"Thick Skin."

When I was 8 years old, I went to a small elementary school in the middle of Oklahoma. To grow up here meant to understand that everyone liked you and was nice...until they found out you were different.

There were only a handful of us – coarse hair, wide noses, slanted eyes, and skin color ranging from olive, to deep, ebony brown. I was somewhere on the lucky side, yet still foolish to think that the other children believed me when I said that I was only darker than them because of how much time my family spent outside. They stared in response, and I felt 5 inches tall.
For the most part I slipped through shadows, and escaped my first few years of school with only a small mess of heartbreak and realization about how cruel human beings truly can be. Ten years old, and I had already been called Nigger twice to my face. The first time, the words stung my skin. I didn’t know what that word meant, but I knew the tone behind it. And at that moment something inside me changed, and for the first time in my young, innocent life, I was made to feel that I wasn’t good enough.

Somewhere on the other end of the most unlucky in our handful, was a little girl. Deep, ebony brown girl. Her hair stood off her head in one puff of a ponytail on the back of her head. Round bottom in leggings, strong legs, and skin so smooth and sable, shining under the fluorescent lights of our grade school cafeteria.



Last night I swung outside with my husband and the night was still, and dark. I closed my eyes and in a flash, 20 years of my past life disappeared into the one memory of this little girl.
“There was this girl I used to go to elementary school with….”
I stopped, my grief, a 50 pound weight in my throat. In the dark, I could see him smiling at me. The moon and stars reflecting off his white grin.

“What is it?“

In my head, I was finding the only words I could put together to explain my memory of her.

”She was only a little girl.”

And in a flood of tears, my words drowned and were lost before they ever left my throat.
She never said one word. The only sound I remember coming from her was muffled cries. She sat in the corner of our lunch room, alone, dark skin shining under the fluorescent lights of the grade school cafeteria. She sucked her thumb, and she cried, and cried, and cried. I will never forget her face, not until the day I die and I am free from the sad memory I have held tight from this little girl.

On her face, were two white, salty streams. Falling from her almond eyes and rolling down her cheeks, she sat in the corner and I stared at her dark, ebony skin. I remember the way those two lines of tears looked, but not much else, anymore. She was just tears, to me.

After that year, I never saw her again. I found my solace in a small group of friends who were like me – the daughter of two college professors, she loved to try our food and play in my Mom’s garden with me. And a little girl, adopted from Korea when she was a baby. We were the lucky ones, we had each other and something about that made us feel a little less different, less odd, and less like the little girl with the dark, ebony skin and white tears.

Over the years my skin grew thick with the exposure to what the world was really like, outside of my own little village. There was no solace or mercy when I walked out the door and away from what I loved. And for years, I was lead to believe that who I was, was not good enough. They like you, until they find out you are different.



One day, Elodie will come home from school with her own streams of salt staining the cheeks of her thin, olive skin. Because someone was prettier than her. Faster, smarter, thinner, braver. Because the boy (or girl) she loves chose somebody else. Leaving her wondering ”What does she have that I don’t?” Because she was left feeling not good enough.

In my moments of quiet reflection, I wish for the strength to put on a brave face and teach her to find her courage to go on, with her head up high and her feet planted strong. Even if it means that after she goes to bed, I will stand over her and drown in my tears – devastated to know that something so innocent and pure has felt pain to this capacity, for the first time. Please let me find that strength.




Tonight, I am left wishing that every Mother, Father, teacher, friend, and peer could see the importance behind teaching kindness.
Tonight, I am left wishing for Elodie’s skin to grow thick, a lot faster than mine ever did.


Tonight... I am wishing for that little girl. Today, she is a woman, almost 30 years old. In my heart, I dream that she has a beautiful little girl with her own skin tone and wild hair. Those strong legs, almond eyes, and only a picture of pure happiness painted across her thick, ebony skin, her white smile will be the only memory of her I will choose to remember.





Happy Friday, friends.

Thank you for your sweet words on Round One of the styleathon, and your concern over the storm.

We have been cleaning up our backyard, and making it feel like home again. Fortunately, my veggie and herb garden, as well as quite a few sunflowers ended up making it through the damage. I'm also happy to report that Michael spotted two of the baby birds last week :) The best news of all. On the sad side, Petey has $3,000 worth of damage! Our poor adventure-wagon.

Leigh is hosting another giveaway for Round Two of the styleathon, and you can visit her to enter for a Sakura Bloom silk sling, and Marla Sielo Wristlet. Follow this link, if you are interested.

We have our Round Two assignments, and I am so excited for this one. We have 350 words to describe why we wear our children, and how baby wearing has affected our lives. How many adjectives can I come up with to fill 350 words about how amazing it is to nurse your baby while you brush your teeth?! :)




Happy weekend, friends. Is there anything you hope to accomplish over this weekend?

