Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

All Good Things…

I try to squeeze a moment of writing in this morning before the pancakes, vitamin C and bed making.  Jeb’s home from school all this week.

We pulled the suitcases out of storage yesterday and cut the airline luggage tags off the bags from last year’s delayed flight.

Friends tease me that I pack two weeks ahead of time.  I don’t want to forget anything.  I hate to wait to the last minute.

I scan random lists I have scrawled, all the things that need to be done before we leave.  Items to take, people to call, mail to hold, bills to pay.

I’m not complaining.  This trip is the beacon of light at the end of my tunnel.  Each year I get to exit my remote little paradise and change the scenery.  Take a pause and turn Jeb over to a new tribe – my blood family.  I sit back and breathe.  Smile and watch him from a distance with new eyes.  Fall in love with him all over again.

And quietly I’ll slip away, alone, to the coastal forest and sink into the wealth of my own deep well.  I will languish in the space of simply being.  Make no promises except to breathe.  I’ll sit in steaming water and let hours pass.  Move in slow motion.  Feel my footsteps in new ways.  Remember myself again.

With this light beaming in the near but distant future, I remind myself to stay present.  Breathe deeply now.  It’s morning and Jeb and I can start the day with a walk in the thick dew.

There is no rush.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Amsterdam Stone Unearthed at the 11th Hour

Yesterday was a doozy.  A plenitude of variables all seemed to collide and culminate into a sunset hour meltdown by both myself and Jeb.

Maybe I’m feeling tighter as it’s been three weeks of solid parenthood without reprieve – Jeb’s dad is out-of-town.  It could also be the two fundraisers in my ‘spare’ time and the postering task I was assigned that spans two cities.  The extra work hours this month. No school for Jeb all next week.  And then thrown into the mix is the fact that I have no hot water at my house.

I’m going on day six since the nanny goat in heat tried to charge me and my hot water heater sprung a leak.

I haven’t wanted to mention the hot water thing, really.  Like somehow if I don’t make it a big deal then maybe it won’t be one.  But I’m growing tired of playing Little House on the Prairie, boiling water to do dishes.  We’ve been showering at a friend’s.

Today was supposed to be the day that all was repaired.  Instead, my closet/laundry/storage room was in disarray.  My baskets moved aside to make room for copper pipes.  Wet rags amassed in corners, too close to my boxes of photographs and journals.  The entire door unhinged, mosquitos buzzing about my hanging clothes, my underwear in view of the repair man.  Ugh!

These thing – relatively minor from a vast world perspective, but monumental in my limited little world of Jessica – these things tipped me over into meltdown city.  And Jeb came tumbling after.
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What Makes Us Remember?

Driving to school Monday morning with Jeb, six years old, going on seven:

“Mom, do you ever just forget that you’re on this planet?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you just forget that you’re even alive.”

“Mmm…I think I might know what you mean.  Do you mean something like when you’re just going through your day and you are almost not realizing that you are a breathing human being that is alive on earth?

“Yeah, like that.”

“It’s like you’re almost just so used to everything that you forget.  Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, I forget that I’m alive on this planet sometimes.  What makes you ask this question?”

“Because I just had that experience.”

“Just now?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.  Well, I’m curious – what made you remember again.  Remember that you were here and alive?”

“I don’t know.”

photo by Jessica Dofflemyer