fall magic: a poem

this was inspired by an experience i had today with my kinders

bright crisp blue so clear it almost hurts
then
a shout!
all eyes drawn upward
transfixed
by the magic of
fluttering, sparkling, swirling
fairies?
butterflies?
or were they leaves,
green of summer turned to
red
yellow
orange
by the kiss of fall?
who's to say?
my dancing children raise their hands
to heaven with exclamations of glee
as we dance beneath
the magic.
a door opens
and a whistle blows.
we return to routine
but in our hearts we carry the magic of
the fairies?
the butterflies?
the leaves?
who's to say?

think the universe isn't listening?

last week i was talking to one of my best friends who has transformed himself in the last year. he has gone from a pretty scary alcohol addiction to a sober, whole and peaceful place. it has been a joy to see his transformation. he called me the other day because he was having a sad day. he has dedicated his life to healing (both himself and others) and was feeling sad because he faces the possibility of losing his house and he feels lonely. i was sitting outside on a sidewalk talking to him on my phone. he said to me, "pix i just feel like i surrendered my life to this path and now the universe isn't stepping up to the plate." through our talk, we both came to realize that there are so many factors working to support us every second, and that just because support doesn't come in the particular form that we want it to, doesn't mean we aren't supported. in the middle of this conversation, a teenage boy rides down the sidewalk on a bike and as he passes me points his finger, looks right at me and just says "endure!" and then rides on down the street. i told my friend that the universe just gave him a message. this just brought home to me how much we are all taken care of every minute, and we are never alone.

wow, mom!

this is a funny little side note that happened last weekend. cass regularly asks me questions like "who's the prettiest mommy?" and i answer "me?", or will just come up and hug me and tell me that i am beautiful. i have a real sweetie for a daughter. anyway, last weekend i busted out my senior yearbook to show her. when we came to my picture, she was kinda in awe. "WOW, mom! you were pretty!" it just makes me laugh. i remember seeing my dad's yearbook when i was young and thinking "crazy! dad was cute?" you always see you your parents through your love lens and they are beautiful, but it's a shock to see them young.
nowadays, i will take the extra pounds and fine lines gladly in exchange for the greater peace and wisdom that i have, and for the people who just love me no matter what i look like. but it is still fun to see my daughter's shocked face as she looks at my teenage-ness :)

thanks for gifts and miracles

i haven't written in a while because apparently i am really sensitive to being interrupted when i write. i was mid-blog after my portland trip and my fam was urging me to spend time with them so i quit mid-blog. i never finished that blog and am only now writing again - only because it REALLY needs to be expressed.

there are a couple of things that are expressing need to be expressed right now. mostly, my mother was pronounced cancer free this week. the story is a funny one. she went to the ER for something (i don't know or care because it's secondary to the story). side note - she just started seeing a naturopath in portland recently. at the ER she asked the docs to do a scan because her naturopath was wondering if she still had a cervix (she had a hysterectomy 13 years ago). The opinion came back that not onlydid she have a cervix, but a uterus too AND no cancer. WHAT??!! we all think. the no cancer pronunciation is suspect - at least in my mind - because of the "you have a uterus" thing.

a week later she goes to her naturopath (who is also an MD for anyone who thinks that naturopaths are fake doctors) who gives her an ultrasound that reveals - no cancer and no uterus.

i think the main point of this blog post is that before i went to visit my mom in portland, i had to actively fight off tears on a regular basis over the prospect of losing my mom. while i was there i dealt with a lot of those feelings. i came back with a better grip on life without my mom. and now here are doctors saying cancer is gone! i feel like i have been a very special gift - that of dealing best i could with losing her. i mean, nobody knows when anybody is going to die - that is out of our hands. all we really have is our reaction. though it has been rough at times, i am thankful for the experience. now i can enjoy my mom even more because i had to face the prospect of not having her

