All of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books are without a doubt my favorite books ever. They were part of my childhood and are just as important to me or more now as a mother and as testaments to a collective memory. I read A Long Winter at a perfect time in my life, because it's impossible to read it and feel sorry for yourself and your spoiled rotten life conditions. Laura and her family are surviving a terrible winter of successive blizzards, which the Native Americans said came every seven years. There is no government to help them. There are neighbors, but they are in a similar situation. Life gets down to the bare essentials of faith, hope and love. They are literally starving to death. They run out of flour and Pa manages to get them a bag of coarse wheat which they have to grind with the cofee mill everyday and they eat bread every day. But they don't complain... instead Ma compliments Pa on having gotten tea for them the summer before so they have tea to drink with their bread everyday. They don't have wood to burn and run the risk of freezing to death. Laura helps Pa twist hay every day to burn and it cuts their hands so much Pa can't play the fiddle anymore. They run the risk of losing their mental sanity and can't stand the noise of the blizzards. Instead of getting angry at each other and blaming each other, they help each other. "Laura hoped that she seemed cheerful enough to encourage the others. But all the time she knew that this storm had blocked the train again. She knew that almost all the coal was gone from the pile in the lean-to. There was no more coal in town. The kerosene was low in the lamp though Ma lighted it only while they ate supper. There would be no meat until the train came." (Chapter "Seed Wheat") "His arm tightened and gave Laura a little hugging shake, before he set Carrie and Grace down rom his knees. Laura knew what he meant. She was old enough now to stand by him and Ma in hard times. She must not worry; she must be cheerful and help to keep up all their spirits." (Chapter "The Hard Winter")
Hope your Easter season is going well. There are certain things, like celebrating the liturgical year at home, or raising kids, that take a lot of work at first, but then get less labor-intensive as you go along. Last year I looked everywhere for these letters spelling out alleluia and just had them on a cake plate and they would always topple over. Then I found these little wooden tabs that sometimes came stapled on to a canvas I bought (never figured out what those were for...) and I thought, this is just what I was looking for to keep the alleluia letters standing up. Then I ordered a grapevine wreath in November or something like that, and bought plastic white flowers at the chinese (dollar) store. Ta da! So it was nice to just take a few things out and our house changing in those minor details. Meanwhile, we've been crazy busy but in a good way and alternating between tiring ourselves out to the point of exhaustion, then hibernating at home. This weekend was a hibernating at home one and it was so nice to finally make pancakes again and just spend all afternoon in. Davy ate his first pancakes and we lost track of how many he ate. Possibly six or seven, but definitely more than me. We had to stop giving him any more. I think it was the highlight of his life. Boys and food, wow.
(Picture of smoothie cups I looked everywhere for... one of those things that are cheap and easy to find in the US and difficult to find in Portugal.. argh. And a picture of my unfrosted cakes made the day before Addie's birthay party.) I had this wonderful idea of looking at Jessica's very first posts from 2007 at her blog showerofroses.blogspot.com. I say wonderful because her blog is one of those you read and feel bad about yourself and how little you do and how dirty your house is. I couldn't even read it for a while when I first found it, it was too perfect. Then it occurred to me, what was her house like when she had just two or three very small children, like me? And it was reassuring to see her bad-quality pictures and not-as-beautiful-house. I especially liked this post called, "Super Woman... or just Super Tired?". I don't feel super tired, because I sleep instead of doing things. But I feel super overwhelmed. Sometimes I get worried that I don't know what our near future will be like. I really don't know where we will live, whether we will finally have a backyard and a kitchen that is open to the living room. I really don't know if my kids will go to homeschool, a half-day school, a hybrid school, a forest school, a Catholic school. I don't even know what I want. Then I remember that I didn't know what our life would turn into when I got pregnant for the first time. I had no idea what being a mother would change in me when Addie was a baby and where it would take our family life. God gives us what we need to know at a given moment, and not our whole future all at once. Like manna in the desert: it's good for the day but you can't save it for the next day. God gives us what we need, but we can't hang onto things and control our futures.
I also sometimes think that it's good that Addie and Davy are so small they need little or no schooling. Because I am so overwhelmed figuring out cooking/cleaning, routines and family traditions, making smoothies so Addie will eat more varied fruit, etc. that I don't have time to "teach them stuff" or to take them places. I can't imagine having to drop them off at school, sports or instruments. Which I would love to do in the future... but it would be unthinkable at this stage in life.
Happy Easter!!! We spent Easter up North where my husband's family is from. It is a small village with about thirty houses and where our phones don't work or have internet connection. Oh penance! But it is good to disconnect. My husband has always appreciated this little village and it has always been a place of peace for him, but now that we have kids I appreciate it more and more. It is the only place where they can roam outside with total freedom, where they can connect with nature and animals, and where there is built-in babysitting. This is because there are older cousins there and Addie is getting to an age where she would go off with them and they would take care of her. Heaven. While we were visiting with relatives at my husband's uncle's house, my husband said to me, "didn't we come in with two kids?" Addie had gone outside to play with the older cousins and his uncle had taken Davy to "see the animals". I know of no other place like that for us. We spent a lot of time on the balcony, also. (See pic of Addie in hammock above) Davy loved the bars for practicing walking. The last picture is of the actual Easter celebration there. They have mass, then the priest (in this case the seminarian) goes from house to house with the cross with flowers on it, saying "alleluia alleluia" and everyone takes turns kissing the cross. The whole village follows from house to house (not going in, but waiting outside!), until after the last house, when they all wait in the street and throw petals on the seminarian. He gives a little sermon about Easter and blesses everyone with holy water. (See last picture) Alleluia! He is risen!
Lord when I die I wanna live On the outskirts of Heaven Where there's dirt roads for miles Hay in the fields and fish in the river Where there's dogwood trees and honey bees And blue skies and green grass forever Lord when I die, I wanna live on the outskirts of Heaven - "Outskirts of Heaven" by Craig Campbell
