Robin's Nest turned 7 today!

Life feels breathless when I remember we exist among so many lovely things. If you could be reincarnated as a flower, what kind would you be? I'd be a yellow honeysuckle. One little yellow honeysuckle lucky enough to sprout (yearly) by habit. All the bees and butterflies would visit me, I'd have hummingbirds as best friends. Ants would climb me just to see how high they could get, just to see if it was true that their feet would get sticky. The breeze would blow against me but I'd sway into it, untethered by branches or thick roots. And one day a somebody, somebody with wild hope and faith sleeping inside a tired heart, would walk right past me. Their steps, almost offensive in pace, would suddenly slow, caught by the glimmer of yellow petals in their hindsight. It would be a forced pause with a welcomed stop, a slice of memory that was short but vivid. And it would be so warm! ...the memory of tasting honeysuckles, the sunshine spotlighting golden tufts of a siblings' small head of hair. There would be happy parents blurred softly behind them. A thought from so many years before that led to the somebody who plucked me. I'd feel their sudden rush of excitement, like it could be my own, while they raised me to their mouth... So sure of what they had found. Something sweet, maybe? Or perhaps just a memory. Either way, a vicarious little flower I would be, happy to be happenstance, and so delightfully unaware of the conundrum of it (all).

My perfect 3 year old! 💕✨ I love you, I love you, I love you. Happy birthday, Story Bloom. You are everything I always imagined you'd be, just intensified by a hundred 😜. You keep us on our toes with your wild determination and (sometimes overwhelming) independence... You're always smirking like you've been here many, many times before. I'm so lucky to be here with you now, to watch you grow with your brother, to see your gentle hand touch every baby foot you can reach, any animal that will stop long enough for a hello. You have an incredibly kind heart, but also this long burning fire running through you... no idea where you get that from 😘. Oh baby girl, you are so wonderful and we're going to have so much fun setting life ablaze ...3 going on 13, but feel free to slow down anytime. ❤️ 🍦 🎈 xoxoxo always and forever, your mama llama #storybloom

I never really imagined my children past the age of 5, in the same way I never really imagined my life last 25... Those were really the two biggest goals I had, if that makes any sense. To graduate college and to become a mama. At 25 Id done both, and now at near-30 I've got a 5-er, and a wild toddler babe. I guess you could say I'm wingin it big time now, but this kind of living suits me better anyhow. I feel like we have turned the page into a new chapter, my children very much guiding each moment in that carpe diem spirit. I am so grateful that this bright soul chose me to be his mama. He is my rainbow baby and the most wonderful North Star of my heart. Happiest birthday, my darling #wryterpillar. Wherever you draw your map I will be sure to follow... with lots of spaghetti and m&m's and cozies, always and forever. I love you.

i steal these moments and hide them in the deepest part of my heart so no one can take them, knowing darn well they (my children) are not mine to keep. i'm slowly letting go of the idea that they ever were. if i dive into the memories i'm given while they're still being made i can pretend like we'll never leave them. sometimes that small lie feels like i'm cheating and winning. to pretend we will never leave today, ignoring the sun creeping away from us. when i feel betrayed by time, when the passing days take the bodies i wove so carefully in my womb and sends them floating away from their roots like little seeds, i force myself to remember we are equals. we belong not to each other, but the same energy that created us. no matter the swiftness that they take flight, i will always, always smile from that deep corner of my heart in gratitude for such a generous trade. #wryterandstory

i steal these moments and hide them in the deepest part of my heart so no one can take them, knowing darn well they (my children) are not mine to keep. i'm slowly letting go of the idea that they ever were. if i dive into the memories i'm given while they're still being made i can pretend like we'll never leave them. sometimes that small lie feels like i'm cheating and winning. to pretend we will never leave today, ignoring the sun creeping away from us. when i feel betrayed by time, when the passing days take the bodies i wove so carefully in my womb and sends them floating away from their roots like little seeds, i force myself to remember we are equals. we belong not to each other, but the same energy that created us. no matter the swiftness that they take flight, i will always, always smile from that deep corner of my heart in gratitude for such a generous trade. #wryterandstory