We are going to start the hard transition of moving Elodie to her own room, to sleep in her crib. I have a feeling there will be a lot of tears. From ME :)

We are also spending time with family, taking Elodie to one of my childhood watering holes, and I'm going to read up on this blog I came across when searching for Wallflower lyrics from middle school. Random, right? I love the internet for those very reasons.
The words in the photo of the girl came from a song on that blog, and I just so happened to stumble across it this evening as I was putting these words together to put here.





Sometimes I guess the stars and moon align, and we are blessed with tiny reminders of who we are, and who we want to be. Be kind, friends. Our words and actions leave bigger marks than we allow ourselves to think.

Finding my style.

Top: Target, 2006
Skirt: Lilla P, 2011
Boots: Target, 2011
Scarf: TJ Maxx, 2006
Belt: Thrifted, 2010
Sling: Sakura Bloom

Round One of the Styleathon - How Becoming a Mother Has Affected My Style.

Thank you, Dads.

Happy day, to the important men in my life.



Grandpa.

Every old bike with a basket on the back will be my happy memory of Grandpa, long after he is gone and my hair has turned gray.
Those baskets collected cans for extra pennies, me, on our trips to the duck pond and park, and now they carry well water from miles away (please stop riding your bike 15 miles, you're 88 years old, Grandpa).

From him, I have learned my own love of bicycles. I have learned to find calm in my heart. An avid dumpster diver, he taught me to breathe life into the old and forgotten. And most importatly, Grandpa taught me to be a story teller. To close my eyes and draw my words from the memories in my heart.



Daddy.

Sometimes I worried that I would never find another man to hold such a big piece of my heart. My dad held my hand when we walked until I was a teenager, and still kisses me on top of my head every time he sees me.
From my Dad I learned a love of photography, adventure, and a world of patience. He is the most accepting, open-minded man I know, and always allowed me to spread my wings and fly to my own adventures....as long as I always knew the way to fly home.
Thank you for always holding my hand. In more ways than one.



Doug.

My Father-In-Law, who gave me the best advice I have ever heard about parenting. He told me that the best gift that I could ever give my children would be to love their Dad. Happiness from the heart of the family spread like sunshine to every part of the lives it touches.



Michael.

I couldn't have found a better opposite to ground me and balance out my differences to raise Elodie. I hope that somewhere down the line, she will grow up to realize that because we were the sun and moon, somehow our lives sang a moving tune in perfect harmony. Sometimes she will be me, hot, gold, and burning. And sometimes she will be him, cool, calm, and gray.

The morning that Elodie was born, he stayed by my side the entire 12 hours and pulled me back down to Earth when I thought I had surely left my own body. A constant anchor that never changes, but only sways in the wind. Happy first Father's Day.

The wind comes sweeping down the plain... (part 2)

Yesterday was a normal, hot, Oklahoma-Summer kind of day. The temperature hit 100 degrees and Elodie and I stayed in most of the day, under the air conditioning on the couch. In the evening the temperature started to cool down and it was like it was Spring again. Clouds covered the sky and we laid in the hammock until her cheeks turned pink.

When I came inside to start dinner, I heard thunder, and already in my head, I was excited about our evening. Michael would be home from work at 7:30, dinner would be ready, Elodie would be bathed and in bed, and we would have a date night - backed by the sound of one of our sweet Summer thunderstorms.

I went outside to take video of the storm coming in. The clouds whirled in a sea of gray and the family of grackles - Mama & Papa bird, and their three babies chattered in the Bradford Pear tree behind our house. I took video of them, dancing, whistling, singing. I have been taping them for the last few weeks. Leaving the shelter of their home, black silhouettes against our beautiful sky.

Twenty minutes after Michael got home, the wind started to tear through the sky and we lost power. The house went dark, my music turned off, and the stove turned cold.

And then the most powerful storm I have ever been in ripped through our neighborhood and took everything in it's path. For half an hour, hail almost the size of tennis balls, 85 mile per hour winds, and heavy rain poured down onto our house. I have lived in Oklahoma my entire life, been in hundreds of tornado warnings and never once have I seen anything like it. Our trees bent and snapped, our window screens were bent and ripped from the frames, and I couldn't do anything but stand in the window, videotaping and watching something so powerful that I had absolutely no control of.

When it was over, we went outside to see what had happened to our little yard and house.



Outside, we found the shredded remains of the plants and flowers I spent the last few months nurturing. Our willow tree lost almost all it's branches, and there was a fence in our yard that did not belong to us, or any of our neighbors.







