Category: family

Hello, Summer…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

It has been ages since I’ve sat down and really focussed on an intentional post within this space, so I’m just going to pretend we’re in the middle of an exchange, okay?

Sure, summer is technically 20+ days away, but we who live within the confines of an Americanized calendar operate under the summer system of Memorial Day to Labor Day, and truthfully I’m a fan of this practice. The bright blue sky outside hardly screams SPRING, and with my freshly summer pedicured toes red and ready for sandy beaches and flip flops- I am more than happy to stand up and say what we’re all thinking: Helloooo, Summer!

For the 4000 Jurassic years that I have existed within adulthood, (for the Ross Gellar’s out there pointing out the flaws in my wording, I’m pretty sure you caught my drift so, as far as I’m concerned, mission accomplished! XO) I  have had specific practices that summertime has held:

Fresh squeezed lemonaide, BBQs with friends/family, swimming, my grandma’s cobbler, warm jars of sun tea, red toenails, fireflies, long summer evenings the highest SPF of sunscreen allowed (I’m irish, after all), drive in movies and dreaming of real beach time- these made up the bulk of said summer lists…

As summer draws near, in between adulthood stresses of work and life, I have been plotting my summer reading plans. We have gotten our sunroom all ready and have been enjoying early morning cups of coffee, fresh fruit snacks and conversation in its breezes. The smell of fresh cut grass wafts through my window screens and there are cubes of cold watermelon in my fridge. Our summer plans are casual, yet carved out. (these may or may not read like this: grilled tacos, beach, grilled fajitas, beach, margaritas on the patio, hiking, beach, farmers market, beach, drive in movies, tacos, tacos, tacos…)

The really fun thing about our new home, and this being our first summer here, is that it is a SUMMER DESTINATION. Life amps up and, from what we can tell, the party gets started right about now, and wraps up around snowfall. Friends have told us all about all of the “musts”, and we are ready!

The not-so-fun, but still kinda-fun thing about our new home is that while we live at a truly beautiful beach, it isn’t the ocean. I know my heart will still long for a true sea coast, but also, I’m feeling really blessed to have this beach too.

in ALL of my adult summers, I have spent weekends at the Farmer’s Market and kept beautiful, fresh flowers in my home. Whatever we may, or may not have taken on that summer, these two things were SOLID. This is where the truly odd thing about our new home comes in-

NO FARMER’S MARKETS

NO FRESH CUT FLOWERS

Sure, re: the later, grocery stores have some. Honestly though, it’s the worst selection I’ve ever seen and they are 3-4 times the normal price. Re: the first absense- what the actual heck? Truthfully, I cannot wrap my brain around it. We are surrounded by farms. SURROUNDED. Word on the street (iow: the World Wide Web) is that there is a decent market about 90 minutes away. NINETY MINUTES. (While my heart wants to take a moment to whine about my grandma’s cobbler recipe, our summer-staple homemade ice creams, and my end of summer (most delicious ever) jam, the reality is our grocery stores do an amazing job of stocking local, organic produce. While it’s a bit spendier than the average Farmer’s Market, I am still really grateful for this so I simply can’t actually complain about it.) I just really love the experience of the market, with the community, farmers and artisans coming together… (plus then our local taco truck could set up somewhere other than a pub or brewery…)

For all the terribleness of these two things, I’ve still mustered up excitement at summer in our new city. There are a few road trips planned, lots of adventure and exploring, and both my patio & sunroom are prepared to be well lived/loved… Probably (tragically) my house is going to stay fairly flowerless, with my treasured Kate Spade vase feeling alone- but my toes plan on being sandy and my taco-loving-tummy happy, so it feels like a win for me.

What do you love about summer? Where are your favorite places to summer?

Too…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

 

As January rolled around, I had the very best intentions of writing in this space more regularly. I won’t apologize for what appears like neglect because the truth us that I am present in my life and the reality is, certain seasons of life are far more heavy and consuming than others.

