On my way to the hair salon, I walk by a large bank with four artfully arranged display windows. While banking and art make rather strange companions, I always look forward to the seasonal change in the display. I never try to make the connection between the two, the banking and the art, instead I simply enjoy the aesthetics. They are a little bit of beautiful in an otherwise logical and mathematical environment.

I had a hair appointment today, so I hopped off the tram eager to see what the new display would be for spring. Each window was arranged with dressmaker's forms clothed in perfectly tailored architectural drafts. One wore a sport coat, another a parka and honeycomb scarf, with the loveliest paper-like fringe. One was dressed in everyday wear, and the pièce de résistance, a feminine form in a wedding dress with a full bustle and cluster of gathered paper at the shoulder. They were amazing and creative and probably made from something other than paper, but I loved each one.

As I passed by, those images stayed with me. Lines and graphs and numbers laid out in such a way as to create a plan, something that needed to be followed exactly in order to produce the desired outcome. Then that plan was bent, pulled, bunched and cut into the shape of something recognizable but infinitely more interesting than, say, four walls and a roof. No doubt, it was the dress that got me.

I'm learning to live this way; to walk around with a blueprint, a rough draft, some numbers and figures and ideas on a page. But, to allow for them to be manipulated into something more than I think they can be. I can't live by a two year or a five year plan. Oh, I mentally draft them, but they are flat and tidy pieces of paper with some funny looking lines scratched into them. They don't have the sweep and drape of a wedding dress. Or a honeycomb scarf with delicate fringe. And that right there is where I find freedom. There is a blue-print, a first, second and maybe even third draft.  But, it's up to me to take what exists and fashion it into a wearable work of art, complete with gathers, folds and a cluster of something lovely on my right shoulder.

Do you find yourself stuck in drafting mode? Get out there and fashion a dress made out of your best laid plans. Take it in, let it out, simplify, ornament, create something astonishing with your life.

Hello and happy Friday! It's Five minute Friday and I'm joining Lisa-Jo at the Gypsy Mama. Won't you join us?

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them.

Today's Prompt: Grit


...I'm learning can't be found in the smooth places. It's not on the swept up floors, or the wiped clean slate. Grit isn't found in the spic and span, clean enough to eat off of surfaces. Not that I have any of those anyway.

It's found in the crevices, in the down and dirty. Grit is tracked in and spilled out and in the places that send me running and looking for a place to hide. I find my grit in the place where I have to pull myself up by the proverbial boot straps. It gets in my shoes and in my pants so much so that it's uncomfortable to sit down or stand up until I shake every last particle loose.

The grit, the dirt and grime, builds something in me. The desire to hide, to get rid of it at any cost, and it rubs me the wrong way. Just like that tiny piece of sand rubs that oyster so raw it produces a pearl. I want my grit to make a pearl. One that shines and shimmers and begs people to come closer for a second look because it is just so beautiful. And then they want a pearl of their own. But, I'll tell them first that it takes grit. And it's going to hurt a little bit, or maybe a lot, and you can't shake it loose or your pearl gets lost with it.

Stop.

Well, I'm off to read what everyone else wrote. I'd love to meet you there.

A while back I wrote an essay and sent it to NPR's This I Believe. Last week it went up on the site. If you have a moment, head on over for a short spell and read my thoughts on how love and family life can capture our hearts in a way that makes them no longer our own. And then pop back in here again and let me know what you think.

*This essay has been known to make a grown man cry. Of course, he also cried over a Taylor Swift song, so I took it with a grain of salt. Also, I am not secretly referring to my husband. He doesn't cry over Taylor Swift songs. Or my writing:)

All it took was two inches leftover from the last snowfall. A sunny afternoon. A pair of rain boots standing in for cold weather gear. Upside down mittens. A 'yes' from mom. A few two dollar sleds. And two kids with the imagination to make mountains out of molehills. Or small backyard hills, as it were.

This photo has nothing to do with anything, other than the fact that it doesn't make me feel like I'm going to throw-up. That's my only criteria at this point in time. I feel like I've been living a scene out of the movie Contagion this week. Albeit, on a slightly less harrowing and life altering scale. Our 'vacation' week is almost over, and if vacating from everyday life is the goal, then I need a do-over. We're falling like flies here, victims to some sort of bug that laughs in the face of Lysol antibacterial spray.

But, you didn't come here to hear about my battle with the bug. While sitting around waiting for it to strike its next victim, I've taken the time to read some favorite blogs, a book, a few poems, and listen to some new music. I wish I took the time more often, really took the time to slow down and enjoy something nourishing. Too often I treat my soul to a steady diet of fast food, and it limps along bloated and dissatisfied. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, about feasting on things that nourish. I think, for me at least, it requires a simplifying, a cutting out of the extraneous nonsense that I fill up on and learning how to 'be' instead of 'do'. Do you find that too?

I've found myself longing to live more simply, even in the everyday things. Our life is complicated and harder to navigate than most, the expat thing is exciting, but it's no picnic in the countryside. And while this is the life we choose to live, I know there has to be a way to make time for soul-feasting within the current framework of our crazy life.

How do you make time? And when you do, what do you feast on? I'd really love to know!

I'll go first:




Wishing you a wonderful, feast-filled weekend.

PS I don't recall mentioning it, but I am now on Twitter. I know what you're thinking. It's one more thing adding to the noise of my life. Anyhow, I'm there, I tweet, I'd love to meet you! @KimberlyACoyle

The only thing that ever excited me about my blessedly short career in nursing, was the opportunity to meet people and hear their stories. Often times they weren't in a position to give it to me themselves, instead I had to glean what I could from the notes in the nursing history, which were often as compelling as a fiction novel.