The wind picked up again, and the storm was coming back. Originally it had come from the North and destroyed our back yard. This time we felt it coming from the South, and we ran back inside before the second round of hail, high winds, and rain came through and did more damage.

When it was over, the sun started to come out and the air was still and calm. There was still rain falling, big glassy beads shining in the sunshine.













Other than crushed shutters, downed fences, ripped screens, and this hole in our house, we got lucky. Our neighbor lost a few windows from the huge hail, and their house flooded.



Most of our damage came to our little yard...my gardens.



I walked through the yard with a sad feeling in the pit of my stomach. My sunflower garden laid destroyed, before it ever had a chance to bloom into a field of yellow.



My saddest discovery came with the realization that most of the giant Bradford Pear was gone. The sweet Spring blooms I clip to bring inside, the flat green plates it formed in the Summer, that burned bright and red by Fall. And the family of grackles.

Mama and Papa bird were flying frantically from tree to tree, circling our street looking for their babies.
I held E a little bit tighter and felt an overwhelming guilt for so strongly mourning a patch of lost sunflowers.



When night rolled around and our power still wasn't back on, we packed up with flashlights and headed to my parents house.

I thought about our June 14th storm. Living in a state with storms so strong that 35,000 homes were left without power. Just like the song says, every Spring and Summer, wind, hail, tornadoes, and rain sweep down our plains and leave destruction. And every year, like a haunting reminder, we realize that we are part of something bigger than our every day.

The world keeps spinning, the grackles will have a new brood of babies, and even my sunflower patch will grow back, next Summer.

Today, I am thankful for our health, insurance, and weather so bad, that the good seems that much sweeter.




Also read: Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain - May 2010

A mess of photos - Early Summer

Late nights in the hammock, under the stars and twinkle lights.











Radishes, lettuce & strawberries from the garden.





Russian sage, lavender, peonies, and yucca around the yard.



colorful pots...



...tiny ants on my sunflowers,



and cannas outside my kitchen window.



My hens&chicks from last Summer. I brought my pot inside during the cold months and ended up with a new school of plants.







Some of my wildflowers, in the flower garden.



Watering the garden, a little spider and it's web that I didn't see until they got wet.



Two leaves of catnip - one for each cat, Fig & Olive. I bring them inside for them at night, and I like to tell myself that they know I planted that catnip, just for them.





A drowning in the backyard.

Inside a rain-filled hole dug for hammock posts, this little mouse was no more.



A baby so precious, to erase mental images of drowned mice.



I dream about these evenings, all day long.







An old photo.

Uncle Zabi, Grandma, and the cousins. The little peanut with the cinnamon roll bellybutton is me. My sister is standing next to us with her wild hair in her face.







Cousins.



A gift for a friend.



and Grandma & Grandpa's house. Clothes lines, tiny hand-made greenhouses over the garden...



...Grandma feeding the birds bits of bread tucked into her shirt, a kitchen window mango, and Grandpa....being Grandpa.



How was your weekend, friends? Anything exciting happen?

Mine is just beginning, and today is day one of three to relax, clean, work in the yard, and warm up that hammock.

Last week Leigh from Marvelous Kiddo announced our round one assignments for the styleathon. How becoming a Mother has affected our style.
I was just going to scrap the 350 word requirement and post a picture of me in sweat pants with no make up and dried breast milk in my hair, but I figured that wasn't exactly what they were looking for :) The truth is, I don't feel nearly as fancy as I used to, and time spent getting ready doesn't feel quite the same since E came around. In the mornings, I love to pick out her outfits, fix her hair, and make her laugh. Those sweet moments take up a lot of the time I used to spend getting myself ready - but there are still little bits of me lost somewhere in here. Last week I wrote my 350 words about how becoming a Mother has changed my style, so look for that post later on this week.

I feel so grateful and newly inspired to be part of this styleathon. I am taken back to the creative writing class I took 4 times in high school when I was first learning how much I loved to piece together words and sentences to form something powerful. Writing from my heart has always been something I come back to, beginning with the days of my childhood where I wrote my very first book....about puppies and kittens :) My Mom still has it, almost 25 years later. To this day I still dream of writing my book, but for now, this space is my absolute outlet of that dream.
I know the styleathon is a competition, but I am not in the least bit competitive by nature and I am just excited to be along for this ride with the handful of other talented Mama's involved - Elizabeth, Joanna, Danielle, Natalie, James, Jen, Sharmadean, and Melisa.



Leigh is also hosting a giveaway (ending tonight) for a Sakura Bloom Sling and $250 Lilla P gift card.


I hope you all enjoy your sleepy Sunday, and the start to this (already) hot Summer.