When my mother was far younger than I am, she buried her brother Ben, who died in Vietnam. From that point on, she avoided all things funeral, military and war. A devout lover of classic movies, she reacted to anything dealing with those mentioned topics with complete shock and re-immersion into that dark season of grief. Some of us make the conscious decision to house our hearts in the places of deep loss and grief forever. I have tried, in my forty-three-year-long journey NOT to be one of those people. This isn’t because I feel I am better than them as much as I personally believe the sunshine exists beyond such sadness, and my fair-skinned-heart longs to live in the sun, even if it burns sometimes.

In February I sat underneath the New Mexico sky, beside family, at my beloved uncle Phil’s graveside service. As I sat, dressed in black, heart full of tears, I admitted that military services could possibly be all of those things my mother avoided, in one. Though a beautiful tribute, they are also all-at-once devastating… I made a mental note, deliberately ignoring the reality that my son is a soldier, to not attend another veteran service for a long, long time. (I apparently have strong beliefs in my power, I am also a fool.)

Last Thursday I sat underneath the rainy Kentucky sky, beside family, at my father’s graveside service. Also dressed in black, I found myself deeply swirled in awe, sadness, gratitude and loss as the military shot rifles and meticulously folded his flag.

Too soon…

Too much…

As uncomfortable as the shotgun sounds, the sadness and the hard may be- I am so grateful to have been there to honor each man, I am so grateful that I knew and loved both men. I am blessed to have been loved by each of them, and so proud and filled with gratitude that our country belonged to them too.

This year has been equally as uncomfortable regarding sitting through the hard things and clinging to the grateful… In so many ways, for so many, it feels like too much, too soon. Too… These months are feeling too in all of the bad and sad ways. Here in the season of too though, there is growth, or at least there can be. We can choose to be among the ones who sit in the big dark sad and hide from the sun, but we don’t have to be. This too shall pass, things will be ok- this is not cliche’, this truth. It is important that we remember though, that though the sunshine will come again, so will another dark season. It is what we learn to face this time, that equips us for that one. It is also that brave, unconventionally beautiful growth which helps us love the sunshine so much more.

Take my hand, forward we go…

 

Don’t just fly…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

When I was a little girl I was enamored by Dumbo. My mother loved this movie, and became a sobbing mess at the Baby Mine scene every single time she watched the VHS.

I too loved it, at first, because she loved it. I love it now for my own reasons, and admittedly I also tear up during the traumatizing melody. I know why this song pin-pricks my heart, and find myself wishing I knew why exactly that it affected hers so much…

She was not a mother, by nature.

What if, like Dumbo and Jumbo, we had lived in the Circus? What role would I play? What role would she?

She would love the animals, true. Anyone who knows her would say that immediately… However, she wouldn’t take care of them at all, really only coddle them for her own emotional fulfillment. That job wouldn’t do. No, I imagine her (though if I could ask her, she would disagree) as something between showgirl and clown. Clown Showgirl? Would that even be a thing? She would be the ever committed guys-girl, ensuing laughter with one outlandishly ridiculous performance after another. Once the night lights were dim, however, she would cast herself as a real guys-girl in other ways… Among the circus family she would be both the most loved and hated woman around.

I know this is all true.

At first I struggled to see myself…

Dirty, neglected child of a performer? Hiding with the animals, where I made friends and found solace? I imagine a childhood of days passing without seeing my mother, and seeing more her flashes of anger and belittling than the joy inducing woman seen by others, in the ring.

I know all of this is true, as well. Strip away the tent, the spotlights and the tigers and I can honestly say I have lived this childhood. A version of it, anyway.

I cannot think of Dumbo and circus life, imagining what role (within the circus) I might play, without considering my mother. It is an emotional DNA impossibility. That being said, one day the little girl would be a grown woman. She would stay with the circus long after her mother was gone because, in ways her mother never did, the girl valued family, even when family did not value her. She would care for the animals and love them as deeply as she could love anyone. She might fall madly in love with a behind the scenes designer and life would be hard, because- well, it is life- but also, circus life is hard, and this life was all she had ever known.

As time passed, she would give of herself, enabling other performers to be their very best. She would dive in and make herself needed, focussing on her ability to create, design and grow the gifts that this show could give to their audience. She would, eyes twinkling, find her most soul filling moments were when she secretly watched the children drink in the magic of human ability, animal and wonder unfolding before them.