"Working" with my daughter

last night, i was in denver staying with some friends getting ready to pick cass up in the morning when she called me and asked if she could go to school in denver next year. my first thought was - this is easy - "your dad is between jobs and houses right now; i think it's not a good time." but she unexpectedly counters with "no, i could stay at nana and papa's" (nana and papa are actually doug's aunt and uncle who are, for ALL intents and purposes her denver grandma and grandpa) (insert stomach drop here - on my part). i tell her i can't make that decision right now.
my mind swirls to all sorts of sad, mad, hurt etc. places. i stress all night, but manage to get to talk to pam (dotheworkwithpam@gmail.com), and i am here to testify that her phone sessions are the real deal - i did it - so don't let proximity be a barrier) before i pick up cass. we do a quick run-through of the situation and i uncover a host of underlying thoughts behind my anxiety. anyway, i collect myself and pick up my daughter.
my baby is always upset when she has to leave her denver family, so i introduced the "Work" to her and let her explore her sorrow via the Work. i won't share her revelations except to tell that listening to her helped dissolve my core beliefs related to issue i had called pam about - even though i had mentioned NOTHING to her.
i am looking forward to sharing the Work with her. man! i can just imagine if someone had given me the tools to question my beliefs and help me realize that suffering is optional when i was 11!

breathing easier

VS.










i chose that title because i am amazed right now how i am LITERALLY breathing easier after my "Work" session with my friend. tonight i tackled one of my biggies, that i have recently realized is the underlying cause of many of my stress thoughts. i am breathing easier because i really feel like my chest has been let go from some kind of binding instrument. so, the following blog is really me processing some epiphanies so feel free to skip it - or not :)

it started with me trying to get at why i am so deeply conflict phobic. it's really bizarre if you could see me in action - or should i say inaction. i am petrified - literally sometimes - to speak up for myself, even to complete strangers on the phone let alone with someone who matters in my life. then i fight with myself because i say, "katrisa, this is ridiculous. grow an ovary or two and speak up! what are you afraid of?" And when i ask myself that question, i am at a loss to answer it. what the hell AM i afraid of? i have been having this fight with myself for years to no avail. so i decided to try the "Work" and see if maybe i couldn't get somewhere finally (though i admit i was skeptical). Anyway, it became apparent to me over several session of trying to get at the issue but not, what the actual issue is.

now it may seem like an overstatement - and it is - but there is a part of me that REALLY believes it - that the world is not a safe place to be me. without getting into specifics, there have been times in my life where it was absolutely NOT safe to be me, which is one of the reasons that this belief is locked up somewhere inside my psyche. so when i was asked "is that thought true?" i had to say, "sometimes, hell yes it is - AND i know that absolutely." but then i had to look back at my original statement "the world is not a safe place to be me" and i had to admit that some true experiences did not make the whole world unsafe - because that is how i was treating the world.

so then she asked me what was my payoff in having this belief. i had to admit that i was trying to keep myself safe, but that in reality holding on to that belief really did not affect my day to day safety. in fact - and here's the kicker - if you are always worrying about what might happen, what others might think feel or say if you say or do something then you are always a little bit afraid. after all, let's call a spade a spade - worry is fear. so when your mind is always shooting out these tendrils of fear all the time - how do you know when to listen when your genuine alarm system kicks in to alert you to real danger? it's not that danger to your safety does not exist, but what good is the belief that world is not safe when it causes you to live out of sync with your true self? Not to mention that the VAST majority, if not all, of the random ways i don't stand up for myself are not really related to my safety anyway.

even after all of that realizing going on, i still had a hard time imagining my world without that thought. so what a blessing when i realized that i DO know what it feels like to live without that thought. that is why i go to festivals like dreamtime and element 11. i let go of that thought while i am there and i am just me; that's why i love going there so much! that realization just busted the whole thing wide open for me. so i know that i am not just over this issue, just like that. i know that i have work ahead of me, because the thought of being open and honest with some people in my life still makes me want to hightail it back into that imaginary safe zone where i hide, but at least now i see the crack of light shining through that shut door, and i know that it IS possible to live without fear paralyzing me.

from the mouths of...almost 3rd graders

in my summer school class, i have sort of a theme for the week; last week it was the solar system. in honor of solar system adventures, i brought in "the universe" season 1 (a history channel series) and let them vote on which episode they wanted to watch. though i was pulling for the gas giants, they wanted to watch the sun - well it was a close race between the sun and the moon, but the sun won by a single vote.

the funny thing about this particular series is that they are always trying to make the solar system into some kind of EXTREME SPORTS or something. kevin and i laugh when they do it and say in our best boxing match announcer voice "death from above!" anyway, the video talked about solar storms for awhile and the kids all asked me if solar storms would kill the earth and i told them no, just disrupt our electronics :) but near the end they started to talk about how the sun will (in approximately 5 BILLION years) become a red giant and swallow up mercury, venus, and earth. this freaked them out. i tried explaining that 100 years is a long time for a human to live and that we are talking BILLIONS of years before the sun engulfs the earth, but little kids are not so good with time scales.

