the world around them – in all of its seeming ordinariness – and find a sparkle of magic. And that through that heightened perspective, they  also would be encouraged to express themselves with their own, unique art form.

We are all artists creating our life’s masterpiece.

This book is a reflection of that first year when I took a chance to share my little creation-in-the-making with whoever wanted to see it.

So feel free and take it. If you like, share it with a friend.

From today until January 9th I’m giving it away.

And stay tuned. I’m working on Volume 2, soon to be released. It’s the love story of when the Bohemian entered stage right.

Gratitude and gifts…Enjoy!

PS Anyone can read an e-book even if you don’t have a Kindle device. Amazon has a free app that can be downloaded in less than a couple of minutes and the link is in the side bar on my book page.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 7 Comments

Parallel Paths

Veer off the two-lane highway and you’ll find a quieter road. It was the original path of old-time island travel, now kind of forgotten, lined in tall grasses, with a faded yellow line.

On this road there are two driveways that run parallel. Go to the right and you’re back in time 11 years ago. There, a 29-year old woman lives in a school bus up on blocks. She’s tending a garden with marigolds and basil. Hanging prayer flags above the driver’s window. Wondering if her boyfriend will return from India and want to keep playing house.

Nine months later, her boyfriend is back. They’ve built a screened in porch and attached it to the school bus. Spent a hard-earned $500 on a king size mattress that rests upon a handmade frame. Baby clothes are laundered and waiting in the corner. Candles are placed on the window sill. They’re going to have a baby and she wants to have the birth right there at home.

Go back to those driveways running side by side. The ones separated by a hibiscus hedge twenty feet tall. This time, go to the left. It’s ten years later. That same woman is planting kale in a different garden bed. She’s forty now. She can hear her ten-year old humming from the treehouse, hidden from view, but somewhere perched between blue sky and ground.

The boyfriend, who is his father, is just that. The young boy’s dad is the man that gave her a dream come true, then moved along to find his own. She had other dreams, as well. And one of them is near the mint turning over a new plot. Her husband, her truest love, adds rich compost to the overturned soil and readies it for planting.

Ten years ago today, at 11:07am, a fragile, wet and perfect soul was placed upon my chest with parted lips and curling fingers. Today marks the day that Jeb was born.

Ten years ago, I lived next door to the very house where I now reside. I was a young mother, nursing in a school-bus-of-a-home, watching my baby grow. Today, we live in a house with bedrooms and indoor plumbing. I am married. I have a family. And my ten-year old son and I can wear the same size shoe.

2013-12-05_Baby pic