You Can't Go Back

I am enjoying a week of sibling reunification and nostalgia.  As part of our time together we took a drive to Gary, IN to visit some of our former homes.  The pictures here are a sampling of our trip and proof of the old adage, "you can't go back".  Two of the three homes that we lived in while in Gary are now abandoned and uninhabitable.  It was such a weird feeling to see the outline of happy, familiar memories and have the "heeby jeeby" tingle going up my spine because I was expecting a drug addict or wild, rabid dog to jump out from the wide-open door, pulled from its hinges.  

today

1977

1982

today

The homes themselves seemed so much smaller.  We all say that when we go back and look at places from our childhood they look so much smaller than we remembered, forgetting that we ourselves were smaller and therefore everything else looked big from our perspective.  Walking around yesterday, it was more than that though.  The homes literally looked like they had shrunk.  To check, I pulled some old photos to compare and they really do look smaller today.  Changed landscaping or just overgrown shrubs and grasses that have swallowed the size of the home, missing awnings and planters have all diminished the appearance.  A part of me wonders if every home shrinks when a family leaves.  I imagine a vacuum pack sealer sucking out the laughter at birthday parties, the late night kisses goodnight, the puppies being born in the backyard, the strawberry patches and graduation open houses.  The day my family moved out of these homes we stepped out and closed the door and moved forward to the next place.  Pulling away, did we hear the slow, steady, slurping sound of all those moments and memories being extracted, leaving only the vacuum packed house address?

This leaves me with the very helpful take away, I can't go back but I can move forward and inhabit the space I'm in.  Every day that I manage to be present and live fully in the moment, I picture myself filling the space of my current home.  Hopefully my boys will look back on their home one day and think to themselves, "I remember it being so much bigger!" 

Liebster ???

About a week ago this little bumper sticker arrived as an alert in my email.  There was a comment from my blog from someone I've never met. Steph at The Healthy Mom had bumped into one of my posts and wanted to share a virtual "thumbs up" with me. The Liebster Award is given to new blogs with 200 or fewer followers (I was a safe bet with 19).  It's meant to bring attention to undiscovered blogs and encourage folks to check 'em out.  Perhaps another intention is to force new bloggers to explore others as well and enter the deeper end of the blogging community.
 I'm grateful that Steph at The Healthy Mom found me somehow and took the time to give me this public pat on the back.  I really do feel so ignorant about the blogging world.  I struggle to make time for the writing and have not read many other blogs, I'm a little embarrassed to admit.  Steph's recognition and the requirement to suggest 5 others gave me the nudge to go exploring.  It was a wonderful way to hear from a wildly diverse group of people who I will likely never meet but can probably learn from and/or have fun as a voyeur in their life. Being nominated for a Liebster comes with a few guidelines, of course, including the following:
1. You must thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog, with a link back to their blog.

2. You must include the blog award, along with its purpose and guidelines, on your own blog.
3. You must pass the Liebster Blog Award on to 5 blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) you think deserve some recognition, and let them know of your nomination via comment on their blog, twitter, Facebook post, etc.

My Liebster nominees are:

The Healthy Mom  Thanks again to Steph for giving the shout out. Mom is in the title of her blog but she writes about a much wider range of topics than parenting or health.  I think she is funny and smart and honest, all qualities that make for interesting conversation.


1Voice 4 Peace  Jennifer was the first person I ever knew to write a blog.  Her writing is always a little calmer and thoughtful than I'm feeling and I love how reading her stuff can slow me down enough to pay attention.


Random Reflectionz  Christie is my bestest cheerleader.  I'm not sure about the rules of these fellow blogger awards.  Can I give Christie one of these if she's already received one?  I will plead naivete or plain blogging ignorance if anyone cares.  She's writing about everything and whether it's her relationships or current events, she's always smart and clear in her writing.

A Little Lucidity  irreverent and funny, Lucy lays it all out there and takes nothing too seriously. This blog has a PG-13, sometimes R rating for language and content if that bothers you be warned.  I think she's funny as @#$!.

Stratford-Deford  This is a blog I found just by punching the "next blog" button at the top of the Blogger page.  Sally's photography drew me in immediately.  I would love to fill my home with the images that she captures.  City scapes or landscapes, it's all beauty.


So there you have it.  Thank you mysterious Liebster Award creator for helping create an avenue for encouragement and exposure and pushing me to check out other voices.  My favorite thing about writing this piece is that I really am not that well connected and have just begun to write let alone follow other blogs.  As I went in search of other blogs that spoke to me, I was hooked by a Mormon, some lawyer types, and a self-proclaimed potty mouth.  All of us are raising kids and navigating relationships.  Thanks to all of you for the support, humor, and perspective that your blogs offer me!

Anchor Photos

I was looking through some pictures and was quickly bored by page after page of posed photos.  I love photographs and for many years I kept beautiful histories of my life, all through pictures.  My updates to the photo albums used to happen annually, at a minimum.  I would sit down over Christmas break, visiting the in-laws, and quietly organize and sort the events of the past year into neat little pages. Now, the archival process seems to be happening on a per decade schedule.  The number of photos I'm taking has decreased considerably too, so the backlog (unfortunately)  isn't that bad.

Anyway, back to the posed photos problem.  I realized that I need some pictures of my kids WITH me.  I want pictures for myself and for them.  I want to catch a few miracle shots where my deep love and pride is shining through.  I want something that I can hang onto when they're off at college and living their own life miles away.  I want something that they can use as an anchor.  A photo that grounds them in the ups and downs and steadies them.  A photo that whispers, "You are loved - profoundly - unconditionally."  A photo that reminds them, in the eyes of this love, you can do anything.