in the midst of this "the sun will swallow the earth" mini-panic, one of my kids says, "it doesn't matter. none of us are alive anyway; we are all just living in someone's dream and when they wake up we won't be here." where do they get this stuff? then another kid chimes in in agreement. so i ask them who is doing the dreaming, and they look at me like i am slow and say "nobody knows!"

have i mentioned lately how i adore my job?

grimus and the angel of death

a family friend (who i have not met yet, but will meet in a little over a week but already has a place in my heart because my fam loves her) just asked for a book recommendation because she has a train ride coming up. i was trying to think of a good book to recommend (there are just SO many good books in the world) and the one i chose was "grimus" by salman rushdie. i read that book last year and it really captured me in a way that books seldom do. i remembered that i blogged about it on my old myspace blog when i was reading it, so i went and dug that up to share a piece of this most amazing piece of literature.


-It's a serious tale, she said. It is about the Angel of Death. In the story, he is sent out by God to collect the dead souls; but he finds a frightening thing happening to him, for as he swallows each soul it becomes a part of him. And so Death is changed, metamorphosed as it were, by each dying creature. The poor Angel finds it a bigger and bigger strain, and also begins to have doubts about whether he even exists as an independent being with all these people inside him; so he returns to God and asks to be relieved of his function. And what do you think he finds? This: that God too, is tired of his job, and wants to die. God asks the Angel to swallow him and of course the Angel cannot refuse. So he does, and God dies; but the effort of swallowing him breaks the heart of the Angel. And there is a very sad ending, when he realizes that Death cannot die, for there is no-one to swallow him. Don't you think that's a very pretty, neat tale?

-grimus p141

and i knew i could count on gustave dore for a most excellent picture to accompany this post :)

a shout-out to the peeps who bless my life

the first session of "The Work" that i did involved my feelings of fear and frustration over someone in my life (not friend or family, just someone i am forced to interact with in my life). afterward i went to grab a bite with a friend who was also at the session with me who also knows the person i had just done "Work" on. in our conversation, my friend mentioned to me that on one occasion our mutual acquaintance told her in all seriousness that she doesn't really have friends because they are too much work and she prefers it that way.

this has been rolling around in my brain a lot since i heard it. i think of the myriad ways my life is blessed because of my friends - even those i am not that close to, and CERTAINLY by those i hold especially dear to my heart. i feel compassion for any being who would see relationships with others as a chore rather than a treasure. after that day, i really just can't see her as scary and mean as i used to. obviously there is no way for me to know if she truly doesn't want friends because they are a bother, or that is a smokescreen - and it really is none of my business. yet, i can't help imagining life without all the awesome people i count as friends.

in fact, i just reconnected with a college friend today who i haven't seen in person for about 12 years. and i came away from that meeting with the feeling that i am glad i know him. that got me thinking about how glad i am that i know so many of the people that i do. i am trying to contrive a way to let people know that i appreciate them and their contribution both to my life and to our collective experience here on this most amazing of planets.

i think of my mother - considered quite poor by typical standards - and i think what a rich life she has had and does have because of the people she has made connections with - TRUE CONNECTION. i know that it's cliche to say that there are more important things than money, and i bitch about not having money on a fairly regular basis - but the truth is i love my life. i love my life because of all the wonderful people i have in my life. so here's to all the people i love - *SMOOTCH*

ah...micheal franti just started playing on my ipod. nice.

and the following pics are a mere representation of the people in my life who rock and is by no means a definitive list. :)

fat-cat brain

so i have done three "Work" sessions now, but the one i did today blew my mind. for those of you who don't know about byron katie and her "Work", you start with a thought that distresses you and and allow yourself to feel it fully and watch what that thought does to your life. how does life feel with that thought? how do you treat yourself when you think this thought? how do you treat others when you think this thought? etc.
then when you're all done with that you imagine your life as if it were impossible to think that thought. not that the subject of the thought doesn't exist, but that it is impossible for you to think that particular thought. so my thought today was people shouldn't threaten each other. so i had to imagine what would my life be if i COULD NOT think that thought, not what would my life be like if people didn't threaten each other.
that step was a hard one for me! i literally could not imagine life without that thought. so my friend gave me a tool that she uses when trying to work through very deeply entrenched thoughts; she pictures herself in her dog's head. so i put myself in fat cat's head. is it possible for the fat to think that people shouldn't threaten each other? nope, not even a little bit. then i could see what my life could be like without that thought. it's freeing really, to let go for a second and see that you truly are FREE to be as happy or as miserable as you want to make yourself. and you have NO ONE to blame but yourself if you are unhappy or stressed.

