Wonders

This morning, I found the heavy drizzle of snow on top of recently-fallen, colorful leaves alongside the many still on the trees FULL of WONDER.

The sights in my neighborhood - the same one I see every day - were BREATHTAKING to me. I started trying to pinpoint how I'd describe this practice of noticing this wonder, this 'magic in the mundane.' That's not the way - 'mundane' seems far too dismissive. I thought 'everyday wonders.' Also not right - I don't notice sights like this every day, nor do they happen every day. They don't necessarily even happen each Fall into Winter! What about 'small wonders'? That also doesn't seem right: the main sources of my wonder - snow and trees - are arguably HUGE! Not only in stature, but in affect on the world around them.

Perhaps it's not so important to be able to label this warm, tingly phenomenon I experienced once again this morning, out in the crispness of seasonal transition from Minnesota Fall to Winter. Maybe it's more important that I consciously appreciate that it happened.

WONDER.

This writing felt complete, and then I felt the push to add a bit here about another source of wonder, floating quietly (at least right now!) in my abdomen: the human I am growing there. WHAT?! It's still just totally unbelievable to me that this is 1) possible, and 2) that I am doing it right now. I have logically understood for quite while now how pregnancy works, but experiencing it myself puts the idea on a whole new plane.

I've read and had people tell me to be sure to enjoy it, and I'm glad to have come across this advice: as much has it's been physically and mentally challenging in specific ways for me, it is QUITE the WONDER, and I want to be sure I give it's due in this way, before this source of wonder has given way to another.

WONDER.

Not "Ready," But Capable

 We spent most of yesterday painting the basement, and patching and painting blemishes to the walls throughout the house. I suppose this is part of what lots of folks refer to as 'nesting,' or prepping your space for comfort in the arrival of your tiny human. As neither one of us would consider ourselves 'handy' by any stretch (we have other abilities :)), we were thrilled to have my mom there to help. Everything took longer than expected, as it seems to with house-y things, but we ended up really proud of what we did and what we had learned.

Until we noticed that we'd left one patched spot unpainted. All the supplies had been put away and we were wrapping up to finally eat something. I was SO disappointed at first that we could have missed something. The job was incomplete, we'd failed, why had we even bothered doing the rest?! Fortunately, Kris pretty quickly reframed the situation, got laughing a bit and said something to the affect of "We're likely to ding the walls in this area on the next project too, so maybe we've just saved ourselves some time! We'll fix it when the time is right."

While those words were comforting at the time, this morning, as I've thought about this little moment, they've become poignant. Something larger than they were in that moment. They spoke to the idea that while we may not be 'perfect' at something or really 'ready' to jump in when the time comes to try something, we ARE capable.

So we missed a spot. That doesn't negate everything else we did yesterday. 

We also spot-painted the wrong color in several places throughout the house before we realized we'd picked the wrong paint. I was again pretty frustrated and disappointed in myself at first, and you know what we did? We let those spots dry, figured out the paint puzzle, and repainted them. 

Sometimes we are not 'ready,' but we ARE capable.

People have been asking me a lot lately "Are you ready?," meaning are you ready for the kiddo to come. For a long time, I haven't really known what to say. No one wants to hear you say "No!," but that has often felt much closer to the truth than saying yes. For a long time, that worried me, and had me thinking that I won't be able to handle this parenting thing. Not a good feeling when you are entering your last month of pregnancy.

That said, I'm not sure what ignited my shift in thought, but I've been steadily moving toward a different way of thinking, a shift, a reframing that feels really true and good to embrace and share: "I may not feel 'ready,' but I do feel capable." As a sidenote, I feel even more able when I phrase this idea as "WE are capable" - Kris being a crucial part of this equation is everything.

I am capable. I have proven that to myself time and time again. I have met my own challenges and come out on the other side of them with new knowledge, experience, trust and confidence in self, joy. Just as I have been capable of moving through other aspects of my life (creating and sharing new art, losing loved ones, the list the list the list . . . ), I have been capable in pregnancy and I WILL be capable as a mother and parent. When I worry about the fact that I have very little experience changing diapers, for example, remembering this mantra that I am 'Not ready, but capable' makes me feel SO much better about what is to come so soon.

(photo by Bill Cameron, from 11/3/21 Rhythmically Speaking show at Amsterdam Bar & Hall)

When kiddo comes, we will surely have infant + parent versions of missing a spot of paint on the wall or spot-painting the wrong color here and there. If When that happens, we will paint that spot when the time is right, and let the other spots dry and repaint them the proper color when we can.

Not 'Ready,' But Capable :)