hello, october

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Happy October!

This month has a pretty good history of being my favorite. It is my birthday month, which might have something to do with it. It's also Frocktober, which has become such a fun tradition each year. (It's not too late to join me!).

I love October because it's Fall's dream month. I love it because of pumpkins, crisp leaves (in my imagination - Arizona doesn't even know the word leaves), baking, fireplaces, red and gold, Halloween, dressing up. This year it means moving into our house finally!! and going to North Carolina to see our favorite friends for a week.

This year it also means the would-have-been due date of our first sweet baby, Poppy. October 26th is a date I'm hesitant to meet. I know I'll greet it now with a much sweeter embrace than I thought I would. We are blessed. I am so grateful to have our baby boy. Even now as I type I can feel his little tosses and turns. I love this child so much, and that love has only grown and been layered by the loss of our first. But she (or he - we won't truly know until heaven) is not forgotten. Thinking of her is bittersweet. It's a tenderly bruised love. In my heart, she will always be my October girl. I would have loved sharing that with her. I will celebrate her life every year, and be blessed by the joy she gave us.

Because of these things and more, I will always be so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

sisterhood

I have always wondered what it would be like to have a sister. 

My mom and I went to Home Depot last night to run some errands, and I wandered around in the garden section for a while, eventually stumbling upon the two gorgeous pink roses pictured above. They were growing side by side. Rosy sisters. Something struck my heart in that moment. Perhaps it was longing, or a little bit of remembrance for my younger self, who always begged and wished for a sister. Or maybe it was a little twinge of something else entirely, a nameless emotion tied to seeing something simple and beautiful. 

I grew up with 3 marvelous brothers whom I love deeply, and friends and cousins that I attached myself to as a surrogate sister. I always envied my friends who had sisters, and would chide them when they fought because I couldn't comprehend fighting with a beloved sister. As I've grown up and my siblings and siblings-in-law have gotten married, I have even gained sisters-in-law, which is such a delightful bonus to my collection of siblings.

Funnily enough, every sister-in-law I have is just like me: we all grew up without any sisters. It strikes me as very strange and kind of lovely. What are the odds? We are a gaggle of sisterless women who love each other all the more because we are each other's first experiences with sisterhood. 

Dress (remixed 1, 2): Ruche

Star Sweater: remixed

Don't get me wrong: many of my friends have been like sisters to me over the years. I do not belittle those relationships in any way. I had several "sisters" growing up that I still love and cherish. They allowed me to share my room and giggle over secrets. And my sisters-in-law expanded that realm of relationship even further, filling up our family and making it more of a girl's club!

Even so, I realize that there is a very real question tucked away in the stitches of my being that will never be answered. I'll never know what it's like to have a real sister. Which in many ways is fine, because as they say, ignorance is bliss. I don't really understand the intricacies of what I'm missing. It's not a devastating or a heartbreaking thought, it's just something that I know to be true.
There are positive influences to growing up entirely with brothers, too. I owe so much of myself to them. My interests and many aspects of my personality. I think it's possible that I am the friend that I am because I never had any sisters.

In one of my favorite parts of the movie In Her Shoes, Maggie is trying to explain her sister Rose to her husband-to-be, Simon. The first half of the movie is very dark and sad, illustrating the strain and heartbreak that has wedged the two sisters apart. Maggie is basically telling Simon that her little sister is irresponsible, frustrating, immature, selfish - and that he'll end up begging her to throw her out of their lives.

But I won't. Because she's my sister. Without her, I don't make sense. 

That part always makes me cry, mostly because of the restorative nature of forgiveness and the steadfast love and loyalty that is inherent in sisterhood. I have been blessed to know and love many sisters in the world, catching a peek at what that relationship is really like. I know I get glimpses of it. 

I shall continue assigning myself as a surrogate sister to the many kindred spirits in my life, knowing that sisterhood is a beautiful thing, in every form. 

to be a writer {frocktober, day 6}

I have always dreamed of being an author.
It's one of those vocations that really speaks to me. It would be so glorious to write something, something from my own mind, and actually release it into the wild world to be read and commented on and, possibly, loved.

It would also be absolutely terrifying.