take a second to let that sink in...

me - i'm going try living in fat cat's head-space a bit more.

one of my very favorite poems

i have been thinking about this poem a lot lately because of all the spring flowers i have been enjoying (there is a line "flesh like the bright puffs the flower-god puts on in spring, flimsy for needing to last"). as you know if you have been reading my blog, i have been been wrapping my head around the idea of non-permanence when it comes to life, so that line would echo in my head when i would see a flower. i have been trying to let things be what they are and enjoy each moment i have on its own terms without thinking how it won't last or how i want it to be different. i still have a long way to go, but hey, life's about the journey, right?

this poem is by a poet i found in a sort of unusal way :) back when i was first dating nathaniel and kim was first dating james, she and i went to ogden to meet the boys. we had planned to meet them in one of those book/music/movie mega-stores, and we got there before them. so we were over in the poetry aisle and we spotted a book titled "10 poems to change your life". kim and i scoff (we are sort of poetry elitists) and i open the book at random to see if my life was about to be changed. the poem that i opened to was called "last gods" by galway kinnell. i read it aloud and kim and i just sat there speechless when it was done. i quietly and carefully placed the book back on the shelf, giving the poem the reverence it deserved, and thus was born my adoration of galway kinnell.

the poem i want to share isn't actually "last gods" though i highly recommend the poem. it's in his book "when one has spent a long time alone", as is the poem i am about to share.

so... without further ado i give you...
AGAPE
I want to touch her.
Once. Again. I will wait
if I must. Outwait.
Wait so long she will age,
pull even, pass. How
will she like it then if
when i bend to kiss wrinkles
ray out around her
mouth? I want to hold her.
In the flesh. All night.
Flesh like the bright
puffs the flower-god
puts on in spring, flimsy
for needing to last
but this one flashing
circuit through her
apparitions. Did she fear,
when i stood with the
precipice at my back
and beckoned, that i was a specter
she would plunge through?
At the agape, love's addicts
lie back, drink, listen
to a priestess discourse
on love rightly understood.
As soon as cured anyone
can get up and go over
and bestow the Kiss
on anyone. Now the others
have disappeared - maybe
cured, probably joining lips
behind doors. It is
the Fourth Cup - the hour
for the breaking of the
transubstantiated body.
What if we break, the priestess
and I, the body
together? And I fall
in fear and longing?
And she commands me to
dissolve in the light
of love rightly understood,
or if i can't, to put
a gun to my head? I don't want
to know that on the other
side of the pillow nobody
stirs. I don't want ever
again to sit up half the night
and laugh and forget not
all of us will rejoice
like this always.

she moves in mysterious ways

so, for some unknown reason whenever my mother posts a new blog (broccoli4breakfast.wordpress.com) my facebook profile posts it on my wall - as me, not my mom. i am not sure what setting i changed to make that happen, but i liked knowing when my mom posts anyway, so i'm not too concerned.

anyway, on monday my mom posted a new blog and i got this comment from a friend

"Kat! Did I tell you I'm just finishing up my certification to teach/facilitate 'The Work?' Come for a session or two... it's great stuff and I could totally see you using/teaching it as well!"

i hadn't even had a chance to read my mom's blog. i responded that i would love to come do this "Work" (though i didn't know what this "Work" was), so we have been setting up a time to do this. today i finally got a chance to sit down and read my mom's post. it turns out that the whole post is on a system of overhauling your thought patterns with the goal of creating joy in your life at all times developed by byron katie. her system is called "The Work".

i had no idea that my friend's certification was the same thing my mom has been into since she received katie's book from our friend knate while she was visiting me last month. so, i am going to visit a group that does this "Work" tomorrow. i have been working hard over the past couple years to release anger from my life, so i look forward to this chance happening.
more joy for everyone!

it'll be ok

today was our first farmers market, we have both been excited since yesterday because this was the trial run of "can kevin make enough money doing this while i still don;t have my teaching license?" i spent a lot of time yesterday making our signs and kevin was busy getting his stuff ready.

