(happy oh happy)

today is my mom's birthday!

if you know her, and many of you do, you know that my mom is a pretty special woman.

of course she is not perfect (in fact, she'd be the first the declare that...in her self-deprecating way she might say that a little too quickly), but she is a great mom. i still learn from watching her; one of the things she keeps modeling for me is that no matter how old you are, it's important to be open to what those around you may be teaching you. 

my firstborn is a lot like i was at her age, and so as her parent, i realize some of what my mom was dealing with when she was raising me. i get these flashes of deja vu when my girls --especially #1-- say or do something and it's because i am recalling interactions i had with my mom when i was my girls' ages. parenting forces me to now love my children because my own mom loved chatty, creative, opinionated, headstrong, often complaining me. plus my parents had FOUR of us, all very unique and needing different expressions of love. it's no joke this parenting gig! i am usually struggling through the finish line of each day with just two kids! 

my mom is still quick to tell me ways that she failed or fell short as a parent, and of course there are ways she could have been a better mom. there are about 40 ways every single day i could be a better mom too, but her willingness to own that makes it easier for me to do the same with my daughters in the moment. 

i've always loved the painter mary cassatt. (i could write an entire post about that, but for now suffice it to say she was a woman artist in a world of male artists.) her tender portraits of mothers and her children capture such throwaway moments- the kind that just last for a minute or two but that are the bedrock of a relationship. now we have phones full of snapshots and selfies of these moments, but when she was painting, she was depicting sacred feminine spaces that were rarely the subjects of fine art. this past june i went to the met in new york, and loved this painting of cassatt's:

it reminds me of my mom, and how i used to climb up on her lap to snuggle or be comforted, how my own children now do the same, and how even as an adult my mom is a safe place for me. 

so on her birthday i say 

thank you, mom for letting me put my small hand in yours

for letting my climb up on your lap

for teaching me how to have faith when all seems like darkness

for showing me what it means to love well

i hope we celebrate (at least) 30 more of your birthdays! 

Catching up

These lovely blooms are from my brother Aaron & his wife Sarah, who not only hosted our family for a beautiful and whole 30 compliant lunch (more on that later this week), but then they gifted my mom, my sister and I with these gorgeous bouquets! I'm a sucker for intentional, loving gestures like that. And for crazy pretty flowers too. 

Lots of thoughts this Mother's Day, so maybe tomorrow I'll write about them. 

For now I'm going to savor the fact that my kids are asleep, sit by the fire, read the New York Times, and hog the entire couch while my poor husband gets squished against the arm of the sofa.  

Today, I'm thankful for these girls. They about kill me on a daily basis, but I sure love them. And so very grateful for my extended tribe that shapes my kids, supports me on dark parenting days, listens when I'm bragging about them, and loves on my little humans as they make their way through this world.

Memphis on my Mind

Day 5: Memphis 

About ten years ago, just before I went to grad school and after Matt finished seminary, we drove across the United States. Our first leg took us from California along the Northern part of the United States to New Jersey in the Fall. A few months later, our drive back home was from Philadelphia to California and we drove through the South and then Southwest. Memphis was one of the cities we drove through, but at the time we passed through the National Civil Rights Museum and Lorraine Motel were closed to visitors, so instead we went to Graceland! (Yes, really.) This time we skipped Elvis' eternal flame and the over-the-top-at-the-time decor. 

After such an intense previous day, we needed some down time, so Matt headed to the amazing breakfast spot downstairs from our mediocre and kind of weird hotel/apartment and I blogged a bit. We hoped to avoid the crowds, so by noon we went to spend the bulk of the day visiting the National Civil Rights Museum, connected to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated. 

The motel hasn't been a working motel for a very long time, and the entire edifice acts as a memorial. 

Our friend Jeff had told us to allot plenty of time to the museum, and we ended up spending four hours there! It was easily one of the best museums I've ever been to, and even though there was overlap in historical content, stories and artifacts with many of the places we'd already visited it was still incredibly moving. As a white American I know about the civil rights movement in generalities with knowledge of a few key people, but hearing about these stories and specifics repeatedly in a week, I realized how little I truly have embedded in my long term memory. Good to read and re-read and tell and retell. 

I walked through this museum and took 8 billion pictures, but I will spare you most of them. Suffice it to say, it is worth a trip. Here are a few snippets from our four! hours of walking through the museum.

I loved this quote:

The area for listening to every day people's oral histories from the Jim Crow era was simultaneously touching and disturbing.