Probably this girl would pass away in her sleep one day, an old woman, eternally unappreciated and alone. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t matter though, because she would carry the happiness she helped others find, and that she’d found joy in this too…

(Something nags at me that this post went too dark and too deep, considering it’s about a children’s movie. If you know Dumbo, and the story, it is a deep and often dark telling of so many hard to digest topics. Just like all escapes, we see only what we choose to. It is in the acceptance of the darkest parts that we find the ability to truly love ourselves completely, which is what we’re longing for others to do anyway, isn’t it?)

My birthday is on Thursday, and I will be front and center at the first local showing of Dumbo. I know it will be amazing and I cannot wait. This gift Disney has given to me, (let a girl pretend a little) is the perfect way to usher in a new life year.

Did you ever dream of joining the Circus?

What would you have done?

Are you anticipating this movie too? Here’s the trailer to hold our excitement for a few more days!

 

From Disney and visionary director Tim Burton, “Dumbo” expands on the beloved classic story where differences are celebrated, family is cherished and dreams take flight.   Circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) enlists former star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) and his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) to care for a newborn elephant whose oversized ears make him a laughingstock in an already struggling circus. But when they discover that Dumbo can fly, the circus makes an incredible comeback, attracting persuasive entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who recruits the peculiar pachyderm for his newest, larger-than-life entertainment venture, Dreamland. Dumbo soars to new heights alongside a charming and spectacular aerial artist, Colette Marchant (Eva Green), until Holt learns that beneath its shiny veneer, Dreamland is full of dark secrets.  “Dumbo” soars into theaters on March 29.

 

Website: https://disney.com/dumbo

the leap…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

I wrote a big piece about the loss of Luke Perry and the more I read it, I just didn’t feel it was sharable… I’ll just say that it is a really sad loss.

I am wrapping up my New Mexico adventure. It has been one of those full circle things that will leave me deeply affected. When I was a small girl my grandfather had put a concrete patio on the front of their home. I took such pride in being able to jump off of it and land without falling. It was so big, and the soles of my feet would throb on impact but I knew my achievement was an amazing one. I was amazing.

I have seen the patio over the years, whenever I’d visit my New Mexico home. It was many, many years ago when I realized the patio is actually not very tall at all, and maybe I oversold that particular athletic ability. No matter how many years have passed though, the site of that patio always manages to resurrect those girlhood feelings. (I’m not kidding, Every. Single. Time.)

This small, dying town holds a variety of memories. Some happy, many not. This concrete patio was always a platform of safety for me. Swinging evening conversations with my grandmother, beneath a stunning desert sky; jars of golden tea warming in the sun; embraces and laughter when greeting visiting relatives, countless hours of adventure, imagination and childhood lay imprinted in the memory of this giant slab… Feet bare on the cold grey make me realize that this may be the only place I have ever stood that held only beautiful moments, and never dark ones.

I left the residence of this Burg when I was twelve. I fled the darkness of an unnatural childhood for solace and family in the Pacific Northwest. There is a deeply rooted grief over the loss of home, culture, people, friends, experiences, etc… (Grief can be a tricky thing because while it feels terrible, it is normal and unavoidable.) My grandmother’s Chrysler delivered me into the arms of complete strangers whom I would one day know as my parents. Those parents had two amazing little girls,(Joy and Jennie) answering the prayer I had prayed a hundred times a day for as long as I could remember, for sisters. Initially these girls were sisters in that foster family/generic/group-home way, but today, thirty years later, they are sisters. Period.

For a long time, in the beginning, I fell asleep longing for the blanket of the desert sky, for the warmth of familiarity, for my grandmother to call me sugar and for another moment on that patio. I clung to what it represented within my spirit, as the launch pad for my very first flirtation with confidence. I wanted to believe in myself, in my journey, in my future, the way that my grandfather’s concrete patio had enabled me to with jumping…

A few years ago my sister Joy, moved to New Mexico. On Saturday that beautiful sister of mine, and I, stood on that very patio, together. Life is funny sometimes. Many things have happened that I never thought I would see, but the full circle moment of that (which I only realized the amazingness of, as we were both standing there) was maybe the most profound and unexpected.