when we got there today, the shade we had been promised was non-existent, the chairs we were expecting were non-existent, and we were allotted half a table (my fault for signing up for the wrong thing). so we set up - and i cry - ... i told kevin i was sad because we looked so unprofessional. kevin didn't understand my sadness until he saw people literally render us invisible because we had no canopy. our society is all about presentation.

after about an hour, one of the managers came up to us and offered us her canopy - and from then on we rocked it as hard as we could, we actually ended up doing much better than we thought we would at this particular venue. and i think we can actually make a go of this urban farming as a job.

it's all good - even if i get sad sometimes

so, i started my new job this week. i am lucky because my immediate "boss" is a good college friend of mine who knows that i am valuable to the program already, so i don't have to pretend i never have a cup of wine or that i don't have tattoos to make her realize that i am good at my job (yes, utah is like that - even salt lake, though not to as great an extent as ogden).
i have second graders this summer. before this summer, i thought that what i really wanted was to just teach kinders, but would be ooo-k(?) with first - but it was nonsense - i love all the littles. i think i am just going to get my degree so that i could teach any elementary grade. i am seeing that each year has its own special treasures and challenges - just like everything in life.
i am, however, looking forward to finding a job where i can STAY. one of the reasons i don't want to leave parkview is that i LOVE watching my kinders grow, and i LOVE how i get letters from pre-k kids saying how they hope they have me as a teacher because i had their sibling. but i know that i will develop that at any school i go to. and i think that my principal has created a culture of fear at my school, and that's not what i want.
sometimes i think it might be boring to read about how much i love my job and my man and my daughter, but that's where i'm at. i mean, i get depressed - mostly over money. i don't want to be rich, but i am tired of worrying if i can even pay my bills. i am sad that kevin and i have both found what we LOVE to do, but society doesn't choose to honor either of our (FUNDAMENTAL) career choices with much monetary compensation. and like i said, i'm not all about money - i am just tired of scraping to pay my bills.
i guess what i want to leave this blog with, is that i feel blessed - every day. i have an amazing love, amazing family/friends, and an amazing job.

moving on...or, at least trying to

today was the last day of the school year. i found out just last week that i have a job to come back to next year, but that they weren't sure where they were going to put me. last week, they said either i would be in kindergarten again or in the 3rd grade bilingual class. i was cool with either. then my favorite teacher there (who is retiring) told me that the 1st grade bilingual asked if she could have me and apparently was told yes. i was pretty excited about this, because i would really enjoy working with that particular teacher. on my way out of the building today, i stopped to ask if they had solidified my position for next year. i was told, not really, but not in kindergarten and most likely not even in a classroom. i would do things like babysit the in school suspension and the playground, and do groups like ERI (early reading intervention - a scripted curriculum that is my least favorite part of my job). so i am pretty depressed.

i came home and updated my resume. so next week starts a new job hunt. i am thankful that i have a job for next year to fall back on, since i know that my district is cutting people all over. i just know that i belong in the classroom, and i need to work for someone who realizes that. so fingers crossed. universe? help me out? it's frustrating to know exactly what you want to do with your life, and then have people or circumstances prevent you from doing that. all i want is to be in a classroom...

endings

well, tomorrow is our kindergarten musical celebration and "graduation". it's so amazing to think back to the first month of school and how much they have all grown and learned. i really wish i could post some pictures of them with this blog so you could see how utterly amazing my kinders are, but apparently that's a no no. i feel so blessed to be able to spend my working life with these precious little souls. i know many of them come from some difficult home situations, but at least i know that while i'm around they are all cherished.

i cry every year at the end. i know i will still see most of them next year, but i still miss them. we sing a song called "the children of many colors". here are the lyrics:
from the ocean, cross the desert, to the mountain high
live our people, hear our voices, rising to the sky

*(chorus)we are the children of many colors
and ever since our birth,
we've been sisters, we've been brothers
and we live on mother earth*

sun of daylight, moon of midnight, guard our mother's land
we together, must protect her, every grain of sand

*chorus*

we move to the rhythm of the circle of life
and listen to earth's song
we dance to nature's heartbeat
and keep our mother strong

we all share the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe
we all share the skies above, the river below, the land we love

