The Sling Diaries Vol. 5: All The Love - "Travel"

A husband and wife, while peering at one another from behind the rims of mismatched mugs of hot coffee, unearth answers within their hearts to some age-old questions. Answers they've always known, but perhaps have never audibly noted. They ask each other: What would you do if money wasn't an issue? What would you do if you were infinitely wealthy? What would you do with that wealth?

Naturally, one would think "Oh, that's easy. I would pay off debt, or buy a huge, beautiful villa, or go on a spending spree. Maybe a new wardrobe. Maybe I'd donate to charity, maybe I'd pay for my children's college tuition. Maybe I'd pay for my children's children's children's college tuition, even. Heck, why not?"

But from both of their lips came the word "Travel".

And there it was, the ache of our hearts hushed beneath the surface; two quiet syllables. To experience, to live wildly and adventurously. -exhale- And they turn their heads and sip on their coffee quietly, staring straight ahead, both of them undoubtedly escaping to a realm of "if only"s.

Andrew comes from a fairly lengthy line of family members who have worked for airlines or travel agencies and have travelled anywhere and everywhere. But even though his family has travelled often, I don't believe they ever really experienced. At least, not in the way that I would define experiencing. Stops at familiar fast food restaurants in order to steer clear of the unexplored, the unexperienced. Strip malls, tourist hot-spots. It's not to say they didn't "take trips": packing up their things, itinerary and all, and struggling through lines of frequent fliers all while pacifying young children on plane after plane, but...Andrew and I have vowed to travel in an entirely different way even if the destination is not considered exciting nor note-worthy, and if our money was infinite and even when it isn't, we'd like nothing more than to pack up our sweet babies and just go--a bag of basics in tow, no cares, no commitments, no list of sight-seeing stops that we simply have to venture to. We'd wander and fumble about, attempting to experience each destination without strong expectations of what it should be like. And this, my sweet babies, is what I desire for you. I hope for a burning desire to experience new things in very real ways to combust in your hearts, I wish for you to explore authentically, to wish for opportunities to grow from profound experiences, even if some of them seem small at the time. To explore.

As the heels of my boots clacked against the cobblestone streets of Assisi, I remember trying to feel deeply. I remember closing my eyes, but only for a moment, attempting to soak in the history, the majesty, the incredible smells, the sights...inhaling and trying to match scents with pictures, a perfect little bundle of this foreign, beautiful place that I could retreat to in the recesses of my mind again and again once I've left. I remember thinking "This is it. This trip across Europe is my one and only chance to experience something great and far beyond my Midwest roots. I'd better soak this up now because from here on out it's corn fields and farm houses back home." I distinctly remember feeling trapped, tied down by my roots. But the truth is, my 17-year-old self didn't realize what my 24-year-old self does now: traveling isn't necessarily an act, but a state-of-mind.

You can find yourself somewhere filled with wonder, with history, with culture beyond measure, with sights your eyes have never gazed upon, tastes your tongue have never experienced, but if you're not there, I mean, really present, then it's just purely physical. It could be a city two states away or you could be standing in the center of Trafalgar Square, but until you decide to experience authentically and move about like wind, you are just going through the motions, checking off squares on your bucket list of places to see. Travel isn't just about seeing, but also about feeling. So, lose yourself in your travels, young ones. Find yourself in a tiny, warm piano bar on a hidden street in London. Find yourself boarding the tram and landing smack dab in the middle of unplanned territory. Climb mountains, drive far. Toss aside your notion of what food should taste like, what sight-seeing should look like, what traveling should feel like and just...go.

If it's Rome or if it's a small Midwest town...I tell you to stray. Stray from what is comfortable. Get lost, walk until your feet hurt. Hunker down at a small, warm pub filled with locals tucking in to the local fare. Maybe you'll meet new people with magical stories, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll go at it alone, quietly soaking everything in. Or maybe you won't. But however you do it, do it with heart, with authenticity, with excitement, with adventure.

