#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Charles River Morning View

A day holds so much. I wake early, and walk to the cheerful river view. May trees, May wildflowers, are ecstatic. Everything coming alive. I walk for a long ramble among the ferns and wild oats and maple trees under the warming sun. I am grateful to be walking, long walks in the woods again, with my raking and brush clearing and projects done. The yard is awake and alive and thriving. This is a day of highs and happiness and challenges and concerns. All the children here today, what bounty. I try to balance my attention to the needs and wishes of each. My son has invited me for my Mother’s Day activity: a kayak on the Charles, my first this year. We go out in the later afternoon, and all the trees are colorful and bright and the water is high and the redwing blackbirds are lively and pretty, and we talk and talk in the gentle times of his excitement of his new job, starting soon, in Vermont, doing wilderness therapy with young people. Thrilling to think of him coming out of pandemic challenges into such a strengthening and wholesome role. Frank and Rob work all day in the garden, and I don’t have time to be in there with them, but I have my next projects there in mind. Rob plants the peas to climb up the poles of the lean to, and they make mulched paths for walking on in the garden. Yes, there is much I want to do. In the middle of the day I meet with a new writing coaching client and that goes well; I’m looking forward to working with her. My daughters get my attention to, in just the ways they need. Yes, I am tired tonight. And filled up. My son has an idea about a family project, relating to my book about diary writing for your children, Before You Forget - The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children, published twenty years ago (!) this coming September. And it’s a very hopeful, inspiring idea, and I am taking it to heart. What a day of mothering it has been today. How deeply grateful I am.

Afternoon on The Charles