*chorus*
-end of lyrics-

so, imagine 75 ethnically diverse 5 and 6 year olds singing this song. ya, it's that adorable and heart wrenching. it gets me every time. then we go back to our classroom and they get their "diplomas". we all made construction paper grad caps as well - TOO CUTE! and i cry again. someday i will have my own classroom.

stopping to smell the flowers

well, my mom left today. it was a teary goodbye. i am trying not to be too sad though. i will try to make it out next month to see her.

i went over to the big garden with kevin this afternoon just after it had rained. the house next to the big garden is full of iris, roses, and peonies. i did not know until my mom's visit that irises smell amazing! i always assumed that since they were such decorative flowers that they probably didn't smell that pleasant. while my mom was here, we were taking a walk and she stopped to smell an iris and told me that iris was one of her favorite scents. so i smelled one, and they are incredible! while i was waiting for kevin to be done building his fence, i noticed that some of the flowers had raindrops still on them, and it was beautiful. so i took a couple pictures with my cell phone. i bent to smell all the flowers and had kevin come join me. it reminded me of my mom. i am glad that she is helping me stop and smell the flowers and realize how precious and amazing life is. no one knows when their time comes to pass from this life, so do yourself a favor and go smell some flowers while you still can.

here's to you, mom!

life without my mother

i try not to dwell too much on the possibility of life without my mother, but it's always a nagging feeling there in the back of my mind. i know that nobody has any guarantees on life, but dealing with an illness in someone you love makes you ponder death more often than you otherwise would. every time i imagine my mother being gone it's too much for my brain to handle. my mother is one of my best friends and i think the world is a better place for her being in it. i know that her influence and the good she has done will live on after she does, but i can't hug influence. i wish that i could go live in portland too, or that salt lake was better option for my mom to live. i am a bit jealous that my brother and adrienne get to have my mom.

mom is sleeping right now. she is leaving tomorrow and i am sad about that. i wish i had more time to spend with her. at least i had this nice long weekend. i enjoyed cooking for her - we have always bonded over food. i have many things to be thankful for, but i wish i had more mom time.

thankful for life's little surprises

i went and looked at my old blog today - the one i had on myspace. it was really fun to look back through it. it made me want to blog more, so here i am.

this has been an interesting few weeks. i got a call from my brother like three weeks ago saying that one of his friends just landed in salt lake and was supposed to be picked up by a friend in a school bus, but that the bus had broken down in flagstaff, so could his friend stay with us. (i know this friend btw; he wasn't a stranger or anything). so we said yes.the bus has taken a bit longer to fix than anticipated, but i am grateful for the time we have been able to spend with our friend. cassidy absolutely adores him - in fact i think she will have quite a hard time when he leaves next week. the experience has taught me that wonderful things come in unexpected packages.

as some of you know, my mom is dealing with illness. i picked up a random book from the library sale last month because it was by an author that i enjoy. it is called "the blue lantern" by collette. i started reading it, and it is written almost like a journal, it is not fiction (which i did not realize). at the time she wrote it, collette was in her 70s and was pretty much bedridden. the book is her musing over her life - both past and present. i was truck with how appreciative she was about life in all its ups and downs. it made me hope that i will feel and think like that when i am nearing the end of my life (assuming i don't die in fiery crash or some such thing). i decided that i wanted to give the book to my mother when she came to visit me. so the first week our unexpected guest was here, we were all hanging out in the living room. i said to kevin that i wanted to give my mom our blue lava lamp to go along with "the blue lantern". knate looks at me and says "what did you just say?" so i told him that i wanted to give that book to my mom. well, knate is a comic book guy and he tells me the following:

in the green lantern comics, the green lantern is powered by will, but other lanterns started to pop up. the other lanterns had different power sources (greed, rage, etc.). then came the blue lanterns - and they were powered by hope. i thought that was an amazing synchronicity.

my mom knows knate from when she lived in portland. so, when it became clear that he might still be here when my mom was due to be here, i decided not to say anything to my mom about him being here. for anyone who knows me, you know that is hard for me. i am a TERRIBLE secret keeper. BUT i pulled it off. i am SO glad i did too, because the look on my mom's face when she found knate on our couch was priceless!! first she noticed him, then came the look of recognition, followed closely by sheer confusion. you could almost read her thoughts (wait...knate? where am i? which child am i visiting? what city is this? am i going crazy?). it was amazing!

i hope i can get out to portland this summer to see my mom. it's very hard to process the idea of her not being around forever. i want to spend as much time with her as i can.