Because your adventure doesn't begin and end with one two week European escapade when you are 17...or with riding in the backseat of your family's mini-van to airports and mini-malls or the other places you find yourselves wandering to. Your whole life will offer up experiences, great and small, and unless you take hold of them, you will just be...present. Live with adventure in your hearts and your heart's ache for travel can be satisfied with even a trip to an unexplored corner of your home state. I promise.

I'm wearing Dexter in a Sakura Bloom Shabd Shibori linen sling in "Lines". 

(a parting gift from the lovely gals of Sakura Bloom for being a part of this beautiful, wonderful project. Thank you.)

I'd like to also just extend a huge, ginormous "Thank you" to those of you who have read even a sliver of what I've had to say over the course of the last six months. This has been a beautiful experience and the fact that even a handful of people have read my words and related to them in one way or another is unbelievable...and also very humbling. I love this community of mothers and the love that I've felt since the start of this journey. I love you all and thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my ramblings.

All my love,
Amanda

The Sling Diaries Vol. 5: All The Love - "Bliss"

As I sit, staring out of a window in our Midwest home, attempting to gather my thoughts, a beautiful, slow rain of yellow falls to ground. The earth is littered with crimson, yellow, and golden brown...the sky filled with amber morning light and my heart rests in this season's beauty--in this moment. The window is cracked and quick, crisp breaths of Autumn swiftly pass across my face. The colors of Autumn and the changing of seasons bring a heart-fluttering joy, but accompanying it is the onset of bleak, cold days of white...a lack of sunshine. My heart craves the sunshine.

Every moment of calm sweetness, of laughter, of smiling so boldly your cheeks begin to ache is accompanied by a moment thereafter, or perhaps within that moment that brings it back down to earth. That roots it. A sense of realism clouds my bliss. This is not to say that I don't experience immeasurable joy--that I don't sing my heart out, let go of my inhibitions, or feel each moment for what it is, but as I roll down a a grassy hill with my oldest son, crunchy, golden leaves entangling themselves in our hair and sweaters, I feel a strange pang in my heart. With his head thrown back as we reach the bottom, his laughter erupts from the bottom-most part of his stomach and I stare in awe at his ashy-blonde hair that used to be white. I see jagged bones under almost-too-tight clothing; ragged holes in the knees of his jeans--scars, skin stretched over a larger frame. I am enamored with the moment, with this beautiful boy that used to be so small, so soft, so fragile. But accompanying the collection of wonderful, beautiful, loving, and upbeat notes of the waltz that is our life are the somber, pensive and somehow sorrowful slower notes of our life's sonata playing beneath the surface of our lives.

The finitude that is this moment. The knowledge that, however beautiful, these days are fleeting. A blink and he's almost six. Another blink and there will be no more heart-achingly sweet moments of romping around in leaf piles, wrapping our fingers in each other's hair as we reach the bottom of a steep hill, surrounded by sunshine and crisp, cool air. And time passes.

Bliss isn't here. Because just as the Autumn leaves turn brightly, they, too, will fall. The trees are left barren and cold. It's not that it wasn't beautiful, that the moment wasn't anything and everything, but it couldn't stay. Not forever. So, what then?

We let our hearts ache. In the most beautiful and painful ways. We soak up that moment spent at the foot of the hill, wrapped up in our almost-bliss, and then we press forward. But these are our moments, and sometimes we get lost in them. Sometimes we are there, on the brink of bliss, and that sorrowful pang doesn't strike our hearts and realism doesn't cloud our view of the moment. Those moments are cherished, tucked within the confines of our hearts in the place where memories go to flourish, to be relived when we are grey and those moments unfold no longer.

But time still passes, seconds ticking, as we stare at the slow-falling of leaves and the blanket of gold upon cold, hard ground awaiting their arrival. But...it's okay. Because that's the nature of the near-bliss moments: they fill you up, warm you heart, and bring you joy. And if you can tap into them, I mean really tap into them and feel them for what they are, then you're as close to bliss as you will ever be here on this earth where time passes both slowly and quickly. Because light is accompanied by dark, happiness by sorrow...and if we can feel them both respectively and still keep our heads held high as our babies turn into children into men...then we are doing just fine.