I've started and stopped writing dozens of novels, jotting down ideas and even describing a few to my husband and friends for their opinions. It's a very vulnerable process and one I'm still struggling with. I have never, ever finished a writing project. Which is rather absurd, since I started writing and telling stories when I was just a kid. I have my first one somewhere, entitled Land of Celladore, a few chapters clumsily written and then abandoned. The self-doubt is really hard to quell. Which is why it's so nice to have people you trust to bounce ideas off of.
The problem is it's ever so much easier to create ideas than to actually complete them. Mid-story it's so tempting, when you hit that wall, to say - oh! What about this? This is a great idea! I'll write about that instead!
Only to discover mid-story, again, that it's just as difficult as the last. It's a terrible pattern of loving and leaving.

I think one of the farces I often create for myself is that I have to find the right thing to write, so it can get published and read and adored by millions. Right? Isn't that the order of business?
I somehow got it into my head that whatever I write has to be publishable. When the truth is, I could write 4 or 5 entire books before I write anything worthwhile. But it's about the writing, the desperate habit of writing -- the practice, the adventure, the experience.
I recently read something that clicked on a lightbulb in my brain. I think the bulb was already there, but it was never lit. If I write 500 words a day for a year, I would have a novel written. Period. Would it be good? Would it get published? That's all besides the point. The point is that it would get done! I would actually finish a book. And that, my friends, is the first of many great accomplishments for a writer-to-be. It would be the first of many steps toward writing that worthwhile something. It creates that system of follow-through that is so necessary to develop confidence, self-awareness and appreciation for ideas. Some of my favorite authors have books that were never published, first drafts that were absolute rubbish. The more you write the better you get, and that is the grand journey of it all.

All that to say - I'm writing a book. I think I'm saying it out loud in order to cement that accountability. It's out of my protective hands now, out into the world. You all know it and if this book ever makes it onto paper and into a cover, we can point to this post, dated and signed with the first hopeful admission.
It's not a good book, but it could be. It's from my own head and it's a work in progress. My goals for this year are to attempt to write that 500 words a day to build up my life's word count, and to hopefully finish a first book draft. It would be a fairly revolutionary accomplishment for me!
I hope to work hard, a little every day, to finish.
Even if it's just fertilizer, it'll be a nourishing beginning.

words

by: hello quiet tiger on etsy

by: the black apple on etsy

by: mae chevrette on etsy

by: amanda catherine on etsy

by: honey and the hive on etsy

by: amanda catherine on etsy

by: emily mcdowell on etsy

by: live love studio on etsy

by: meera lee on etsy

by: mae chevrette on etsy

by: honey and the hive on etsy

crush: the pixie cut

Sigh. The Pixie Cut. It's kind of taboo, this tomboyish cut that seems destined to only be successful on the rich and famous. After all, they have the million-dollar hair stylists and the endless supply of that just right hair product, which is akin to finding the holy grail. 

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame. It would be the death of me. People would probably scoff and point and laugh. I know I would look terrible. I can hardly do my hair now, what in the sorcerer's stone makes me think I could possibly make a pixie cut look good? It's baffling. And yet it's an inevitability, this semi-annual alarm that tick tocks to the craving I have for the hair butcher. 

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These photos make me yearn. I try to tell myself that it's all an illusion and that my short stature and tiny forehead and round face would be the death of the pixie, but there's that little flicker of hope inside me (I call her stubborn) that still whispers, maybe I could do it. But the reality is, I'd probably be called "sir" by mistake. 

Which is really the central fear revolving around the pixie cut, because looking like a boy is not normally what we ladies strive for. Chopping off such a vital part of our body feels absolutely terrifying, life changing, and it kind of is. A woman's hair is an embodiment of personality, style, glamour, mystery, and femininity. 

But we are not exclusively those things because of our hair. A woman with no hair does not cease to be incredible and feminine. There's more to it than that, so much more. 

Yes, doing something as drastic as a pixie cut to my appearance would be a ginormous leap of faith [read: mistake] but perhaps in the process I could unleash some glorious piece of myself I've been longing to find. Something like bravery and freedom. Something like that.