There was an entire exhibit committed to students and activists who worked from equality in the school system. Students of all ages sacrificed their safety and well-being to integrate schools. Teachers pushed against the status quo with ongoing professional repercussions. Families and communities gave rides, physical and emotional support to the children who put themselves in harms way to go to schools. 

I loved the below letter from Grace Lorch, a white mother who was active in the civil rights movement with her husband Lee. Upon moving to Little Rock, she wrote a letter to the local school superintendent asking that her daughter eleven-year-old Alice be allowed to attend the neighborhood school: "Since we live at 1801 High Street, located in a Negro neighborhood, this would be a Negro school," she wrote, adding that it "might also provide a useful and unobtrusive example of benefit to the process of integrating Little Rock schools." The school district denied the Lorch's request. The Lorch's went on to be involved with integration in Little Rock and helped escort the Little Rock Nine (who integrated the high school).

Also loved the emphasis on recognizing the hundreds of anonymous, hardworking and brave women who made the Montgomery Bus boycott successful. 

This photo is from the Highlander School, an integrated training school in Tennessee. Rosa Parks is on the left next to Septima Clark, Myles Horton, and MLK Jr is at the end. This photo (among others) was distributed as anti-civil-rights propaganda. 

The interior of a bus similar to the one Rosa Parks was sitting on, soon after she went to study at the Highlander School, when she refused to get up and move for a white passenger, which sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

An exhibit honoring the lunch counter sit-ins. 

This quote brought tears to my eyes:

Clara Luper (her pic is below) was a high school teacher in Oklahoma City, and she was instrumental in desegregating lunch counters in Oklahoma. She was arrested TWENTY SIX times!

My girls have a wonderful children's book about the Green Book (which I highly recommend), so I wanted to take a picture for them of an actual green book. The Green Book was published from 1936-1966 as a travel guide for African Americans. "African American travelers faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences, such as white-owned businesses refusing to serve them or repair their vehicles, being refused accommodation or food by white-owned hotels, and threats of physical violence and forcible expulsion from whites-only "sundown towns". New York mailman and travel agent Victor H. Green published The Negro Motorist Green Book to tackle such problems and "to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable."^[2]"

Powerful words and a brave woman:

A reproduction of the Greyhound bus full of Freedom Riders that was burned near Anniston, Alabama on Mother's day in 1961. 
I'm including this excerpt from Wikipedia summarizing this event:
"The Birmingham, Alabama, Police Commissioner, Bull Connor, together with Police Sergeant Tom Cook (an avid Ku Klux Klan supporter), organized violence against the Freedom Riders with local Ku Klux Klan chapters. The pair made plans to bring the Ride to an end in Alabama. They assured Gary Thomas Rowe, anFBI informer and member of Eastview Klavern #13 (the most violent Klan group in Alabama), that the mob would have fifteen minutes to attack the Freedom Riders without any arrests being made. The plan was to allow an initial assault in Anniston with a final assault taking place in Birmingham.

On May 14, Mother's Day, in Anniston, a mob of Ku Klux Klansmen, some still in church attire, attacked the first of the two buses (the Greyhound). The driver tried to leave the station, but was blocked until KKK members slashed its tires. The mob forced the crippled bus to stop several miles outside of town and then firebombed it. As the bus burned, the mob held the doors shut, intending to burn the riders to death. Sources disagree, but either an exploding fuel tank or an undercover state investigator brandishing a revolver caused the mob to retreat, and the riders escaped the bus. The mob beat the riders after they escaped the bus. Only warning shots fired into the air by highway patrolmen prevented the riders from being lynched.

That night, the hospitalized Freedom Riders, most of whom had been refused care, were removed from the hospital at 2 AM, because the staff feared the mob outside the hospital. The local civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth organized several cars of blacks to rescue the injured Freedom Riders in defiance of the white supremacists...

When the Trailways bus reached Anniston and pulled in at the terminal an hour after the Greyhound bus was burned, it was boarded by eight Klansmen. They beat the Freedom Riders and left them semi-conscious in the back of the bus.

When the bus arrived in Birmingham, it was attacked by a mob of KKK members aided and abetted by police under the orders of Commissioner Bull Connor. As the riders exited the bus, they were beaten by the mob with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains."

A few of the hundreds of Freedom Riders who were arrested throughout the summer of 1961:

I should have written an entire post on bada$$ women, because there were so many, including Virginia Durr, whose car was overturned and burned by a mob while she was inside of a church with others.

 From Birmingham in 1963:

From Freedom Summer in 1964, and the work in Mississippi to get blacks registered to vote, which soon extended to also teaching reading, writing and organizing.