I'm wearing Dexter in a Sakura Bloom Chambray in 'Black Currant'.
(From our family day to the Pumpkin Patch and dinner at one of our favorite spots for Pizza)

The Sling Diaries Vol. 5: All The Love - "Vision"

I've never been much of a "dream it, do it" type of person. I've spent much of my life riding on coattails of people I deemed cleverer, smarter, and more creative than me, never giving myself much credit or much space in which to dream big dreams. High school was this crazy realm that swept me up and mixed me in with the masses; I aspired to do wild, free-spirited things: move to the UK, live in a studio apartment in London, barely make ends meet, but fall in love with kindred artsy spirits and get lost in that world. I was going to live simply, but beautifully. However, growing up in the Midwest with practical parents and practical expectations, a sense of practicality has always clouded the booming and sometimes quiet desires within my heart. I never gave much weight to these dreams because I was always encouraged to aim smaller, to be content, to be 'smart'.

So, the many lives I envisioned for myself washed themselves away.

I wouldn't say that "people were right", that being practical is always the answer, but my vision for my future has changed in very big ways since my 16 or 17 year old self began dreaming of adulthood. The reality is that you don't always get to be the sweet, bohemian girl in the movies. Sometimes you don't escape to "the big city" and meet a beautiful, deeply-emotive, dark-eyed poet/musician and fall in love under ecclectic Anthropologie-esque linens. Sometimes falling in love looks a bit different. Sometimes real life is paying the bills, wiping snotty noses, and ducking out quietly, hair askew and black leggings marked with peanut-butter-hand-prints, while the sitter distracts kiddos so you can grab coffee with parent-friends instead of braving Indie-folk shows at some hip downtown scene with a Hollywood-esque group of friends, a theme-song playing as we whip our heads back and laugh in unison.

But...sometimes when the seasons change and I feel a tug on my heart, I sometimes wonder if we could ever do it: if we could pack up our lives and move somewhere crazy and beautiful and out-of-the-ordinary. A place where all of my younger-self's visions could become a reality.

But of all of the dreams I've envisioned in the confines of my mind, the dreams that include my husband and sons are the most vivid--the ones that feel the most real, the most tangible. My visions for our future, for their future, for Andrew's and my future after they've grown are never the same and change with the weather, it seems...but they always grip me at the core and give me hope and excitement, mixed with a little anxious anticipation. But...I couldn't tell you where we'll be 15 years from now; I couldn't even tell you where we will be three years from now.

The truth is, there are those with great visions for their futures who set out to conquer that mountain and they do it...and that's freaking great. But what of those of us whose free-spirtedness cloud our sense of direction and are as fickle as the shifting winds? It's not that we don't have a vision for our future, or that we don't have bravery or self-sufficient determination that can overcome great adversities, but we move with the wind and waves, ever-changing...and that's pretty freaking great too. My visions are fluid and although I will forever live with "what if"s I will also always live with "it shall be"s. Whatever will come shall come, if you will.

I guess, for now, I choose practicality, I choose family, I choose a home in the humble Midwest. My dreams are not discounted and if someday we wind up sailing across the sea to a new life of Hollywood-like adventures and I hear a catchy, instrumental theme song playing in the back of my mind, I will know that it was meant to be. But...if kissing bumps and bruises and singing my own lullaby-theme-song as I rock a sweet baby or grandbaby back to sleep in our Midwest home becomes my long-term reality, I will know that I am right where I was intended to be--that this is surely the vision that stuck. And...that visions are just visions sometimes and time passes with or without our approval and life lands us smack-dab where we are meant to be. And right now? It's here. In the Midwest. With my two boys and charming husband. It's boring...and beautiful.

I'm wearing Dexter in a Sakura Bloom Simple Silk in 'Malbec'.