Posted on November 7, 2014 by Jennifer Wolfe
Sunset over UC Davis
I like to walk, especially in the early mornings or early evenings. I try to change it up, to not take the same path every day. Usually I bring my little 16-pounds-of-fury with me for company, but this week he decided to take a vacay with grandma so it’s just me. Alone.
Sometimes my kids walk with me. Used to walk with me, I should say. Now, with one in college and one with a broken leg, I’m usually on my own. It’s ok, though – for me, walking is meditation. Time to clear the monkey mind that’s developed after a day of teaching and simply get back to center. Alone.
Often I walk onto campus to see what’s going on. It kinda is like I never left college – I love seeing the towering buildings with kids spilling in and out. I wonder what they’ve read the night before, and how the professor will excite their brains. I smile when I see a crowd waiting for a midterm to begin, blue books or scantrons in hand. I remember that anxiety well.
Last night I walked with a teacher-mom friend, a woman just like me, going through the changes of a child in college and a teenager at home. We talked about the emptiness of a house with only one left, and how sad and lonely and strange it sometimes feels to be at home now. Alone.
Some things we cannot change. Some things we just need to trust are working out exactly as they are supposed to, even when they don’t feel that way in the moment. Some things, I know, the Universe has put in front of me for a very good reason, requiring me to pause, and think, and feel, and take a very long walk. Alone.
p.s. – Have you read my other Friday Photo essays? You might like the ones I wrote about harvest, beacons, and the world out my window.
Posted on October 31, 2014 by Jennifer Wolfe
October, 2000
This is a day I cradle in the tender palms of my memory, a day taken for granted for its beauty, it’s fleetingness.
This is a day I likely smiled and laughed through part of, a day I possibly looked forward to and couldn’t wait to end.
This is a day when she was four and he was three and their entire futures were misty dreams before me, a day when there were no goodbyes or good lucks or glimpses of their life caught only on a screen.
This is a day of blessings, of bliss, of life pulling at my heartstrings.
This is a day of mothering, a day if only I could start again.
Friday Photos are glimpses into the extraordinary in my ordinary life. They are inspirations, remembrances and reflections that anchor this life, and honor all the brilliant moments that otherwise might pass me by.
Posted on August 9, 2013 by Jennifer Wolfe
The simplest activities are infused with reverence.
“We see that when the activities of life are infused with reverence, they come alive with meaning and purpose. We see that when reverence is lacking from life’s activities, the result is cruelty, violence and loneliness. The physical arena is a magnificent learning environment. It is a school within which, through experimentation, we come to understand what causes us to expand and what causes us to contract, what causes us to grow and what causes us to shrivel, what nourishes our souls and what depletes them, what works and what does not.”
– Gary Zukav, The Seat of the Soul
I’ve written about the simplicity of life in Nicaragua; as images of our trip flash through my mind, I think about the authenticity of the people I met. Their simple lives – in outward appearances – rattle my brain as I slip back into my California home, bursting with the comforts of American life. At once, I wonder how they live without, and how do we live with?
What I come back to is the simple reverence they have for each aspect of their lives. The daily routines of existence- the preparing of food, the washing, the tending to children and animals, the care for their property-has such meaning and purpose. Nothing is taken for granted, little is wasted. And instead of a sense of lack, happiness exudes from their smiles, generosity pours from their hands and hearts.Their simple life, in reality, is much more complex than it appears.
Perhaps it is we who are simple, after all.
In Nicaragua, we learn what nourishes our souls.
We expand.
We experience reverence.
Posted on January 19, 2013 by Jennifer Wolfe
“Remember the quiet wonders. The world has more need of them than it has for warriors.”
– Charles de Lint
Quiet wonders…when do you feel like one of those? Or are you more the warrior in life, fighting every battle?
After this week’s announcement of the White Houses’s gun reform plan, it makes me think that we need both. Or better yet, maybe a combination of quiet wonder and warrior.
We need to listen to each other, quietly, to think beyond ourselves, and work for the children.
We need to have the strength to put aside our own agendas and pay attention to the messages in the Universe.
We need to use courage and conviction, intellect and emotion, perseverance and politeness.
We cannot stay quiet. We cannot go to war with each other.
We must find the balance. We must work for the children.
Quiet wonders. Warriors. Together, we can create gun reform.
Posted on January 12, 2013 by Jennifer Wolfe
“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
I wonder sometimes how close to the edge I can really get, where I can take risks and where I need to crawl back to the safety of the middle.
Where do I teach my children to stand, and where do they naturally gravitate towards?
So different from when I was a kid.
I wonder how to live life close to the edge without falling off. Tipping over. Or tripping into the abyss.
I wonder what would happen if I took one. step. closer.
Who would follow me?
Could I balance like this, on the railing of life, arms wide open? At my age?
I wonder if this is something only a 13-year-old boy could do. Would do.
Life has a funny way of showing us.
Right now I think I’m cruising along in the fast lane.
Straddling the center median at times.
Like a bumper car, hurtling back to the middle at one moment, then flooring it back to the edge.
I am seeing all kinds of things I never saw from the center.
Out here on the edge.
