home again

It's been a couple weeks since we got home now and I've settled back into my world, finally, as have the kids. That's not to say that there isn't a little backward looking on all of our parts. This morning Théa asked Liam, "Do you remember when we went and looked under the rocks for shells by the campground?" It's funny the memories their minds pull out, but that was a wonderful day. There was a little pool down past where our tent was perched that we could get to only by gravity defying scrambling - a train of flipflops skittering down the cliff, passing from one hand to the next. But once there, there was tidepooling galore, and a place we could swim amid the froth of cascading waves, and under the rocks, shells. We brought home quite a few and I'd like to make them into a mobile or something to hang by the window. Later in the visit, Théa, Chris and I went back down there a couple times and swam in the froth, getting pulled back and forth by the waves like riding the most gentle swing, Théa squealing at the vats of foam. It was a special spot. There are so many memories like that - but they have all blended into this collective feeling of joy that I was able to spend that time with them, and the feeling seems to have followed us home.

It is spring break right now and the kids have been with me all week. It's funny but the time in Hawaii really shifted something for me. I've slowed down and I'm enjoying them a lot more. Their little quirks and silliness - even their squabbles. I don't quite know why it all is that much more amusing now - my patience seems to have extended quite a bit. Not to say there aren't moments, but... I'm just happy to have my warm, comfortable home, the kids pingponging through it, and the chance to tell them how much I love them. Gratitude - perhaps that's what I have discovered. As the world unfolds and images fill my screen of devastation elsewhere that surpasses my capacity to grasp, I feel endless gratitude, for my children, my life in Alaska, my friends. We really do have the opportunity to view situations in whatever light we cast them, and I choose rosy.