On any given night I could read about triumphs, tragedies, broken and unbroken families, survivors and heroes. I could read about addiction and recovery and see the results of each one wrapped up in an ill fitting blue gown. Those written lines were important, but it was what was between them, that made the story so intriguing. I couldn't always predict by the written story, the real one I would see written on their skin when I stepped into the room and snapped on my gloves. Poverty in circumstances didn't always translate to poverty of the soul. Wealth in family and fortune didn't always equal wealth of the spirit.

I remember one patient in particular, a woman I met on the maternity ward. She had a genetic disorder that caused her entire body to be covered in small tumors. Every inch of her body rebelled against her, and it couldn't be beaten into submission with cosmetics or surgery or an airbrush. On paper and on first glance I pitied her. That is, until I spent ten minutes watching her. I saw her beauty then, her grace, her mother-love, the glow from every rebel cell. She was beautiful, and so well loved. Her baby didn't see different, her baby saw mama. That's all. She was one of the wealthiest, most beautiful women I've ever met. My pity said more about me than it did about her.

That's the thing about stories, they teach us so much about who we are and who we are not. I love to know what's behind the skin, the weary eyes, or the strong hands. They speak to me about who I am in the scheme of this very small life. They speak to me about who you are too.

What part of your story would you like to share? I'd love to hear it.  

It's been a while since I've taken part in Five minute Friday, but today that's all I have to spare. Join me at The Gypsy Mama? The rules:

It's so cold that the snow won't melt. It lies like white ribbons of piped icing across the rooftops. Yesterday, I stood outside in the cold, staring at snow ribbons, waiting for the kids to come home on the bus. I waited, and waited, possibly said a bad word, and waited some more. They finally pulled up some twenty minutes later. I pasted a smile on my face so as not to look annoyed at the bus driver. Rumor has it that they were late a few days ago because one kid, a girl with an easy smile and my big brown eyes, was screaming too loud. That day the driver stopped right smack in the middle of the road until there was quiet, probably thinking that someone should talk to that kid's mother. It's at times like these that I am thankful for the language barrier.


Anyhow, the kids weren't off the bus thirty seconds before I got the full story of this afternoon's adventure. Apparently, the door to the bus is broken (think less bus and more large van with a sliding door). The driver was ascending a hill when the door spontaneously flung itself open and then slammed shut, repeatedly. If the driver doesn't want screaming kids on board, then perhaps she should reconsider a van whose gaping wide door might give a six year old a near death experience. She pulled over and attempted to shut it, and that dang door would not shut. Hence, the twenty minutes I spent rooftop gazing.

I haven't laughed that hard in months. I had to stop to catch my breath on the walk up the hill to our house. I laughed, they laughed, and we walked bent over at the belly from the sheer joy of it. There's nothing like laughter to knit the things that have fallen apart back together again. Now, if only someone could work that kind of magic on the bus.

This morning there was a watercolor sky as the sun tried to rise through the clouds and snow fell like white confetti. Peach and pink and gold. Beautiful. When I see mornings like this, I want so badly to find a way to capture it and carry it around in my pocket like a tiny treasure. Something lovely to pull out and hold in my palm while I go about my day. My husband's cousin is an artist, and whenever I see something paint-worthy, I think of him, and I wonder if it would capture his eye too.

I envy him that. The ability to capture and release this beautiful world with his eyes and his hands and his gift. A dear friend is a musician, a violinist, and I think about her too and wonder what music she hears when she sees a smile or a sunrise or her laundry pile. I think it must be a glorious thing, to hear the music and to make it too.

The artist has a day job and a family. He has a show to prepare for, and according to his wife, he needs more time and more art. The musician is a full time mom to three. She runs a busy home, and her music suffers. I know because she told me. I wonder if they feel frustration in the inability to pursue their art as they would choose? Does the inspiration ever fade? Or does it build and back up until they have no other choice but to give in and create?

I feel that way sometimes about writing. It's as if the words busy themselves building a tower in my heart until they must, must find a way out. I think they find their escape through a very small window, one that squeezes each letter out slow, like molasses. It doesn't feel like a treasure I can put in my pocket yet, or something that captures the bit of beauty that is inside, building word towers. Maybe someday it will. Maybe it won't. For now, I try to be okay with that. I think of my artist cousin and violinist friend and I know that the path to art isn't perfect, it is simply putting one foot in front of the other and staying the course.

What path are you walking? How hard is it to stay the course?

Well, no one is going to be giving me a Mother of the Year award. I sent all three of my kids to school today. Jet-lagged. A little bit sad. In the bitter cold. The littlest and I had a date with a box of Pop Tarts at one in the morning. That and a little dose of Benadryl. Sue me. I need my sleep as I am having a busy day sorting through laundry, making lists, staring into space and contemplating the formation of toast sweat on my white china.

I have been sitting in front of the laptop for a while now, willing the words to come. They're not really. I tried this same tactic with the treadmill and the silence was deafening. I haven't run in a week. I am woefully behind and I don't think I have the heart to keep up a training schedule. I'd rather eat chocolate. For some reason, this doesn't seem to present the same challenge that writing and running do. It's Dove chocolate. It's not even Swiss for crying out loud.

Today, life feels a bit like a fractured fairy tale. We are here and our family is there, and our sadness spans the ocean and endless sky. Those skies won't be carrying us home for good anytime soon. When you agree to life abroad, no one prepares you for the worst. And let me tell you, this is the worst. These fractures take faith. I know they will heal, and the moments will again have meaning, but for now I want to eat chocolate, contemplate toast sweat, and wonder if my kids will ever forgive me.

I'll give them time. And maybe a little chocolate.