We never know what will happen. I doubt I jumped from the patio’s great height the very first time I stood atop its gleaming surface. Standing there, with Joy, atop my childhood mountain, wasn’t the last time my feet would find themselves grounded there. The patio may be symbolic of something safe and empowering for me, but the courage to toss fear aside and leap had nothing to do with the platform my feet had left. The love of the man who poured it, the consistency of the woman in the attached house, the provision of sisters and the hodge-podge, non-conventional family I have- those are the things that give me the courage to leap, then and now.

At 42 I still take risks, and one day they may feel as small as that jump does now. May this bit of my journey remind me to leap in confidence, with a smile spread wide upon my face…

(Don’t forget to get this month’s wallpaper, listen to this month’s playlist, catch up on the Love Series of the Collective Podcast and subscribe to my monthly newsletter so you get first access to those things and exclusive things I may not share here! ALSO- have you entered to win my Birthday giveaway!?!?!?!)

Showing up…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

 

A trip home, to New Mexico, was long over due. I moved to Idaho, and away from my family in 1988, when I was twelve. Even so, between then and 2003, a year never passed without me making a trip down. Then, life just happened. I don’t know how else to say it. Motherhood, work, living in the northern midwest, money… I managed a visit in 2006, because my grandmother passed away. I will be the first one to say that funerals being the reason, when you couldn’t manage when that person was alive is kind of the worst. I loved my grandmother dearly and truly had wanted to see her, logistically I didn’t know how to make it work.

Growing up, the family who lived next door really were my surrogate family. They had kids of their own, but I could have easily lived there. I talk quite a bit about it, in my book, but they were my soft, light-filled place to fall when my actual home was so dark. After I had moved into the visiting stage of my New Mexico residency, there was a lot of pressure put on me. My mom hated when I would spend time with anyone other than her, and my grandma was kind of the same. Any friendships I’d had from childhood were lost because life goes on, things happen, and my time in this little desert town was so controlled.

After ’06, I managed to make it down two more times- 2007 and 2010. The visits were costly to pull off, in all of the ways. The guilt and pressure that was always heaped on my shoulders, along with the actual travel expenses, made it an overwhelming endeavor. For the past eight years I have known I needed to make a trip down. First was to see my family but also, to see my next door “family”. With each visit, I would sneak over to their house by faking a nap or something. It was ridiculous how difficult it was. Once my youngest little bird had left the nest, I knew a trip down needed to be a priority. By then my mom was already up in Michigan, in a memory care facility. Though the point came when I had more family buried in the ground than alive, in the state, the desert still called to me. It came down to logistics every single time, and I hate it. As December wrapped up, I told my husband that 2019 WOULD hold a trip to New Mexico. It just had to…

What I hadn’t ever expected was that 6 weeks later I would be booking a flight because of a funeral. Another loved one in the ground… Here I am again, showing up for a funeral while it seemed too difficult to show up in life. I really do hate that.

This is the first time ever, in this dying southwest town, that I have felt the call to stay here. Not to leave my husband, but to be here more. To appreciate these mountain ranges, the abandoned buildings and all of the under the surface things that she has to offer. More than once I have questioned how possible it would be to be here more. (which, if I went almost nine years, I guess more could be anything less)

Time connecting with family has been all of the things one would expect- sad, emotional, heavy, bucket-filling, comical, grief filled (for all of the reasons you’d expect and a bunch you wouldn’t) but it has also reaffirmed my belief in the vitality of showing up. I spent a precious chunk of time with my next door “family”, and am already dreaming up my next desert trip.

I imagine we all have our own New Mexico Story– That thing we should do, and maybe even want to do, but it has carried so much heaviness in the path that it’s sometimes easier to just look the other way and let eight years pass… This month I’ve had to face a lot of things I hadn’t before- things about my own perceptions, childhood, darkness, etc… This month I am learning to show up, when it is needed. When my soul longs for it, it is my responsibility to pave the way. (with the exception of when I am literally not wanted, of course. Then they can just deal with it, and one day maybe they will show up at my funeral and question their own choices.) What is it that you need to pave the way for, making yourself more present and intentional?