I chased the moon but she ran from me, and hid far away beneath a blue mountain sheath. So I climbed to the top of the highest peak I could find, only to discover she was never really mine.

it was in the hush of a serenade that the skyline said to me, home will always be here. she said that the peaks of these treetops will always point upwards into nights made of stars dusted in fire, that this little house nestled quietly between the toes of mountains will be here to hold me on rainy days, far below it all. but as i listened to her speak i watched the colors change in her cheeks, her voice fading with the light that gave her life. she was fleeting and it was then that i wondered if her words weren't also... whether or not "home" is ever a place to keep anywhere but the deepest space of my heart. i glanced away and gathered my breath to ask if she was sure, but as quickly as she held me in her arms, she let go and slipped into the sullen darkness of a january breeze.

someday i get to tell her where she comes from. i'll show her pictures of my childhood and compare them side by side to her own. we might laugh at how different they are, or smile at their likeness. i'll buy her things like trendy pants and remember what it was like wishing to fit in... instead of telling her i want her to do her own thing. i'll hold her close to my heart when her own heart breaks, pick her up from school when she can't stand to be around all that untamed adolescent energy. i'll let her know her mormor did the same thing for me. we will talk about how ridiculous some things are sometimes without reason or sense. i'll take her hand and move forward, try my best to teach her that despite the seemingly endless chaos of the heart, it will steady... it will find light and anchor... no to anyone or anything, but within herself. and i will do things like make sure she wears the right socks for long hikes, bore her in the grocery about raw honey and lemons, and secretly adore getting to spend time with her even with the pouts. one day i hope she will think of these things with a silly love for me, chuckle with her brother about how, "that's mom." but most of all i hope that when the cracks feel like valleys, and rivers look like oceans, that she carries on knowing she will conquer it all. i hope that everything she ever needs lives on strong in her spirit, not only because i know it's there, but because she believes it more than anyone else. #storybloom #tribedemama #motherhoodrising

today (1/1) didn't sugar coat. it didn't take away reality and it didn't tell me things are "officially" different because the calendar rolled over. instead it told me that the first of the year is a -rollover- of yesterday, and yesterday carried a bit of itself into today. and so what.. it let me cry, it let me be angry, it let me be annoyed and ready to stomp my feet for a few seconds because things feel a little shitty. it also let me take some deeper breaths... grab a spoonful of sugar if i needed it (in the form of local honey because i love our #honeybees and check out how to help save them), and say, "OK! this is reality right now". the rollover is giving me some wisdom about trust and understanding, that the hard stuff needs to be chest-bumped and given the soul-crush-stare-without-fear and told, "bro, do you even lift?!" 😂 okay, might be taking it too far? (and might have spent a little time with my alpha-charged male family members this past week, all good.) but truly, if today had one thing to say it was, "buck up and face me." i am not defeated, i am strong. i got mad, and i made it better. i felt sadness but saw goodness all around me. today didn't pretend to be anything else, because i didn't let it be. this year is the last full year of my twenties and i'll be damned if i don't embrace the shit out of myself and every day for exactly what WE are. be one with reality... be one with what is... and what will be. be one, be one, be one. selah. ohm. (oh, and #breastfeed on.)

#wryterpillar asked to see Alcatraz for his birthday, so naturally that's exactly what he's doing ✨ happy 4th birthday, my love ❤️ #sanfrancisco#happiness#inmyownbackyard