 Images from the Black Power movement, which was emerging in the late 60's, evolving away from Kingian non-violence.

From the Sanitation Workers Strike in Memphis, which King had come to support - footage of a mass meeting projected onto one of the sanitation trucks

The museum ends outside of rooms 306 and 307, the rooms where King and his friends were staying the last night of his life.

King preached these words shortly before he was killed. Powerful. 

 

This patch of cement where King fell after being shot has been cut out and replaced, as there was a great deal of blood staining the concrete.

Across the street from the museum you are able to look through the window from where it's believed the shooter shot at King, killing him. It's quite surreal. That wing of the museum is entirely made up of exhibits regarding the theories about King's assassination. We kind of walked through that area without spending much time on it, although it is really detailed.

Heartbreaking words from King's father:

The next morning we drove to Mason Temple, where King preached his last sermon- I've Been to the Mountaintop. 



Today Mason Temple isn't in a great part of town, which we noticed in many of the areas we visited. Decades of racism, poverty and a lack of economic opportunity have taken their toll in these neighborhoods. I wondered so many times what it means today, in 2015, to shift that. I don't have the answers. But despite the economic depression that was so prevalent in many of the areas we drove through, and that is throughout my own city, I was challenged to keep thinking about these disparities and injustices. It isn't hard to see them, but it's hard to figure out how to address them. I'll end this post with an excerpt from King's last speech at the Mason Temple, just before he was shot and killed. 



"Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. If it means leaving work, if it means leaving school -- be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base....
Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother....

That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you....

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I'm happy, tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!"

 

To being as concerned about our brothers and sisters as we are about ourselves.

it's friday!

i'm working in my studio all day...

spent last week in new york looking at art all day, every day!

as soon as i get my act together i will share photos.

have a good weekend!

ours is jam packed.

for today

i've borrowed this format, and it felt like a good way to come back to the blog after vacation.

FOR TODAY

Outside my window...cars racing by, a bright blue sky filled with streaks of clouds, empty cafe tables + chairs

I am thinking...about how to have good family and personal rhythms, how quickly time passes by, how wonderful it is that no matter where you live or how much money you have you can look up and see the beauty of the sky, about how i should plan the rest of my week, and what to make for dinner

I am thankful...for my daughters, for the peace of my backyard, for the rest that comes with summer months, for health insurance, for good laughs, for a bit of time to be alone, for friends with history

In the kitchen...fruit flies on the attack! otherwise, i need some new recipes for summer fruit and veggies. we have a garden full of summer harvest and i'd love some good ideas.

I am wearing...workout clothes (knocked out a brisk hour walk this morning without kids and it felt so refreshing!) 

I am creating...space to do things that are life-giving for me this summer: working out, reading, painting, hanging out in backyard.

I am going...to celebrate the points of joy each day brings; feels easy lately to be worn down by relational conflict or obligations. i want to be grateful for the goodness each day brings, and for the beauty around me.

I am wondering...what my girls will be like when they are all grown up. any guesses? 

I am reading...americanah! i actually just finished it last night. matt bought it for me for mother's day; the main character is a nigerian who emigrates to the us. i loved it! i need a new summer book recommendation!

I am hoping...that matt recovers quickly and easily from knee surgery so he can surf, run, and chase our girls around in no time. he had surgery this morning and is now resting on the couch. (ouch)

I am looking forward to...my girls being back at m's oral deaf school for summer camp. it's sort or a home base even though we've been gone for a couple of years. there is something about going back to a place where we were for such a formative season, and something precious about m getting to be with peers who have hearing loss too.

I am learning...to be patient. photoshop! to shut my mouth and listen. to plan ahead (as much as this non-planner can)

Around the house...various states of unpacking from being here and there and not quite all-the-way putting everything away, some laundry to fold, artichoke flowers on the table, new growth on my succulents on the kitchen windowsill, a summery white quilt on our bed.

A favorite quote for today...
"the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice." peggy o'mara

One of my favorite things...
little bare feet pattering across the floor, hot coffee first thing in the morning, the sunday new york times, hearing from a long distance friend, drinking bubbly

A few plans for the rest of the week:
clean my studio, trim my succulents, take the girls to summer camp, make a new recipe, catch up on freelance, watch an episode or two of mad men, walk a new trail.

A peek into my day...

7 am. bright and early we got in the car and drove an hour to summer "camp"!

my happy girl, surrounded by old friends and new ones, 

and content to be with lots of kids just like her.

so?
new recipes?
books?