Clean.

Big news (it's a book!)

In case any of you missed the memo, there's a BIG announcement up on my new blog today!

Find all the details about my new book here.

(Squee!)

My blog is moving!

Big news, my friends! I'm moving my blog from here to my shiny new site, rachelwolfclean.com.

I think you'll find my new blog is nicer to look at, easier to navigate, and more mobile-friendly. Do tell me what you think! Then update your favorites folders, and head over to explore and subscribe.

I don't want to lose you in the switch, so I've added an email link to the front page to simplify you keeping up-to-date on new posts. 

See you there!

 

Love,

Rachel

Impermanence

Glimpsing this sweet moment last night did all sorts of funny things to my heart.

Because most days lately, this swing hangs empty.

Yet it feels like only a heartbeat ago when, one summer evening, the four of us crafted it from a sturdy plank and our old climbing rope down in the barn. After we strung it up in the maple tree, it was rarely vacant.

The speed at which life and childhood unfolds is ever accelerating, and some days I’m just barely hanging on. There is such profound beauty in their growing, but it is tinged with a whisper of grief.

Because nothing has shaped me more than this chapter - never have I found more important work than this.

Never has life been more real, more delicious, more brimming with magic, or more raw.

I’m not sure I’m ready to let that go.

And I wonder... who will they be when they’re grown?

And, in the same breath, who will I?

Thaw

I have played more rounds of hide and seek with my family in the past week than I have in the past eight months. There's something about the early spring thaw that brings out the little kid in all of us, and for that I am glad.

We can't get enough of walking to the creek, in particular. Putting down our to-do lists or projects or studies, and setting off to see what we can see. Are the beaver dams are holding? Is the dry gully running? Has the last of the ice finally let go?

Yesterday we heard the return of the sandhill cranes and also the first of the red-winged blackbirds. This is, perhaps, the earliest I remember hearing them in all of my life. It made for a bittersweet mix of delight and worry at the sound of their delightful calls. 

 

As I write this, Sage just woke, made tea, and joined us by the fire. His first question was, "Can we walk to the creek after breakfast?" 

Such is the nature of spring.

He's pouring over some wild edibles books at the moment, researching cattails and chicory and trying to find something we might harvest, though there's still ice in the valley. Spring fever of the very best sort. 

A few nights ago, before bedtime - when we normally curl up by the fire with books and yarn and colored pencils - the kids begged us to walk to the creek. It was late and we were tired, but the moon was calling, and the owls and coyotes had much to discuss, and childhood was slipping through our hands.

And so we said yes.

Yes to a moonlit walk through the last of the snow; yes to five rounds of hide and seek on the frozen ground.

When we returned to the house, my face hurt from lying on the ice under the bailer, awaiting being found; my belly hurt from our shared laughter; and my heart ached at the beautiful and delicious impermanence of it all. 

Spring reminds us to savor, does it not?

Savor, friends. This day, its simple gifts, and the deliciously fleeting chapter in which you stand. 

 

Texas

Last week I hastily filled a backpack with clothes, grabbed a laptop loaded with work and a basket of knitting, then climbed into my parent's camper for an impromptu cross-country road trip. Pete and the kids stayed home to tend animals and keep our home and life humming along in my absence. 

In the child's role for the first time in decades, I was the passenger once more: riding in the back and watching the scenery unfold alongside the highway. It would be my longest time away from my children ever, and my first time crossing as state line without them. In all we would cross four, heading all the way to Texas in just 3 days. 

The last time I drove to Texas (unbuckled and riding in the covered back of a pick up truck, as one did in the '80's) I was 9 years old and we were heading to Houston for a family wedding. 35 years later the cast of characters was much the same, but our reasons could not have been more different, as we headed south to attend an untimely funeral and to be there for our family whose lives had been upended by grief.

Though I did not know the young man who died, I did know those who loved him, and wanted to be there for them. That is one of the reasons that we gather: to support the grieving, to remember what it means to be a community or to be a family. I wanted to do what my grandma would have done and stand with them in their sorrow, for whatever comfort that might bring.

Before leaving home, I found a sweater that my grandma once owned, and packed it to wear to the funeral. It was the closest I could come to her, some kind of a matriarchal talisman, symbolically pulling her closer when her family needed her most. 

My sister flew in to meet us, and there were were, the four of us once more, packed into my parent's little camper and remembering what life was like when we were small.

In Texas we reconnected with aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins - some of whom we hadn't seen in decades. We shared tears and laughter, stories and grief, and more hugs than I could possibly count during our brief stay. 

And what struck me most profoundly was this: we are so very different, my family and I. In our lifestyles, our values, our beliefs, our politics. But in that moment of reconnection and sorrow, none of those things mattered.

Because beneath all of it we’re family, and we showed up when we were needed. And that was more than enough.

Back in Wisconsin after a whirlwind 7 days on the road -- my thoughts ping-ponging between my family in Texas and my family at home -- I returned to tackle-style, bone-crushing hugs and peals of laughter from my own kids. Instead of unpacking my things we spent yesterday morning on a family date to our local coffee shop. We spent the day playing board games, sharing stories, and cuddling up beside the wood stove. Then last night, when the boys had run to town, Lupine and I bundled into our snow clothes and trundled outside in the darkness and falling snow for sledding by headlamp until long after bedtime. 

And I savored it all.

Because more than anything, this trip left me feeling profoundly grateful for the things that matter most: my children, my parents, my partner, my family - and our simple, joyful life. So much more than I did just one week ago. Perhaps sometimes it takes a dark reminder to illuminate how fortunate we really are.

Life is fragile, loves. Hold your dear ones close. Love them with abandon and without condition. Make time for each other. Go sledding; tell stories; look into their beautiful eyes. Do all the things you have longed to do but have been putting off.

Make the time, do the things, and above all hold them close. Because the only thing certain is today.

 

And I'm certain you won't regret it if you do.

 

Charlie

Sometimes words fail me completely.

Today is certainly one such time. So I'll just dive in anyway, and hope to find them as I go.

Nearly three months after his diagnosis with anaplasmosis (and later kidney failure from this tick-borne disease), my beloved Charlie gave up on his fight with illness. He waited for me to wake yesterday morning, then quietly died in my arms on the hill beside our house.

It was a long and painful fight that led us there, and I'm thankful for him that his suffering is finally over. But the other truth is that I can't recall a time when my heart has felt so irreparably broken. Perhaps things are harder to understand when they come out of sequence. Maybe if he were old this would somehow be easier to accept. (Charlie was only 4.) Or maybe it wouldn't make a difference at all.

I do know that my house has never felt so lonely as it did last night, when - with Pete and the kids still in town - I returned alone to an empty house. 

 

My Charlie. He will be missed. Oh, my will he ever be missed. My constant companion, my side-kick, and yes - my very best friend. 

 

Safe travels, sweet Charlie. May many rabbits await you in the tall grass on the other side.