four years ago i was due to have a baby. i had a big, full belly filled with every dream i could ever imagine for a son. though it would be five more days until i met the love of my life, i remember sitting in my doctor's office and glancing anxiously at every poster, sign, clock, and face, knowing (but really having no clue) how different life would be the next visit, with my baby finally in my arms. two days of labor and the most transforming experience of life later, on 11/6/11, my delicious baby boy was here. best day ever. tonight, after we celebrated early, #wryterpillar said to me, "thank you for my birthday, mama", and of course the only thing i could whisper back was, "thank you for making me a mama..." and naturally i cried when i walked out because don't we all in those kinds of ridiculous moments?! when we don't feel nearly worthy of such a big, wonderful love but there it is in the purest form... straight from the mouths of our babes. i am just so proud and in love with this sweet child of mine. so happy birthday week, my handsome boy!! i'm glad there are just a few more days of 3 to soak up, but i am so ready to see what four has in store for us! xo🎈

subtle tiptoeing at windows, rain slipping through the clouds, and me, pretending downpours wash the sidewalks new with damp mist. i remember this and it is welcomed every time regardless of meteoric measurement, significance, appreciation. distantly but not in my heart... i feel renewed in the fall. like the death of each leaf awakens otherwise slow synapses in my brain. and so i let the thoughts trickle in, reflection obvious with an ending year, and i feel guilt. here is the remorse of a mother- an instant guilt about once enjoying my baby when i wasn't enjoying my toddler. mostly in my past year, but here with me on my flesh. a fresh and open wound felt bluntly as i stare into my soon-to-be four year old's owl-like eyes. i remember the guilt and i feel it shamefully. but truth forages forgiveness. so i seek the unspoken, welcoming the guilt as worthy in me, recognizing it as a living part of me. allowing memories that wish to be forgotten to emerge like new, no different than the tiny droplets catapulting from the clouds... positive despite a negative retrospective... instantly lifts this weight. no one here likes rain after it falls beyond convenience but seeing it as necessary alleviates our tendency to think there is control in our environment. the same goes for my body, and though my conscious thought would like to imagine things convenient and perfect, no such thing exists in nature. what we see is filtered blindly, what we feel is felt within constraints of the time we build subconsciously within us. this is our human weakness. it's moved and shaped by everything that creates us in the present, carving an unobtainable memory. but cower not in raw memories, for they will wither with time & become shaped by a constant change we all so desperately need. even the most painful of things will soften its edges like a sliver of beaten sea glass. this, too shall pass. guilt lingers long enough to carve little scars but heals with the slightest touch of forgiveness. perhaps a bit jaded by sleep-depriving motherhood, i smile childishly just knowing that time graces all things. it doesn't escape anyone and that comforts me... exactly like this silly, subtle rain.

Ryan Gosling confidential note by my (then) 11 year old friend, Carmen

why are you so sensitive, he asked. it was asked innocently, but asked nonetheless. and i stopped myself from answering. because that’s the funny thing about women... that on a cellular level, one you can see with a little existential thinking and a very precise microscope, we were once tiny eggs inside of our mothers inside of our grandmothers. and perhaps all of those years… all of those pauses to answer questions filled with answers boxed in by sharp, dark corners and explosions of light too bright to capture in a single breath, have accumulated all at once in this one moment. so instead of weaving the words together to capture an impossible eternity of cosmic threads and strands of my dna into a single sentence, i raise the corner of my lips to fill my silence with a smile. maybe i should do more to honor the vibrations that resonate through my tears, attempt to explain what the flush in my cheeks mean when i brush past him during a fight... push past the numbness that trickles through my brain on the days when it's just all a little too much... but for now this is what i have. and maybe he doesn't know that within my dimples lie bits and pieces of my grandmother's memories, that my mother's thoughts can wrinkle the skin around my eyes, maybe it hurts him as much as it hurts me and we don't listen to things we don't want to hear. maybe. maybe i'm just sensitive.

17 months, 3 weeks and 2 days postpartum. the weight around my middle fluctuates, the definition of my muscles changes, but my skin is always soft… and i love that. i want the place where my babies bury their little toes, blow raspberries, and wrap their arms around me to be like velvet. i want it to be as comforting as it first was to them in the womb, regardless of how much time has passed on the outside. and on days when i wish for anything else, i am quick to remind myself of the two breathing beings who made me soft, and the magic in which that softness came from. ✨ #takebackpostpartum #storybloom #wryterpillar