anyway ♥️

ink wells & itty bitty chicks

🐥 

and, "baa"

A cup of German putz sheep...

Makes perfect sense to me.

🐑 

finding our way

I've been thinking about the raspberry bushes in the middle of our block.

Sometimes we would sneak off to fill a bowl to lather with milk & sugar at our 

round kitchen table at 5410 Healy Lane.  I can picture the streets in Monona as if I was riding my bike on them at this very moment...sailing around the Maywood parking lot, shifting gear to climb Sioux Trail, traveling over to Dean's Store for a sugary treat.

I remember what seemed like the best drive to Paoli to purchase margarine, a drive where meat loaf sandwiches seemed to magically appear out of the glove compartment.  And the family trip to Fort Dells, where Lori was captured by Black Bart...and I felt this combination of pride & envy that she was the one.  And when our mom was a newly anointed single parent raising three girls, that brave solo trip we took along the east edge of Wisconsin.

I can trace the lines of the bus rides to day camp in Cambridge; the road to Aunt Frances' in Milwaukee, the route to the A-frame on Lake Kegonsa, and can vaguely picture our cousin Nancy's street in Janesville.

I can feel the paper map in my hands, torn from use...folded poorly.  

But mostly, we found our way by heart.  

💚

I've been thinking about the raspberry bushes in the middle of our block.

About "What time is it Mr. Fox?" in Winnequah Park.

About my mom's voice calling us home.

We all find our way, somehow.  

It is not always neat or tidy or organized.

But, you see, the journey is unapologetically ours.  

Not predictable, not well planned.

Through grief,

We find our way by heart.  

No map, no easy directions. 

Lately, I have been thinking about raspberries.

kitchen cute

Daisy Grace loves to hang out on our kitchen sink.

💚

Not sure why, but she sure adds extra adorable to this

original farm sink.